Quotesheet: MLS season preview

In a teleconference call held Monday, MLS commissioner Don Garber and deputy commissioner Ivan Gazidis addressed the media on a series of topics ahead of the start of the season on Saturday, when the defending MLS Cup champion Los Angeles Galaxy travel to face the Columbus Crew at 4 p.m. on ABC.

Guests:
Major League Soccer Commissioner - Don Garber
Major League Soccer Deputy Commissioner - Ivan Gazidis

DON GARBER'S OPENING COMMENTS:

“We are feeling very cautiously optimistic about our 2003 season. We had a very positive offseason for our League, particularly positive when you compare it to our offseason last year when we went through the analysis and ultimately made the tough decision to contract by two teams. That decision was made to shore up our business, if you will, to focus our resources in areas where we felt that we would be more productive and, in fact, it proved out to be a decision that we're very pleased that we made.

“The season last year was one of the best seasons in our history; certainly finishing up with one of the best games in professional soccer history here in this country with 61,000 fans attending our Championship Game at Gillette stadium in Foxboro. It also was a year that so many of our players helped our country achieve the quarterfinals in the World Cup and woke many people up, figuratively and literally, to soccer in this country.

“We have a number of things that we are prioritizing and focusing in on for our 2003 season. It starts with the continued connection with our teams and the local soccer community in their markets. We all recognize that there are literally millions of soccer players involved in the United States and our continued priority is to convert all those who care about the sport into being fans of the sport. We have got lots of activities in our grassroots marketing efforts, both targeting Anglo and Hispanic soccer fans involved into being fans of our local teams and our local markets. So we will continue to emphasize getting more and more people to our games throughout our season, our regular season and MLS Cup championship.

“Stadium development is another priority. We're very excited about the opening of the Home Depot Center this June. This stadium, I am sure all of you will get an opportunity to go out and see it, will be one of the great soccer facilities in the world; not just in the United States, but around the world. It will be a facility that will make our country proud; will make our League proud and make all those people who care and love the game give them a little bit of a flutter in their heart as they walk through what we're convinced will be a cathedral for the sport. We're very excited about its opening in early June.

“Many of you have heard in the last couple of days, we received the first what we hope will be three positive votes for a new publicly funded stadium for the Dallas Burn in Frisco, Texas. There will be another vote tomorrow evening in Dallas where the City of Frisco City Council will vote on the project and then on Wednesday night where the Frisco Independent School District will vote to secure what we hope will be the first publicly funded soccer stadium in the United States. And one that's not just a stadium but a soccer complex. It will be a professional stadium connected to as many as 20 youth fields that have the potential to host the North Texas Youth Soccer Association, potentially other youth soccer objections and something that we think will be a great model for us as we go to continue to develop soccer specific stadiums throughout the country.

“Our player development continues to be a top priority for us. It's the core equity, if you will, of our league. But very importantly coming out of what was an exciting World Cup, there were all sorts of questions as to whether or not Major League Soccer would retain its top American stars and certainly we have done that. Each of the 12 World Cup 2002 stars, including our Strike Force, will return for 2003 despite what we think was a predicted exodus of many of those players. Landon Donovan resigned for two additional years. He's a guy that made the decision to play in Major League Soccer over playing in the German Bundesliga for Bayer Leverkusen.

“Many young stars continue to turn to our League as their League of choice. Twellman who signed in New England and Tim Howard with the MetroStars. Memo Gonzalez and Arturo Alvarez, probably are heading our most talented Project-40 class with 13 players being assigned. Memo being a young Mexican American and Arturo being a young Salvadoran American, I think represents a great opportunity for us to convince many of those who are Hispanic and coming to this country to play in Major League Soccer and hopefully continue the connection between them, our great League, and their countries.

“Very important news and something we're very proud of we, have had our first Project-40 member graduate from college in Brian West of the Columbus Crew, who has received his degree from Ohio State. That program is not just about creating great soccer players that can play here in our country and for our League, but also to create great young men and Brian is a great example of that.

“A number of U.S. national Team stars have returned state-side. Earnie Stewart is the longest tenured European based American to join our league. He comes to D.C. United as does Joe -Max Moore somebody who left our League and has come back as well as Frankie Hejduk, another player that left our League and is now back in Major League Soccer. So we have got a very exciting story of not just retaining young players, but having a number of national team players come back to our League and that's something we're very excited about.

“We have got two international players that we're particularly encouraged and excited about making their debut in MLS: Hong Myung Bo, the captain of the Korean World Cup team is going to be playing in L.A. There's an explosion of Korean season ticket sales and group sales that are taking place out in Los Angeles something that we think will help further connect the Los Angeles Galaxy with the very diverse ethnic population in Los Angeles. Gilles Grimandi, a former Arsenal star, becomes the first Frenchman to play in Major League Soccer will be in Colorado. So we have got two notable international players that will be playing in MLS this year.

“One of the great stories on the player front is Brian McBride who had a terrific Premier League season for Everton is the only American to score in two World Cups, and has notched four goals for Everton in eight EPL games this season. He again has opted to come back to Major League Soccer and has decided not to play in a key match against Arsenal because he wanted to participate in the CONCACAF Champions Cup just last week. And I think that is a very important statement about Brian's views about our League and his commitment to the Columbus Crew.

“Third priority is on the television front: We are announcing tomorrow, as you well know, a relationship with Fox Sports World. There will be lots of details coming from the press conference tomorrow, but we have now secured a second broadcast partner to air our games nationally. They will air a national MLS game, a Soccer Saturday night game throughout our season as well as during our Playoffs and also have a highlight show that will air each weekend.

“Our fourth priority is expansion. We will continue our efforts to secure both investors and local communities that are committed to construct soccer specific stadiums as well as fans that will make a commitment to purchase season tickets and sponsors that will commit to purchase corporate sponsorships in a wide variety of markets throughout the country. By the end of our season we will announce what we hope will be two finalists that will secure MLS franchises to launch in 2005 and we're making progress in a handful of those different stadiums.

“Corporate sponsorship is something that has picked up for us in a very difficult market. We have been able to secure some new sponsors. We will be announcing a new official sponsor later this week for our Dallas Burn. We have been able to secure Gatorade to come into our League. We announced Panasonic last week. We also announced Puma and Tide. So a handful of new companies coming into a time which is pretty difficult market for all professional sports in the corporate sponsorship areas.

“Season ticket sales have grown slightly from last year in all of our markets. We have got some great news obviously in Los Angeles and in Kansas City. L.A. has exploded past its numbers last year and is making tremendous progress not just in season ticket sales, but also in club seat sales. They have got 41 or 42 luxury boxes sold - so there's really great progress in Los Angeles. The Kansas City Wizards have set a new team mark. They are now creeping up at the top of the table, if you will. Their goal is to be the No. 1 season ticket market in our League. They may or may not get there, but they are certainly in our top two or three and that's something that bodes well for soccer in that market. Our season ticket renewals are at an all-time high and our ticket revenue in many markets is up over last year so that's something that we're very excited about.

“Soccer United Marketing was the group that was formed at the mid-point of last year that went out and secured the World Cup broadcast rights in English language for 2002, 2003, 2006; it is actively selling the Women's World Cup advertising time on ESPN and ABC. Soccer United Marketing is also the promoter of the May 8th U.S. vs. Mexico game at Houston’s Reliant Stadium. Those tickets are north of 20,000 with more than a month to go before the game. We're very excited about that and we're continuing to develop a wide variety of other soccer property activities for us, mostly in the area of broadcast and sponsorship representation.”

GARBER ON HAVING A COMPETITIVE TEAM IN THE NEW YORK MARKET:
“New York is important for all professional sports and it's certainly an important market for Major League Soccer. It's a media center, in many ways, it's a corporate center and there are lots of soccer fans here in the Tri-State area. So we're very excited about Bob Bradley coming in and we're convinced that Bob will bring some stability and some focus and some success to the MetroStars as he was able to do so effectively in Chicago. I don't believe that the performance of the team sets us back in any way. We do know what impact it would have had on our League had it been one of our more successful teams on the field. I will say that it remains one of our most successful teams in the game. So it's not that we have been suffering from having a poor performing team on the field, but I will say that we are certainly anxiously looking forward to Bob's tenure, and hope he has a successful season.”

GARBER ON NATIONAL MEDIA COVERAGE OF THE LEAGUE:
“It is a major priority for our sport to get the respect and credibility that we believe the sport deserves and to deliver exposure and news and information to those people who we believe are screaming for it. We spend and I spend a great deal of my time meeting with sports editors and with reporter both on the broadcast and print side, as I travel around the country. I do believe we are making progress even though I believe it's slight progress. We do measure the amount of media coverage. We clip every major newspaper in the country and we keep track of newspaper coverage, print coverage year on year and it continues to improve. Though we don't believe it's close to what it should be and what the sport and our League deserves, we do have more beat writers than we have had in the past. There are more soccer columns than there have been in the past. We are challenged unfortunately by constraints, economic constraints that exist in the media with the softening in the ad market and the shrinkage, if you will, of sports sections and at times we're the last in and first out, so to speak. So that's that has been impacting us a bit over the last six or eight months. But I believe it's getting better and I think more important, I think the coverage is getting richer. We have got more knowledgeable soccer writers and soccer columnists than we have had in the past and I think that there is a desire to embrace the sport and a bit less skepticism than perhaps there has been in the years past.”

GARBER ON THE PURSUIT OF NEW INVESTORS:
“I think it's absolutely imperative that we get knew investors in the League. Again it's something that we spend a great deal of our time working on. In order to secure investors we need to be a more viable business and the decision that's we made last year to eliminate losses that were not strategically going to help the growth of the League and to find new revenue streams through activities like the creation of Soccer United Marketing which is focused on activities that are strategically connected to the League but are not necessarily MLS specific. It’s a continued quest to have a better more manageable handle on our expenses. We're losing less money than we have in previous years significantly and less than we did in 2001. There is more interest from investors with our new approach. It is a major priority not just to get new investors to come into expansion markets, but it's a high priority to get new investors to come in and either partner with or purchase some of the teams that our current investors have. I want to emphasize that that's something that we will continue to work on and find it to be very important.”

GARBER ON STADIUM PROJECTS AROUND THE LEAGUE:
“The two projects outside of Dallas and Los Angeles that are the most active are New York, New Jersey, and Washington D.C.. In Washington D.C. there have been discussions and continued discussions between AEG and the D.C. Sports Commission. They have been pretty occupied with D.C.'s baseball bid. But we are convinced that D.C.'s continued desire to secure a baseball team will benefit our team and will provide opportunities for them to be playing in a new facility or in a renovated RFK.

“In New Jersey the Harrison project is still alive. Clearly the real estate market is perhaps at its worst in the last five to six years. So it has been difficult to finalize the last aspect of that deal which is the relationship with the real estate development partner that will team up with us and the city of Harrison and Hudson County. But those negotiations are ongoing and continue and we're still optimistic that we'll be playing in a new stadium in the years to come.”

GARBER ON THE D.C. STADIUM SITUATION:
“The city has to finalize its master plan for sports facilities and that master plan is a long-range plan. And it will include, in their minds, baseball. So it's difficult and impossible to finalize one aspect of that plan without knowing what's happening on the other end. Unfortunately, we have got to wait until they make a decision on baseball before we can move forward, at least with our discussions with Bobby Goldwater, but fortunately, soccer is part of their master plan. At some point if it drags on too long, and we're not able to find a solution to our situation and our desire to be in a soccer specific stadium we'll have to pursue some alternate site for our D.C. United. That could either be in D.C. or within the sort of D.C. general area.”

GARBER ON THE CITIES IN THE RUNNING FOR EXPANSION:
“On Saturday we had an exhibition in Oklahoma City. That exhibition had almost 10,000 people in attendance. It was an opportunity to help promote Oklahoma City's efforts for expansion and we continue to be in discussions with them. Tulsa, Oklahoma will have a game next week and that's something that we're expecting to have a similar crowd. Both of those cities will put season tickets on sale, and will announce to their local communities that they are candidates, if you will, for expansion. Cleveland, Ohio is another market that has expressed a lot of interest. We are in conversations with an investor there who has desires to build a soccer stadium. Minneapolis, St. Paul is another market that is looking to build a soccer specific stadium and has an investor that has expressed some interest. We are very excited about the opportunities in Houston and are in discussions with folks down there about potential expansion. Similarly, in Philadelphia, where discussions have just started for potential expansion. Two more are Seattle and Toronto. Those conversations are a bit further behind, if you will, in the Seattle market. They had 17,000 for the Venezuela vs. US game on Saturday at Seahawks Stadium. Toronto has announced plans to build a national soccer stadium as part of the Canadian Soccer Association. We have been in discussions with an investor in Toronto and pretty excited about the opportunities that might be there in the years to come. There is Rochester that has just expanded a stadium that's partially funded by the State of New York, to be approximately 17,000 seats. And they remain a very, very exciting soccer market and one that we hope to continue discussing potential expansion.”

GARBER ON SMALL MARKETS AND THEIR RELATION TO MLS’ TV CONTRACT:
“At this point our growth plans for the League are long-term. And our partnership with ESPN runs through '06 and they have had a long-term commitment to the League. So at this point we are focusing in on the best possible cities with the best investor and the best facility plan and if it happens to be a small market, so be it. We're convinced that being in a good place that can be successful will help us show a positive model to large market. I don't want you to think that there are no large markets interested. We will continue to talk with any city that has an investor that has expressed interest, a soccer specific stadium in mind and which has a corporate commitment as well as a commitment for season tickets.”

IVAN GAZIDIS ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MLS AND THE UNITED SOCCER LEAGUES IN 2003:
“In the past we have had a formal relationship for call-ups and call-downs so that our players can go down on short-terms loans and USL players can be called up on short-terms loans. This year we have expanded our roster out to 24 players. Last year actually there were very, very few call-ups outside of a couple of goalkeeper call-ups. With the expanded roster we don't think there will be a team that falls as easily as they have in the past into roster difficulties. There are a set of emergency rules to deal with that. But we basically don't expect that to happen. So the bigger issue this year is more the loan-downs that we would like to do for those players who are on our rosters to give them playing time in the USL. And we are approaching that on a case-by-case basis. The USL has placed certain minor restrictions on that, but certainly have made it feasible for that to happen and so I think you will expect to see during the course of this year, again, very few call-ups, although that could happen on an individual basis with teams negotiating with individual USL teams. But there will be more call-downs, more of our players playing down in the USL, and again those relationships will be done one-to-one rather than globally.”

GAZIDIS ON MLS ACQUIRING PLAYERS FROM THE UNITED SOCCER LEAGUES:
“Onandi Lowe, for example, was a deal we had to work out. Many of the USL players were protected under terms of our agreement. So really for a lot of the most important USL players like Pat Onstad there really is no change in the circumstance; that we have to negotiate those deals one-to-one.”

GARBER ON SEATTLE'S BID FOR AN EXPANSION TEAM:
“Seattle, like Philly and Houston, is part of a dual strategy, if you will, that we have to expand our League first in markets that have soccer specific stadiums and are potentially in smaller markets. The second is larger markets that are targeting football team owners that own or control a stadium, that can downsize that stadium and integrate their internal resources to be as successful as the Hunts and the Kraft have been in their state of the art facilities. On the good side Seattle is a tremendous sports market, rates very high in MLS out-of-market ratings, has got a very diverse and soccer-friendly population. The challenge is that we have yet to secure an investor in that market that's expressed any interest. And until we were able to do that, it's difficult for us to be optimistic about timing for expansion in that city.”

GARBER ON MLS EXPANDING TO SMALLER MARKETS:
“Again, what I will say is we certainly have had great success in Columbus when we were the first Major League sport in that market and I think proved to the sports community at large that it could support a major league both financially and from a fan perspective and it's also one of the more successful NHL cities today. I don't necessarily believe that expansion in Edmond, Oklahoma would say the wrong thing about our League. We need to have popular financially viable teams and at some point we need to be a 20-team League and at some point we're going to end up in markets that perhaps are in the bottom 25 in terms of market size as opposed to the top 25, but from our perspective it's just a matter of timing. We think we will end up there eventually and if they are excited about our sport that we can help lead their desire to be more of a Major League city, with Major League sports teams, we think that it's a good mix.”

GARBER ON THE HRISTO STOITCHKOV INVESTIGATION:
“We are going through a process of evaluating the incident. We have just received some tapes that we are viewing. We are in discussions with the university, with the coach and even with the player and in due time we will release what our findings are. But clearly we believe that our players who we feel very positively represent sports in America and I will go so far as to say represent our country well, as athletes here in our cities and athletes that compete abroad, we hold them to a higher standard and we know that our players are role models both on and off the field and hope that they behave and expect them to behave appropriately. So any guidelines that we have for our sport or our League are going to be no different in an exhibition than they would be in our MLS. We want to push that message down to our players, to our coaches and our general managers.”

GAZIDIS ON THE DISCIPLINARY PROCESS REGARDING THE HRISTO STOITCHKOV INCIDENT:
“What D.C. has done in this instance is spoken with the League from very early on. I think there was a misunderstanding perhaps caused by some of the quotes that were out there that D.C. had taken the decision not to act; that's not really the case. What they had done was referred it to the League to investigate. We have a Disciplinary Committee that has a significant amount of experience at this point in doing this type of investigation. We're fortunate here in that we have videotape of the incident, we are able to review two different videotapes, but there's more to it than just that. We are also interviewing all the people in and around the incident to get a full picture and be able to come to a considered judgment. In addition to the members of the Disciplinary Committee we also have a technical panel of an ex-player and ex-coach that we'll refer this to and receive their views on so that when we come to the decision, it's a well considered, well informed decision and D.C., I am convinced, will be supportive of that, however that comes out.”

GARBER ON THE POSSIBILITY OF A SECOND TEAM IN LOS ANGELES:
“At this point we're looking at the Los Angeles Galaxy stadium within the Home Depot Center as a model complex that, like Dallas, we can use in other cities across the country potentially even in New York City, to talk about how a variety of different sports facilities can work together and create value for an owner, a team and a local community. The L.A. Galaxy Stadium right now has a handful of international games. It has the All-Star game and the MLS Cup and it's got 15 regular season games and I am sure they are hoping that there will be some Playoff games as well. So there does exist the opportunity to have other another team housed in that city. But right now, we have other markets that we're looking to expand the footprint of our League, both from a television perspective and a fan development perspective, so a second team in Los Angeles is not an immediate priority, but that being said, new investors are priorities for us, and if there's an opportunity to secure a new investor and they happen to be based in that area we will certainly look close at it. Let me get everybody to understand there's been no discussion in that regard at this point that anybody should be thinking is happening out there, it's just a matter of how we're planning out the economics of that that stadium.”

GARBER ON THE SALARY CAP IN MLS:
“I think we, like other sports leagues, Emmitt Smith is probably the best example of that in the NFL, have to manage to a cap and then ultimately and unfortunately at times players do leave and move around the League. We feel that the economic viability of our League is of tremendous importance right now to our future goal of expansion and new investors and the other things I mentioned. So we don't foresee there being any real movement in the cap certainly in the short-term.”

GARBER ON TELEVISION COVERAGE OF THE LEAGUE ON SPORTSCENTER AND DURING THE PLAYOFFS:
“On the programming side our Playoff games will be televised this year. On Tuesday you will see the schedule when it comes out. That's a positive thing for us. There's the potential to have them broadcast not just by our new partner but also by HDNet; we're going to be talking about that later in the week.

“On the Sports Center side, I am going to meet with the editor of the New York Times later today, we're going to go up to Bristol shortly to meet with their folks, and we do that every year and on a regular basis where our PR guys are calling them up every Saturday night and trying to push them towards great games and great clips and making it easy for them to download that information from our broadcast and we'll continue to fight the fight.

“One of the things that we are doing with our new partner (FOX Sports World) is to create our own version of Sports Center on every Saturday night. And if we are -- we're convinced that people; particularly our current fans who are fans of that particular broadcaster because it's such a soccer oriented partner, we believe that they will gravitate towards our MLS Highlight Show on Saturday nights and hopefully that will convince the folks at Sports Center that there are people that really do want to watch soccer highlights. But if we were not able to get what we believed we needed, or what ESPN believed fans wanted, we needed to go out and find a way to make our highlights available and that's what we have done.”

GAZIDIS ON THE ADDITION OF FOREIGN PLAYERS TO THE LEAGUE:
“Our last two League Honda MVPs have been two new international signings from overseas last year's M.V.P. Carlos Ruiz; the year before that Alex Pineda Chacon. We continue to have a lot of pride in the fact that we select players with enormous care who bring to this League something special and in particular, bring a commitment to the playing in this League. I think we have learned some lessons over time and we're now signing more young players who have a desire and a hunger to build a name for themselves here in Major League Soccer. Carlos is certainly emblematic of that. There are other players that we're signing this year that also fall into that category. Some of those signings are ongoing; some of those discussions are happening right now.”

GARBER ON THE MANCHESTER UNITED TOUR DURING THE SUMMER:
“Anything that's good for soccer is ultimately going to be good for Major League Soccer. Our view of the business is long-term. It's not short-term. It's hoping that the water level for the sport raises overall and that each of the boats on that water continues to rise with that rising tide. So as they sell out big soccer competitions in a handful of cities, that, like the World Cup, will raise the awareness and excitement about the sport. That will get investors excited. It will be get cities excited, stadiums excited. Much of our renewed or new interests from Houston and Philadelphia, comes from the fact that they have seen what soccer can do and they want it more than once every three or four years. So we don't view this competition. We view it as an adjunct, if you will, to our overall plan to grow this sport in this country.

Secondly, we're continuing our discussions with Champions World about having an association with them, Charlie is a friend of the League, and somebody that's still close to many of us, including members of our board and I think if you hang tight you will see that there will be the potential for a relationship with his company and our new company that will make sense for both of us.”

GARBER ON THE TORONTO EXPANSION BID:
“Well, we've certainly got a lot of work to do before we finalize anything. We have yet to have any discussion with any of the teams up there and we understand that there was some concern expressed, and we have got to thread carefully as we proceed to express our interest and as we continue to talk to your Federation about opportunities. There has been an investor that has been in discussions with us that's based in Canada who has a businesses here in the United States. We had been in discussions with them about a Northern U.S. city and we think that the potential exists for a better relationship in Toronto. There clearly are other issues that we need to address; whether they are FIFA issues or CONCACAF issues. It's just too early for that. At this point we want to express our support for stadium efforts, and express our commitment that if that stadium gets built, we'd like to find a Major League Soccer team as a tenant or as a partner in that facility.

“The investor is Canadian and the only distinction between Toronto and other cities is timing and clearly it would make sense for us to marry our timing with the timing of the facility, which is why we're so willing to do all that we can to help the Canadian Soccer Association with their efforts and with their potential discussions with funding entities in Canada.”

GARBER ON WHETHER EXPANSION IS A YEAR-TO-YEAR CONSIDERATION:
“Investors have made a commitment for 2006. So it's not year on year. And as we continue to discuss expansion prospects, a commitment to fund and operate will be part of the expansion commitment that owners would need to make, so the answer is that it is through '06. It's not by year on year.”

GARBER ON MLS’ PENETRATION IN OVERSEAS MARKETS:
“Our overseas' revenue, while small, continues to grow. We have secured a relationship with KBS, Korean Broadcasting this year which will be a new deal for us. We have just finalized a new relationship with ESPN International that will take our games on the ESPN International network and will also work with us on syndication. So there continues to be more interest in our games overseas. It's something we're encouraged about. But it still is a small business in relation to our other revenues.”

GARBER ON NEW YORK CITY AS AN EXPANSION POSSIBILITY:
“I think it's similar to the question that Graham asked about Los Angeles. We have a need and a desire to expand our footprint for broadcast and fan development purposes. So a second team in any of our markets is less of a priority. That being said, New York City has got the need and the desire to build facilities for 2012. We have been in some very, very preliminary discussions with them about the potential for us working with them in the years to come, but I will say is it is much less of a priority for us than it was when Stewart Subotnick had the team a number of years ago.”

GARBER ON THE CHICAGO FIRE STADIUM SITUATION:
“Clearly, we're finding success in certain suburban markets. The Dallas development and Frisco is a great example of that. Peter Wilt was the man of the year in Naperville a great small soccer specific stadium in that market. It certainly has been a positive development for us. That being said, when we moved into new state of the art facilities in Invesco Field in Denver being an example of that. We have also experienced some success. We have a greater opportunity to develop increased revenues in large facilities like Soldier Field and Invesco than we do in a facility on a college campus where we are much more restricted and we are much more mindful of the impact of our team on the local community. So we're watching this closely. I will say that the Naperville experience has been a good one. We're very proud of our relationship with them and very pleased that our team and our general manager has been embraced by community. We look forward to our season there this year and I think we'll have a bit of sadness when we have got to leave the coziness of Naperville to go to that big stadium but we hope that our team can really capitalize on it financially.”

GAZIDIS ON MLS’ INVOLVEMENT IN THE U.S. OPEN CUP AND COPA LIBERTADORES:
“I am actually a co-chair of the U.S. Open Cup committee. With the U.S. Open Cup this year we're entering all 10 of our teams and I think that's a significant commitment on MLS' part to boost the standing of that competition. It is one of the most historic competitions in the world and it doesn't have the cache of the F.A. Cup at this point, but we do hope that over time we can develop the importance of it. One of the added elements that we have this year and last year's competition that the U.S. Open Cup champion receives an automatic birth to the CONCACAF Champions Cup. I think that also gives a significant extra degree of importance to the competition and it could mean that an A-League team for example, would make the Champions Cup. So for those two reasons, I believe this year's tournament will be incrementally better than last year's. We continue to look at ways to build that tournament.

“The Copa Libertadores clearly a very prestigious tournament. I think it will be terrific for MLS clubs to be in that. I also believe that MLS teams can perform well in that competition. As time has gone on, I think we have seen our club teams performing on a level internationally with the Mexican teams in our region. We'd like to stretch that out . One of the great moments in this League's history was D.C. United winning the Intra-American Cup against Vasco da Gama over two legs. So we believe we can do well. I think that there are logistically challenges with Libertadores in terms of the travel that's required mid-week through our season and into the late part of our season in particular. And I think that those are really the challenges of Libertadores. There's no lack of desire.”

Transcript courtesy of Major League Soccer.

 

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