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Yeah they lasted half an hour for Atlanta. By the time I read the tweets a couple hours later because of meetings they were gone.
Looks like you're safe.
Grant Wahl really needs to stop trying to force the idea that winning CCL is some sort of cure all for the league's issues. Spending the massive amount of money needed to regularly compete will never get met with increased revenue, only the hardest of hardcore MLS fans actually care about CCL.
I think it goes beyond a money issue, and it becomes more of a popularity issue. While the growth of MLS has been awesome to watch, it still isn't that popular in the US. Once more eyes are on the league, then more money will come in as a result of advertising, merch sales, and ticket sales.
The one goal of MLS right now should be to get people who only watch European soccer and convert them into MLS fans. There is a huge amount of people in American that would rather wake up at 5am to watch Premier League than go out and support a local team, and MLS needs to fix that issue.
The one goal of MLS right now should be to get people who only watch European soccer and convert them into MLS fans. There is a huge amount of people in American that would rather wake up at 5am to watch Premier League than go out and support a local team, and MLS needs to fix that issue.
Yeah I see that in a surprising number of people that I know. They'll go out to a couple of Sporting KC games each year, but they don't watch MLS outside of those matches and can't name more than a few players outside of the SKC roster. It's frustrating but I don't know how to remedy that, it's probably just a byproduct of having an inferior product at the moment and the allure and prestige of a foreign league.
The problem is those guys are generally snobs. You can't get someone to stop being a snob.
Yeah, soccer is still viewed as a European sport, not just a sport. I think that still has an influence how people view soccer. In the past people have asked me what my favorite sports are, and I'll respond with "soccer and Formula 1," and they'll come back with "no, I mean American sports." It's all just sports.
For sure, and I get that. I think if you can capture a fan between like 16-25, they'll be a fan for life. I find a lot of those Eurosnobs to be older people. I didn't start watching MLS until college because I didn't know about it. Then Sporting KC opened the new stadium, and it had this cool vibe around it. Plus that first year they gave away free tickets, so for a college kid that was awesome. After a few games I just knew I'd be a fan forever. With how popular soccer is to younger people, MLS needs to work on getting them to become fans.
How does wanting to watch the highest quality of play make you a snob? I watch 90% European soccer; I try to follow the MLS but in a world of finite time etc. Most of the soccer fans I know are the same way. I think every one of those people would watch much more MLS if the quality of play were higher (which also translates to more prestige for titles, more well-known players in the league, more players building casualfan recognition at WCs, etc).
For someone who watches 90% MLS, what 'snob' means is something like this. A co-worker, friend etc. gets talking about soccer... they ask me what team I like and I say Toronto FC. They scoff and say something along the lines of "No, but really, what team are you a fan of". When I tell them I don't really care about European soccer the conversation becomes something along the lines of "You know MLS isn't real football (it's always football) right?"
I have had some variant of this conversation many times, and I feel like there is nothing MLS can do to reach these people... at least not in the near future.
You might be right about the near future, but I do think the "MLS is a joke" meme will falter when it gets less bad. Klinsmann weaponizing the MLS's bad reputation to fight his petty press disputes didn't help either. My read, which could be wrong, is that a lot of people are just repeating the received wisdom on MLS but would in the medium- or long-term be willing to watch a league with better quality on the field. Reputation might lag reality by a couple years, but I think they're still tied together.
I also wanted to push back because, like, there are a lot of people who just watch European soccer because they're fans of European soccer without saying anything about MLS. The Premier League is a great sports product! Saying Euro-over-local soccer fans are "generally snobs" is painting with too broad a brush imo.
One thing to take into consideration is if there was more interest from locals in MLS, there would be a better product as more money would be coming into the league through advertising and TV deals. So it's this cycle of "I don't watch MLS because the product isn't as good" to "I'd watch MLS if the product was better." Supporting local soccer now is how we have a better product in 10-20 years.
It's all connected. It's not one thing or another. Academies, better TV deals, deeper rosters, etc.
The product has improved quite a bit in the last 10 years or so, DPs and TAM have helped.
I just signed up for ESPN+ to give the MLS another go. I don't usually watch MLS games, but I like Columbus, saw that they're playing right now, & like the cheap entry price to give + a shot. After I sign up, which was nice and easy, I click on the match and it's blocked in my area. I'm already done with this service and it hasn't even been 5 minutes into my free trial.
Do you have a VPN? I live in Canada and use NordVPN to watch MLS games on ESPN+ because the value is so much better than DAZN and I can watch Canadian MLS teams. NordVPN allows you to change the region of your server as well. For example, I am watching the Columbus game right now and the VPN defaulted to Cleveland (which is blocked), so I just moved it to Chicago and it is working fine now.
Local blockouts are a thing with almost every sports streaming package unfortunately. The only exception I have found is MLBTV.
Yeah, just a great goal. Nothing the defender or keeper could do there. Incredible.
Yeah, it looked like Atlanta the last couple years. The attacking was great, the defending was shaky but good enough since the Revs are unorganized and shit. Atlanta did what you'd expect them to do, and I'll take that.
Heh, Barco was a $15 million signing fee so this isn't surprising but they were paying for potential as he was 18 then, 20 now. He seems to finally be growing into it with 4 goals this season. He'd been shy to take these kind of shots in the past and preferred to dribble into trouble where he'd get fouled.
This is so petty. It's great.
Right? We're in last fucking place, and I'm not going to pretend we are a great team or anything. But to see multiple, very clear pks not get called even after VAR is infuriating. The head ref reviewed that second tweet! He decided that wasn't a pk! HOW. If those were called, we probably would have at least tied today.
