Even if you don’t live in America, we all know the hierarchy of American sports. It pretty much for the most part goes as followed: American Football (NFL and the NCAA), NASCAR (apparently people are crazy about cars driving around in circles), Baseball (MLB), Basketball (NBA), and Golf (PGA…But really only when Tiger Woods is playing).

However, President Sepp Blatter insists that in order for the MLS to attract big names such as David Beckham and build the sport in the USA, the MLS must move to adopt the European August-May schedule.  If the MLS does this, it is a certain death sentence for soccer in the United States.  There are not a lot of reasons why a change in the seasons schedule will not work, it’s pretty cut and dry; soccer in America cannot compete with the NFL.  The Premier League kicks off the same time as the NFL and College Football begins, and are very few Americans who pass up going to their favorite NFL or College team’s football game to stay home and watch soccer on TV or watch streams over the internet. But there are a few, I myself are one of those few who passes up free tickets to watch my University play on Saturday to stay home and watch Chelsea or any other great match up. The thing is, are their enough MLS fans that would do the same for the American Football team that they cheer for?  Personally, I don’t believe there is.  The only way that switching to a European schedule would work would be to have the matches played on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday nights (though Friday might be a bit of a stretch).  American Football dominates the landscape Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday during the fall and for the general/fair-weather soccer fans in America there just isn’t a big enough audience for soccer in the fall.  10 out of the 15 MLS teams that share a market with a major NFL or College Football team, so that completely eliminates the opportunity for weekend games.  Furthermore, only 8 of the 15 MLS clubs have their own stadium, with Chivas USA and the LA Galaxy sharing a stadium; while 4 teams share a stadium with an NFL team (New England, DC United, New York, and Seattle).  However, the MLS is now requiring that all new expansion teams have their own stadium while 3 current teams have stadiums under construction.

But the MLS might be making strides to conform to a similar format of European Football leagues.  The United Soccer League (USL) is a league that is below that of the MLS, and is up for sale.  I have heard rumors of the MLS being interesting in purchasing the league and could possibly lead to the promotion/regulation style that is custom in European Leagues.  I think that this would create more interest in the game with more fans showing up to support their team.  Either way, soccer in the USA is steadily growing.  EPL and La Liga matches are now going to be shown on ESPN and ESPN2 on Saturdays and Sundays 

Bookmark: