How to Get MLS Back on Track

The guardian has an article suggesting ways on how Major League Soccer (MLS) can get its groove back after a pathetic TV rating on its 11th year. In an excerpt:

Major League Soccer has just reached the end of its 11th season and, despite what some of my fellow bloggers think, the future isn’t looking too rosy. The MLS Cup final between the newly relocated Houston Dynamo and New England Revolution, as usual, failed to set the TV ratings alight. And let’s face it: any league that thinks that its saviour lies in the form of Real Madrid bench warmer David Beckham is headed in the wrong direction.
But all is not lost. In a nation that loves gimmicks, here are four strategies the MLS could adopt to turn the whole thing around:

1. Give the national women’s team a franchise. In the US, soccer has always been feminised – the sport of choice for soccer moms who prefer their kids to play a less violent game than American football or ice hockey. The US is also the one country whose female stars are far better known than its male ones (in part because they have actually won trophies – the women’s World Cup in 1991 and 1999 – always a prerequisite for American acceptance). Could the women’s national team compete with men? Probably not, but I know a lot of people would tune in to watch. And if the team achieved any kind of success, the American media would never stop writing about it.

2. Create a new franchise every year out of the College All-Stars or college champions and locate them in the college town that won the title. Before American football hit it big, it had to resort to gimmicks too. And one of the most popular was the game between the College All-Stars and the NFL champions that would kick off every season. The MLS should do something similar. Having the nation’s best college graduates play together would be good for their development. It would give young kids a new team of likeable Americans to follow each year. It would also create a new franchise in a place where college soccer already has roots, fanning local interest. What’s not to like?

3. Recreate the FA Cup in the US. Americans love amateur competitions: just look at the ratings for American Idol and even the Little League World Series. There are tens of thousands of amateur leagues across the country. Why not allow them all to compete in a national competition, along with the pros and colleges? Major upsets and rags-to-riches stories would dominate the media. And it’s not clear that a pro team would win the title. Unlike in England, the gap between the haves and have-nots in the US is fairly small. The cup final would be a guarantee of a TV audience that would dwarf anything the MLS Cup final game has ever attracted.

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