Dana Blankenhorn

Soccer’s America Problem

I’m an American soccer fan. But soccer has growing America problem.

European soccer is being knocked on its ass by American money. The English Premier League, powered by big TV contracts and American interest, now dominates all European leagues. The competitive balance that was the hallmark of European soccer is gone.

American owners are increasingly dominating the English game. Todd Boehly, who also controls the LA Dodgers, recently bought Chelsea, and is maintaining the free-spending ways of Roman Abramovich. Americans now own nearly half the league.

Then there’s MLS. The league has yet to realize its potential, but that potential is huge. Most clubs still play in 20,000 seat bandboxes. The ratings are garbage. But nearly all the clubs make a profit, thanks to strict revenue-sharing and salary caps. Apple is going to send a flood of money into the league starting this month. Sellouts are now common. My Atlanta United drew 47,000 fans per match last season, better than the average Premier League team.

We can afford soccer. Other countries can’t. Soccer is now America’s 4^th leading sport, ahead of hockey and right behind baseball. Soccer is growing, baseball is not.

Retire Dan Garber

Soccer has a huge opportunity to become America’s favorite sport, as it is everywhere else.

But it won’t get there with the minor league business model of Major League Soccer (MLS) Commissioner Dan Garber.

Garber’s business model was crafted in the 1990s, when MLS feared failure. All teams are controlled by the league. The season runs from the spring to the fall, and ends in a series of play-offs, just like baseball.

The league has prospered, thanks to expansion fees. New owners pay hundreds of millions to join MLS, and this gets split among existing teams. This means teams can’t be relegated if they refuse to be competitive. It makes for lazy owners and bad soccer. It means the most important games are played when they don’t draw interest.

The answers are simple, but Garber won’t consider them. He needs to go.

Once he’s out of the way, MLS should buy the minor league United Soccer League. It can do this by selling its own interest in member teams. This will create a windfall that can fund a new structure.

The Close Season

Update: Atlanta United chose Frank de Boer as manager instead of Guillermo Barros Schelotto, who is heading to the LA Galaxy.

It has to do with playing style - de Boer's is closer to Tata's. President Darren Eales also decided that Atlanta can now recruit South America on the club's reputation, rather than the manager's. Time will tell how that works out.

The first thing de Boer must do is convince a big European club to pay Miguel Almiron starter's money in a transfer. Getting starter's money -- $15 million or more -- is a key to the whole project. We need to make a profit on turning starlets into stars. Do that often enough, build the league, and in time we'll be able to compete on salary against Europe, head-to-head.

Note that Zlatan is getting $7.5 million, which equates to a UK salary of nearly 147,000 UK Pounds a week, more than that league's top stars make, but less than many U.S. baseball shortstops make. 

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Let’s not talk about politics this week. It’s Christmas.

Let’s not talk about business, or technology, or global warming. Let’s talk about something fun and exciting.

Let’s talk about football.

The most important off-season in Atlanta sports history, the most important one in America’s soccer history, began December 8 with the sight of a sad coach losing a big game.

Sport and the New Political Divide

The political divide today is less the traditional left-right than nationalist-internationalist.

This was brewing before Trump. But it has become the new normal. It’s a fault line people are still willing to cross, because it’s new. We love our nation, but can we love another without betraying it?

My point today is that this fault line has appeared in every area of our lives. Not just in politics, but in economics. It has appeared in music and art. And it has appeared in sport.

I have described how it works in sports here in Atlanta, where the Atlanta United “football” team has taken intown’s love from the Atlanta Braves. They moved to Trumpistan, specifically suburban Cobb County, with its long history of racism aimed at the central city. The bridge on I-75 over the Chattahoochee to Cobb County is still named for Lester Maddox, for gosh sakes.

Speaking of Sports

Let’s change the subject.

Atlanta media can’t cover soccer for shit. I don’t think they want to.

But they need to because Atlanta United is selling out all their games while the baseball Braves play to empty seats in their new Cobb County ballpark.

The season started well, but then went pear-shaped. The media has interviewed a few players, but Coach Tata Martino’s first language is Spanish so they haven’t asked him.

I’ll explain it.

There are two main problems. One, they’re not scoring goals. Two, they’re letting too many in.

The Full Politicization of Sport

When politics gets me down, I take comfort in sport.

Sport can’t be political, can it?

Yes it can.

One of the biggest sports stories right now is the rise of Atlanta United , a new MLS soccer team. They have sold out Georgia Tech’s football stadium, and will do the same at the Atlanta Falcons’ palace when they move there this summer.

When I walk around my intown neighborhood these days I am greeted by dozens of Atlanta United banners, hung out of doorways and hanging on flagpoles in front of porches.

But turn on sports talk radio and you won’t hear a word about it. There the talk is of nothing but American football, and, given that it’s spring, of baseball.

There is no business excuse for not talking about the soccer team. There is only a political one.

The Atlanta Braves are the reason for this. The Braves are a baseball team. They started in Boston, as the Red Stockings, in 1876, and got their current name after a group of New York investors affiliated with Tammany Hall bought them over a century ago. They’re starting their season soon, although you can’t prove that from my neighbors.

Final Warning

I have said before that America is a fortunate country.

The so-called United Kingdom is proving that right now.

The Brexit vote is a warning. It shows what can happen if income inequality becomes too large, and leads people to believe in demagogues.

The same trends that caused this catastrophe are alive in our own country. They were alive in the Bernie Sanders campaign, whose British analog is Jeremy Corbyn. They were alive in the Brexit campaign, the American analog being Donald Trump.

Solving College Football

My old alma mater, Rice University, is playing for a conference title today, at home, against the Thundering Herd of (We Are) Marshall, as seen on a movie channel near you.

Didn't know? No one else does, either.

That's because Conference USA, where the Owls play these days, isn't considered a “major” conference. It's a “mid-major” conference, thus beneath contempt.

For the last several years, a host of schools have been moving between conferences, and among conferences, based on the size of their alumni, the power of their football teams, and the school's willingness to spend money in order to find a “better” home.

The system enriches only football coaches, and ex-football coaches. It's one of the biggest scams going. The players often get nothing (some get a decent education, if they apply themselves and the coach doesn't fire them for poor play), and the schools are also left destitute. Only a few dozen schools actually profit from football, and they plow the money into athletic facilities, enriching coaches in minor sports.

The system is broken. Time to fix it.

US Soccer Evolves

Last night I saw the most amazing thing, although what was most amazing was how unremarked upon it was.

A record crowd filled the old Skydome in Toronto for a soccer game in March between two MLS teams, Toronto and the LA Galaxy. It wasn't even a league match, although it wasn't a friendly, either. Instead, it was a quarter-final in something called the CONCACAF Champions League, a regional competition designed to replicate what the UEFA Champions League has in Europe.

This competition has been going on for several years but Americans haven't really cared about it. Teams have almost deliberately fallen-down after being chosen, including the Galaxy, whom I once saw lose a two-legged tie to Puerto Rico's A-League outfit in front of maybe 2,000 people. 

The Secret of Juergen Klinsmann's Smile

There is a mystery afoot in US Soccer.

One I've solved.

After winning a scrappy game against Honduras last night, 1-0, announcers seemed almost disappointed, anxious to get back to their “fire Klinsy” chant should he fail to “get a result” against Ecuador.

What Eric Wynalda, Alexi Lalas, Jimmy Conrad and others had to say mystified me, until I remembered where and how they had played their international soccer.

They were all part of the team built by Bruce Arena, a fine coach, a good man, America's best in many ways. And they feel threatened by what Juergen Klinsmann is trying to do.