For MLS, The Path Forward is Down, not Up
Kevin Wallace
The new Club World Cup taking place in the US has put a renewed focus on MLS’s place in the soccer world. Naturally, many, many MLS fans will take the results and immediately start down the classic demands of virtually all MLS fans: “MLS needs to spend more so they can compete with the best in the world!” Who amongst us hasn’t had this same thought or made this same comment online.
But I think it’s wrong.
I didn’t always think it was wrong. Heck about a month ago I probably said something exactly like this. But I’ve had my mind changed. It’s called growth, look it up.
There’s really two reasons why I think this idea is wrong now, and it was the result of asking these two questions:
1) "Why do we assume roster spending needs to increase?"
and
2) "Is roster spend the only way to "grow" the league?"
Why do we assume roster spending needs to increase?
The line of thought is usually something along the lines of "MLS needs to increase spending so it can compete with the best leagues in the world for talent, and if MLS is competing with the best leagues in the world for talent, that will increase TV viewership. With increased TV viewership, the league will make more money and be able to keep competing with the best league sin the world." I don't think I'm unfairly representing that argument, because as I mentioned before, I too made this same argument not long ago.
But it really falls apart once you start to pick at it. For one, MLS has radically increased its pay and the overall talent level from the start of the league to today. The average pay has continued to increase every year, the number of teams all spending this increased spending has increased, and the overall talent level has improved year over year essentially every year. Don't misread that, I am not saying there were no talented players in the league in the early days of the league, I'm arguing that from top to bottom the rosters are more talented now than they were in say, 1997.
And yet, despite that growth, have we really seen increased viewership? The answer is no, not at all. Outside of the few times where MLS matches were able to be added as a double-header with World Cup matches, the cap of viewers for a non-championship game is about 300,000 viewers. And MLS was hitting that number back in 1996. And in 2012. And in 2019. And in 2022. Despite the increase in spend, the increase in talent, the increase in teams, the changing nature of how fans watch sports, the average number of viewers continued (and continues) to hit that ceiling. So if the argument is going to be more spending will lead to more viewers, you do need to wrestle with 30 years of evidence saying the opposite. Is it possible that there is a certain threshold of spend that breaks through this? Maybe! But given the current media rights deal with Apple I think even if it exists, it cannot be achieved until the current media rights deal has passed.
But what about competing with the best in the world? Don't look now, but MLS is already there. Depending on where you decide to source your data, the consensus is that MLS is roughly a top 10 league in the world on both value of the squads and in the overall talent and competitiveness. So, we did it? Is that enough? Maybe, and I'd certainly accept that position. But when looking at these various metrics you'll see that it really wouldn't be too much of a stretch to get MLS into the 6th position in the world. And that feels right, to aim to be the best league outside of England, Germany, Spain, France, and Italy. Some combination of Brazil, The Netherlands, Turkey, Argentina, Portugal, and Belgium probably stand in the way, and I am confident that MLS could leap those leagues without breaking piggy banks and spending wildly like Super League teams in Europe. When looking at average club valuations on Transfermarkt for the Club World Cup, MLS teams sat comfortably in the middle of the pack. Not a bad showing for a league with spending restrictions that nobody else is playing with!
The other issue is, the top 5 leagues are making so, so much money. Their media rights being worth more than anyone else and their stranglehold on the UEFA Champions League purse means they have a constant flow of money coming in that just can't realistically be matched by MLS teams. To be clear, the billionaire owners of MLS teams absolutely could spend to this level if they wanted, and I'm not pocket watching for them, but I am arguing that it probably wouldn't be the best use of their money, as well as pointing out that it is unrealistic to expect them to spend at that level with the current revenue coming into MLS and the value that spending would get them. Again, see the point above about spending not increasing audience size.
So if the current level of spend is already top 10 in the world, and it wouldn't take much to move closer to the #6 spot, and spending wouldn't really bring a great benefit, what the hell is the point of this opinion piece? It's in the second question, is roster spend the only way to grow?
It's not.
Is roster spend the only way to "grow" the league?
MLS owners would be better off spending the money that they would have spent on increasing roster spend on subsidizing tickets, marketing, and funding a media arm that supports the league.
Every single year, MLS fans are expected to spend more and more money for tickets to watch their teams play. Stop it, and reverse it. MLS owners should not be spending more and more money on rising transfer fees, they should be giving that money back to the fans in the form of cheaper concessions, cheaper merchandize, and cheaper tickets. MLS is not going to be the Premier League, but it can be the most fan-friendly professional sport in the country, if not the world.
Imagine a world where supporter tickets are $10, where the most expensive seat along the sidelines caps out around $50. Where a kit costs $50 and a club t-shirt costs $10. Right now supporters are being asked to spend $50 on a ticket, sideline tickets are regularly closer to $200 or more, kits themselves are pushing $200, and a damn t-shirt costs $50, if you're lucky.
In virtually every conversation I've ever had with an MLS fan, they became hooked on their local team after attending a match. Nobody was stumbling across a team on ESPN or FS1 and deciding to become a fan. But if you can get someone in the door, you've got a better chance of hooking them.
If MLS can sell fans on being the best place to be a fan, to encourage active support in supporter sections, make it easy to get merch while the rest of sports in the US, including college basketball and football, go the other way and chase premium customers rather than fans, MLS can zig while the rest of the country zags.
When trying to sell someone on MLS itself as a league, so many people will point to stadium environments like Portland, LAFC, and Cincinnati. Why are we not encouraging that? Cheaper tickets, flags, megaphones, smoke, dare I say it flares, would make the in-stadium experience so much more fun than the sterile environments found elsewhere in sports these days.
At the same time, teams need to bend over backwards to their local media partners to get them anything and everything they want. Move training times if its easier for local TV crews. Pay your coach more if you can convince them to host a local radio show at a wings place in town to get people to come out and engage with the team. Hell, start a fund that pays the local newspaper to have a dedicated soccer beat. You're not always going to get the exact press you want, that's fine, embrace it. Or, if I could be so bold, don't do things you'd be embarrassed about reading in the local paper. Apple and MLS should be funding independent outlets like Backheeled and Soccerwise and a dozen more. If not directly, then by supporting them with guests, access to data, connecting them with commercial partners, and anything else they can do to support a media ecosystem that is interested in MLS. Cut a 30 minute (22 minute) tv studio show covering the top storylines of the week and give it away for free to any local media market and national cable channel that wants free content to run ads against.
And, this is going to be an idea I am going to feel a little bad for suggesting, but give away the games for free on a local broadcast tv partner in home markets. But, make it worse. This is a lesson Apple should know very well from their app store. The free version of the broadcast should include DAZN style cut-ins with commercials while the match continues in a smaller box around the outside. Have the commentary track cut away to an audio ad during the match. Put an obnoxious border around the match the entire time. Give it away for free, but make it annoying to get it for free. Then the sales pitch is "If you don't want all this crap during matches, you can buy Season Pass and get it all without distractions". They also need to make a version of Season Pass that is tied to a single team at a discounted price.
There are a million other ideas that people will have to grow the league that are not tied to roster spend. Roster spend cannot be the only way we view growth of MLS and it cannot be the only way we push the league to grow. Becoming more fan friendly would win so much good will and grow the fanbases of the individual teams as well as the league as a whole.
But I'm not going to get out of this thing without addressing roster spend. Without increasing the amount of money a team has to spend, you can do the following:
Combine TAM and GAM and roll it into the salary cap
All trades within the league are Cash for Player Transfers
Scrap the u22 initiative
Keep 3 DPs who's salary don't count against the cap
Stop counting transfer fees as a part of the budget charge
What you will see is teams stop being so top heavy and money will become more equally spread out throughout the roster. The MLSPA would have more money going to more players. The cash for player transfers have worked so far in their limited existence, there's no reason not to expand it. And with GAM totals becoming public and TAM being phased out, there's no reason not to roll this into the salary cap and call it a day. Transfer fees will be discretionary, but they're optional. They've always been optional. If a player gets a 10% cut of the fee, which is customary, count it against the cap that year if you have to. But this move would immediately put MLS on the same level as Mexico and Brazil when it comes to roster spend and builds.
So when you're taking out your measuring stick to measure MLS, think outside the box. The way to grow is not up, but down.