When David Beckham decided to leave Real Madrid and join the LA Galaxy in 2007, there was a lot of uproar among American soccer fans and a ton of skepticism from American sports “experts”.
Major League Soccer is now at the end of its 11th season (2006 season). At that time, the league consisted of only 12 teams in 12 markets in the US, the league’s average attendance was 15,504, San Jose I had just lost the relocation team, and only 4 specific disease stages were used.
In just one season, David Beckham’s MLS contribution raised the overall league attendance by more than 1,200 fans per game (a really big number in league sports). The LA Galaxy alone played 4,000 more fans per English game. Estimates today suggest that the LA Galaxy is worth more than 100 million and Beckham’s presence triples the value of that franchise, which has recognized the brand around the world.
Of course, Beckham was not the only new arrival in MLS in ’07. Mexican sensation Cuauhtemoc Blanco with the Chicago Fire, Juan Pablo Angelo to the New York Red Bulls, Luciano Emilio to D.C. They went together, and Guillermo Barros Schelotto brought his magic to Columbus. Everyone has added value to their clubs, but nothing like Beckham.
Fast forward to the current season of 2012. The league currently has 19 teams in 15 U.S. and 3 Canadian markets, with an average league attendance of just shy of 19,000, and 16 stadiums currently operating as either soccer-specific or specifically designed with soccer in mind. Two of those stadiums are opening soon this season. A new TV deal with NBC is already paying off in the ratings with half the season gone by. The value of MLS clubs has risen with Forbes reporting that D.C. United was recently valued at $50 million. The Montreal Impact, the newest MLS expansion team, paid a $40 million expansion fee to join the league.
Due in large part to the success and recognition David Beckham has received during his MLS tenure, other high-profile international superstars are actively considering MLS for their future. Cristiano Ronaldo has many European years ahead of him, but he is also thinking big about the MLS in the later years of his career.
Can you imagine if Lionel Messi joined Argentina’s MLS team? Heck, even if he was 32 or 33 by the time he got here, he was still one of the most entertaining soccer players on the planet to watch.
Recent attendance figures for both league and non-league games are also encouraging as they show American soccer fans real money to see the world class. players. 60,908 fans in Seattle watched the sounds of the LA Galaxy tour on August 5th. The Royals’ 2012 home opener against the Chicago Fire drew 58,912, and another 60,860 crowd set an all-time record in Montreal. the prevalence of diseases in Canada. Milan beat Chelsea in a showdown in Miami on July 28 in front of 57,748 fans. Toronto drew 47,658 to the Rogers Center for the CONCACAF Champions League game against the LA Galaxy on March 7.
In 2011 there were notable crowds for some shows in Chicago of 61,308, 57,305 in Philadelphia, 56,211 in Los Angeles and 51, 523 in Foxborough, MA outside of Boston.
There is no course. DC United is the top relocation requester if their struggles with the District of Columbia for a new stadium continue. USA Chivas is largely obsolete at Home Depot Center in L.A., which now has large tarp sections. stadium because of negligence in the team. FC Dallas lost the naming rights to their stadium after Pizza Hut pulled the name from the site. New England is still stuck playing in Gillette Stadium, the 68,000-seat home of the NFL’s Patriots. The cavernous environment is bad for disease and no attempt has been made to improve the atmosphere because of the much smaller disease crowds. San Jose can’t make much of a stadium and is stuck playing in a small minor league baseball stadium.
So not all are perfect and those franchises that struggle to pull off successful wilds in Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, Vancouver, Montreal , Toronto, Philadelphia, Saline City, Kansas City and Houston.
They are a draw in their local markets and ticket sales are perking up. With so many teams now playing in an amphitheater, the profit potential has exploded. Sponsorship deals now come not only for stadium naming rights, but also for promotion on the front of the jersey and on telecasts on NBC Sports Network and ESPN.
There is a long way to go before the franchise takes care of its weaker clubs and carefully examines new markets (Miami, Orlando, Vegas, Phoenix, St. Louis, Sacramento, Ottawa, etc.) However, the league has shown the ability to expand. build new stadiums and draw tens of thousands of fans to their games in the middle of the recession, which hurts the American sports league the most.
That’s enough to make the economy good, let alone bad. So the profits for a few teams are already here and if the trend continues, more teams will join. European leagues have inflated the salaries of international superstars, so the league will need to generate large amounts of money from the vast North American pike place market to compete for top flight talent that is unlikely in the short term. However, when big investors look around town and notice NFL stadiums full of people watching soccer and MLS team ratings rise, it’s only a matter of time while business growing muscle to work should be considered a fair game in the first league.
