Why Don Garber needs to shut up.
October 7, 2009 by f4denz.
Listen the man has done great things in building a league that was struggling for a sport that is still considered a niche by most sports fans in the United States, but when he wants to start offering advice to leagues with hundreds of years of history and featuring the world’s best players, well to be honest he should just shut up. He is in London and will offer advice that is summarized by yahoo.com
Anyone who watches both MLS and any league in Europe sees a clear difference, but it isn’t a difference that favors MLS in any way shape or form. The play is worse in the US, when you don’t have as high of a skill level the play will be worse. The officials are worse, without full time officials and a good organization to train and control them, they simply are unable to be at the level of the best in the world. The control of the teams down to daily operations by a strong central league organization leads to generic cookie cutter teams, in MLS almost every aspect of life is controlled by the league, player contracts, authorized vendors, websites, video and audio content, and the end result is that almost every team looks and feels the same and that is boring.
Don is right that the league is competitive and that we don’t have the EPL’s “big four”, but with less than 20 years of history, we actually do have our own version (DC United, LA Galaxy, New England, and Houston/and their life in San Jose), which have won most of the trophies and get most of the attention by national media and in some cases cause the league to issue exceptions to their own policies on a regular basis. He is also right that it has brought a level of stability, but with most teams still losing money, some playing in huge football stadiums, or little stadiums designed for colleges or minor league baseball teams, is that the type of stability he wants?
I see stability in the mediocrity of MLS, which leads to fact like no team will have won ½ of their matches, unlike the EPL where the top 4 teams last year all won over half of their matches, and Man U lost only 4 times all year as they captured the title and Liverpool ended with just two losses all season in finishing second. Do you want dominant teams who play the game at the highest level? Or do you want a bunch of teams that play average and end with average records? I think building excellence is the only way the sport will grow in the US, and while the excitement of not knowing would be in the playoffs until the final week of the season has some attractiveness, it is nowhere near the excitement of a league that has a battle for the top of the table but as much excitement at the bottom of the table as teams battle to survive the drop.
We know that it won’t happen in the US, and for us with our money losing, average talent teams, and baseball stadium pitches trying to offer advice to those leagues with over hundred years of history seems to be very typical of the American attitude that we might know better than everyone, or that our way is the only way to do things. How about this Don, get at least half the teams turning a profit before you start giving advice and don’t try to change the very best leagues in the world to fit your own wanting to justify your total control of all things in MLS, I also think it might be best for MLS to wait until we can win something more than US Open Cup before they to say their way might be best.
Does it sound like I am bashing MLS? It shouldn’t but this situation would be similar if the Arena Football League started trying to tell the NFL how to run it’s league. I think there is enough right with the fledgling league (MLS) that I love it, but we have a long, long way to go before we will be considered a top league in the world and until then offering them business advice is simply stupid. When MLS turns over control of most day to day and operational decisions to the teams, maybe then we will see improvement of play in our league. When a team can’t decide what jersey manufacturer to chose, or have some level of creative control over their merchandise, when they can’t negotiate directly with a player but rather have to have the league control their contracts, when owners are restricted in just about every aspect of their operations it is a long, long way before our league will be taken seriously by the long established, multibillion dollar teams of the world, until then Don, please shut up.
OFF MY SOAPBOX