This year’s baseball season is shaping up to have more MLS cities in contention than in past years.&nbsp; The Toronto Blue Jays and Seattle Mariners are off to really good starts, and this is not&nbsp;good news&nbsp;for MLS.&nbsp; Currently, both teams sit in first place of their respective divisions.&nbsp; These two cities have drawn better at the gate than any other MLS teams, but will it continue if their baseball counterparts continue to position themselves for a playoff push?
In Toronto on Saturday, Soccer outdrew baseball.&nbsp; According to MLS-daily.com’s attendance and YahooSports attendance figures for boxscores in baseball, Toronto FC had 19,998 and the Toronto Bluejays had 18,331.
The one city MLS need not worry about in baseball is Washington, D.C.&nbsp; The Nationals are the worse team in baseball.&nbsp; But on Saturday, they still outdrew arguably the proudest MLS team.&nbsp; They drew 19,9950 to the United’s 14,225.&nbsp; Go figure that one.
The biggest story in baseball so far has been the Los Angeles Dodgers.&nbsp; They look like they might run away with the division.&nbsp; If they do, ultimately, that could be better for the&nbsp;2 LA soccer teams.&nbsp; But, surely they will be a story to watch for Southern California sports fans this summer.&nbsp; It also looks like the LA Angels will hang around to try and win the division as they have hung around pretty well for each of the last 10 years , either&nbsp;winning divisions or making it close.&nbsp;
The Dodgers drew 47,000 Saturday, while the Galaxy drew 21,000.&nbsp; Surely, the Galaxy would have done better head to head Saturday had Manny not signed that big contract, and had Beckham stuck to the plan.&nbsp;
At Wrigley&nbsp;Field, the&nbsp;Cubs drew 40,000, probably to be expected, knowing the history there.&nbsp; The Cubs are a decent team this year and they carry&nbsp;a more than 100 year relationship with sports.&nbsp; Their drout makes them always the lovable loser and an interesting team when they win.&nbsp; It would be better for the Fire, who drew 10,000 on Saturday, if the Cubs have a crappy season, but that’s not happening apparently.&nbsp; &nbsp;
The Fire need to be compared head to head to the White Sox too, who also seem to be contending.&nbsp; In fact, because of parity, it seems many MLS cities are competing in baseball this year, like the Astros and Rangers.&nbsp; But, maybe they’ll sail out of contention as the year moves on.&nbsp;
The Royals of Kansas City would definitely seem a likely candidate to sail out of contention, but it doesn’t help MLS or the Wiz that the Royals are having a decent season.&nbsp; They have been bad for a long time, so when they are good, it seems an anomaly, and fans start to pay attention.&nbsp;
One team who won’t fall out of contention this year is the Philadelphia Phillies, the defending champs.&nbsp; They are riding a wave in which the core of the team is sticking around.&nbsp; The Phillies have reestablished themselves with their fans&nbsp;via a new stadium and may make it rough on the newest expansion team for MLS next year.&nbsp;
In Colorado, the Rockies seem to be in the decline, and it appears it will be a long season for their fans.&nbsp; But, the Nuggets of the NBA are picking up the slack, pulling out John Elway of Arena Football League fame to announce their starting 5 in a crazed playoff atmosphere last night.&nbsp; The hockey team had a bad year and the Broncos had an unusual year, so as the Rapids average 11,000 in attendance,&nbsp;is it maybe a result of too much sports for one town?&nbsp; 5 pro teams may be one too many.&nbsp;
Colorado seems a good case for general managers&nbsp;from MLS to look to not schedule head to head against rival sports leagues.&nbsp;
It seems it is best to hold back on any judgement on the Red Bulls as everyone awaits their new stadium, which looks appealing.&nbsp; Next year will be interesting to see how they do head to head versus the Mets and Yankees.

Looking closer at MLS and MLB cities

Looking closer at MLS and MLB cities - World Soccer Talk

With the&nbsp;release of&nbsp;the United Soccer Leagues&nbsp;2009 D1 schedule and accompanying Fox Soccer Channel tv schedule, USL shows once again that MLS is not the only game in town.&nbsp; USL&nbsp;proves again&nbsp;that it carries a lot of weight when it comes to professional soccer in the U.S.&nbsp; The USL infrastructure is strong enough to continue to be a thorn in the side of MLS.&nbsp; It has major partnerships with European clubs,&nbsp;its own youth and development leagues&nbsp;and a Women’s league.&nbsp;&nbsp;
Unfortunately, the USL&nbsp;at the professional soccer level, has a lack of innovation and leadership.&nbsp; There’s no backbone and no guts.&nbsp; It has the same losing business model as MLS.&nbsp; It suffers from an identity crisis, just as MLS does.
The key statistics to follow this year will be the same as it has been for every year that MLS and USL have been existence, attendance and television ratings.&nbsp; The next&nbsp;significant key statistic to follow&nbsp;is how many goals are scored per game (Offense brings sports fans in the U.S.).
In order for one of the leagues to stand out and become mainstream, they must solve the puzzle.&nbsp; It is the greatest sports conundrum in the history of modern American sports, why can’t soccer make it in America?&nbsp;
The&nbsp;pot of gold&nbsp;is out there, it is buried at the end of the rainbow, but the rainbow is multi-layered and multi-dimensional.&nbsp; MLS and USL will never be able to count on what’s happening with soccer leagues everywhere else around the world to be able to discover the treasure.&nbsp; They must figure out how to market soccer, the beautiful game, to American sports fans and not just soccer purists and/or soccer enthusiasts.
The most interesting stories to follow from USL and MLS are its business dealings.&nbsp; Both leagues are so lost in what direction they want to go.&nbsp; There is intrigue involved at every corner of every new stadium being built, both the small ones and the bigger ones.&nbsp; Sometimes, the strategies involved with play calling, coaching and watching&nbsp;games does not match the intrigue and strategies involved with which developing&nbsp;soccer areas&nbsp;of D2 and Premier of USL are next to breakout and become new soccer havens.&nbsp;
Who will be this year’s Cleveland City?&nbsp;and What will be the next small city to emerge as having the label of a pro soccer city, like Austin?
To its credit, the USL’s&nbsp;D1&nbsp;is hanging around.&nbsp; Even as it struggles for its survival, it deserves to&nbsp;get&nbsp;attention when it makes news.&nbsp; Today it made news and showed all of the U.S. soccer&nbsp;fans&nbsp;that it will maintain an appropriate&nbsp;schedule.&nbsp; With its organizational strength, the USL&nbsp;is indicating a commitment to provide a high level of pro soccer for fans in North America and the Carribean to enjoy.&nbsp;
USL and its teams have worked hard in recent years to gather&nbsp;business sponsorships and marketing parterships with major and minor companies.&nbsp; It has also made tremendous leaps on the international stage and in the U.S. through its participation in sanctioned pro and open&nbsp;league tournaments.&nbsp;
USL has earned a right to be mentioned in the same breath as MLS.&nbsp; It’s too bad that what&nbsp;USL is&nbsp;inhaling is the same kind of&nbsp;poison that MLS is swallowing.&nbsp;&nbsp;The lifespan of these leagues is hanging in the balance.&nbsp;
USL is trying to put a veil over the real issues, just as MLS is doing.&nbsp; New ideas must replace the stale ones if soccer wants the big piece of the sports action in the U.S.

USL Marks Another Milestone

USL Marks Another Milestone - World Soccer Talk

News about the Arena Football League (AFL) not playing its 2009 season is unsettling and a surprise to many (at this time, statements from the league website are still evolving). &nbsp;The league appeared to be in good shape. &nbsp;Evidence suggested that the league was stabilizing. &nbsp;For 8 home games, each of the 17 teams in 2008 (its 22nd season) averaged more than 12,000 people in attendance and ESPN shared a national platform with the league in its marketing efforts to attract new fans.
The league has benefited from American football’s fans thirst for more football. &nbsp;Play is inventive, dynamic and intense according to many of its thousands of avid fans. &nbsp;The AFL’s niche has been its ability to adapt an indoor playing surface the size of basketball and hockey arenas with the fever of American football fans.
The past season seemed to be a season to build upon for the AFL. &nbsp;The news of the league having to take a year to reorganize in order to reestablish itself as more financially solvent (among other things) is disturbing.
The relevance of the news to MLS is how connected the 2 leagues are in what they are trying to attain and where they are positioned when it comes to the public’s taste for team spectator sports. &nbsp;Neither is a mainstream league for American sports fans. They are peripheral leagues at best.
MLS, though,&nbsp;seems to have much more going for it as a potential mainstream American spectator sport than does the AFL. &nbsp;Firstly, the AFL directly competes with the NFL&nbsp;due to the fact that&nbsp;many fans already get enough football excitement. &nbsp;But most importantly, soccer is the beautiful game with its own strategies and skills that no other sport can come close to imitating.
MLS should pay close attention to what is happening with the AFL to learn from their mistakes. &nbsp;The AFL has survived mostly due to its entertainment value, but it is failing according to expectations because it has already peaked. &nbsp;The AFL says that its version of the minor leagues, AFL2 will continue its operations for 2009. &nbsp;The AFL should accept the fact that it will always be a peripheral sport and never a mainstream one, and then maybe it will be able to turn a profit.
MLS must look at soccer’s entertainment value and decide what needs to be done to take it beyond the periphery and into mainstream. Taking over the 4th slot from hockey is a reasonable goal, but enhancements and changes in MLS must occur and they must get done quickly.
Players in the AFL agreed on pay cuts in order to try and save their league. &nbsp;It shouldn’t have to get to this level.&nbsp;
It will take planning and innovation by MLS league executives and officials to carry the league forward to reach the mainstream.&nbsp; They must know their sport and they must know the expectations of sports fans.

The Learning Curve of Arena Football

The Learning Curve of Arena Football - World Soccer Talk

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Looking closer at MLS and MLB cities

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USL Marks Another Milestone

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The Learning Curve of Arena Football