We miss marque players because overall its sub standard imo.
Yer Messi is a weapon as we all know but as I mentioned - @ 36 he's making their defense's look average.

Mid a interesting read
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/aug/10/american-revolution-will-the-power-of-us-money-change-soccer-forever?CMP=oth_b-aplnews_d-3

Very interesting and hope is not true... 

Great article mate... interesting take on things... 

Damn you Middy and this MLS thread haha but its relevant what/where football is going in some parts of the world and not in most others.
This is my bugbear about this league - typical merican, fabricated, NFL is run by the networks, the land of the chain merchants, be it Hooters, Donut King, crap Starbucks coffee Maccas KFC etcetc and MLS Franchise football incl APL !
Football was about football over 90mins, not all the shit and glitter mericans have been bombbarded with.
Came across another good article because it shares part on my belief and coming from a younger gen journo I was happy to see so it can't be taken as coming from an old bitter.....

https://inews.co.uk/sport/football/watching-lionel-messi-embarrass-mediocre-mls-defenders-football-fell-in-love-2581887

His title headline says alot, is this where people want football to go, where is the DNA/culture/history buying a football license.
After Messi crowds will decline, same applied way back in Pele's tenure, after ADP crowds declined here.
Sure some may say alot of football Clubs are owned by big ME families, yanky billionaires but the only positive to say about those aquisitions that they bought existing home grown Clubs DNA and all, at least the spine/foundations of the past lies within.
This is still football in the modern age despite the $$$$ playing field changing so much as a whole.
Is todays football in Europe/UK better than the past before the copious amounts of ogarlords now ? I have to say no its not (its getting $$ sanitised like a plastic surgery) having been a long long long time follower but its still way way better than any Franchise model and banging on about marketing to grow crowd ticketing revenue etcetc, real football grows by the product on the pitch and Clubs foundations.

The development of the MLS has many fathers, arguably the biggest decision they made was to go with soccer specific stadiums. To date there are 30 stadiums which can be broken down like this.

Shared stadiums with other sports
7 stadiums, 1 baseball and 6 NFL, however 3 of the shared stadiums they are near equal tenants due to crowd size, the base ball one is being replaced New York FC, and one stadium the NRL team is moving out so the Football team will be the sole tenant, another team New England is looking for a site to build a soccer specific stadium. Meaning only two or maybe 3 stadiums are not in the control of the Football team.

1 stadium, for the new team, is kinda shared, the stadium is owned by a university, and the university will play 5 games a year of NFL.

22 stadiums soccer specific.

Here are some vids on the stadiums, first is what stadiums are currently played in, note the first stadium will be given to the women's team as the men's team has a new stadium, and New England are looking for a site to build a stadium. The second vid shows the new stadiums being built.

Current MLS stadiums 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRAM5_a5gC0&t=93s&ab_channel=TFCStadiums

Future Stadiums.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eadNy9tZM-0&ab_channel=DepressedGinger

It's difficult to believe that some people are whingeing about the MLS when they're doing so well.

The MLS is averaging roughly 92% stadium capacity across all games, which I find impressive....

What's often not appreciated about US sport is the media dominance of Grid Iron, Basketball, Baseball and Ice Hockey.... Further how the US sports markets work... 

We could learn a lot from the MLS, about marketing Football in a hostile media environment, and growing Football at a professional level... 

so what more is there to learn that AL (tbh when it kicked off it was a mirror of MLS, had funding, PR, known marques, member engagement but all driven away)  now APL are lacking in our hostile environment.
More bubble and squeak ? (the MLS marque's are the huge drawing factor), well the $$$'s arn't there and do you think we should follow more with pre game and announcer entertainment to a football game like mericans ?
Club member engagement ? oh for sure this is what is lacking, better communications and promotions, one entails $$$'s the other is where they really lack is good sensible PR and transperancy to a point.
Merica has a shed load of Mex/Hispanics, great to draw in whereas we had/have a shed load of migrants that had been driven away to draw on but alienated.
We had a football eco system raw as it was whereas the mericans really had nothing pre MLS worth talking about therefore a pretty clean clean sheet to work with that hardly disrupted what was originally compared to us.
Good on them what they have done to suit the merican way to sport, I said "sport" because every/most leading sport work similar there.
Sure Mid the APL can look to use some of their marketing ways to help grow their product BUT I don't wish to see US keep following the yanky way of life as we have in a number of things to date.
What is it here that supporters can't see to follow the ways of football that is structured 95% of the world over in this place.

Mate I am at a loss at this kinda reaction.

First I have often posted I don't want the MLS structure. So why do people keep posting about its a close structure therefore evil.

Its what we can learn from them.

You obviously, want P n R and a more traditional system.... and therefore because MLS is a closed system...everything they do and everything they say is wrong and is anti Football...

You say this and assume the investment in Football would have incurred and maybe more if not a closed structure.... if you understand US sports markets that is so so so so wrong...

What we can learn from evil, hopeless, anti Football, MLS is how they identify markets, how they market to those markets, how the engage with fans, their fan based decision making model.... these things are important and the system i.e. traditional or closed does not matter... how they develop their supporter base with key sponsors... 

With 29 teams MLS revenue this year is expected to exceed 2.5 billion which is roughly 80 plus million per team, thats in world terms a lot of money...

We can learn a lot, take what we want and ignore the rest.... as Mon comments on this the Yanks are amazing at raising revenue and creating markets, not the closed system but their Admin especially compared to ours light years ahead... the next person that says our system is mirrored on there's needs to go to the nut house as only the franchise fees and closed system is similar everything else is different... 

Mid, I think what LFC is trying to say and what you are saying are two different "wants" for lack of a better word.

Yes, as I have told you, the Yanks are the absolute masters at revenue raising and you are 100% correct in saying that, while the APL does try and model itself on the MLS competition wise, they are shithouse in copying the more financially successful path the Yanks have taken.. They SHOULD btw as that is what they want as an outcome, money and financial success. ... Problem is that the ONLY people that really want this are the APL themselves... Who else benefits from APL having massive finacial success? Not our national teams, not our playing pool at grassroots and NPL level, and not even the fans of Aleague who are just treated like their American counterparts, as dumb ATM machines to be "sold stuff" to. Our Aleague system IS mirrored on theirs mate (it is a very very poor imitation, but that IS what the APL is trying to create).

On the other hand, you state:

"What we can learn from evil, hopeless, anti Football, MLS is how they identify markets, how they market to those markets, how the engage with fans, their fan based decision making model.... these things are important and the system i.e. traditional or closed does not matter... how they develop their supporter base with key sponsors... "

And I counter with "THEY ARE NOT IMPORTANT" Myself, LFC and many others would be fine with 300 people at an Aleague match if there was a proper system in place for the development of players, from the very humblest of church league clubs to the shiny professional Aleague franchises....  Marketing for the sake of marketing ultimately only benefits the "market"  ... we want pathways, ambition, aspiration and growth.... FOR PLAYERS.... Build that, get the level of play and clubs up to scratch with the rest of the world and the crowds will want to watch it...... its a simple formula that every single other federation in the world baring us and the US seems to think is a no brainier. 

I don't know mono. If the A League was awash with cash due to massive TV deals and full stadiums that'd be better than not.

You'd say only for the APL but there'd be a trickle down effect.

We'd be nuts not to look at what the MLS is doing to get fans through the door and not try and learn from them.

As for a 'pure' football experience the forums are full of fans whinging about how sterile the EPL has become from a fans point of view.

There you go Middy, we all have different ways trying to get our POV through, Muzza got my idea very well and Thankyou mate.
Expressed it better than me for when I'm typing away my mind is way ahead of my typing haha.
Mid, I hear you don't wish for the MLS structure but make use of its powers of marketing ways to the punter/consumer - BUT as I said the more we follow their ways the more we will end up as such !
Yer ATM machines well said or as said a fast food chain, take it or leave it when your sick of it.

Yep I don't wish this one bit for our game, Muz quotes the way it will be, all about them/the APL nothing below !!!!
Read the room and a pity - sure I'd love P&R and the true football model but not whilst we have the current model, below is the roots/DNA of budding Roos/Matildas and reap investment from top down, wouldn't it be great seeing these kids fapping at playing for a Club they are Jnrs for vying for promotion, go through the lows of demotion, what better incentive than considering, support one Club in one model and play for one that has no hope competing to be part of it......

Muz, EPL as a game is fantastic, the ogarlords are changing Clubs season to season moneywise.
The have's and the have nots has always been but thankfully P&R keeps the wheels spinning with excitement and engagement, not promo juices to fill seats, not bubble and squeak.
Spurs lost their all time goal scorer and we are watching a resurgence without him within 3/4games whereas once Miami lose Messi they'll be mid pack or worse most likely and where will a huge % of those new fans be once he's gone - yer gone elsewhere.
 

Fair points Muz and to some level I agree but I dont think there would be more than a trickle as the APL would be under no obligation to fund anything .... nor should they to be fair. More fans and money through the door would do wonders for the APL and their expansion though I agree... It would certainly drive expansion and create some of the benefits of having more profesional clubs but thats it.

Comparing EPL to MLS works in terms of both being sterile corporate football I agree, however the EPL at least has a trickle down economy and an open system which drives ambition in the lower leagues/player pool because of the riches at the top, NOT DESPITE them like the MLS and the Aleague does.... does that make sense?

All of this I think everyone agrees on.

My point is that anyone that looks at the MLS and says 'nothing we can learn from them here' is being wilfully ignorant.

The worst kind of ignorant.

I mean there's nothing stopping an NPL club looking at what they're doing and saying 'what could we do that would help our club?'

From a marketing perspective you are 100% if marketing themselves better is what you mean? Like I said to Mid, the MLS has got the "family friendly sports content" trope down pat... The Aleague tries to implement some of the things that have succeeded in both MLS and other Americanised sports like AFL and NRL. Some will work, others are just not compatible with our culture and lifestyle.... 

I'm reminded of Starbucks complete failure to penetrate the Australian market. They accumulated an estimated US$107 million in losses trying to get us to buy their dishwater. You can spend all the marketing money you want, identify target audiences, develop campaigns and open stores everywhere, however if there is little on the menu that the people want to keep coming back for, then it's money down the drain.

Even if the APL got its fist out of its @r$3 w/regards to marketing the A-Leagues, be it as ⚽ leagues or generic entertainment-products, can anyone in all honesty trust them to not balls-that-up too? We all remember* that patronising "You've Gotta Have a Team" tripe w/bloody Yoshi a few years back already..

*(or do we? Touché💡)

Puts on helmet .... please don't have me banned....

The following youtube link is the best goals in August from the MLS, they put one out each month.... puts an armour as well as the helmet... if you said this was a European competition no one would doubt it... despite everything the quality on the field is improving, they have many qualified South American coach's and players who have chosen the MLS... again I am not saying the structure is right but to ignore this is now the quality in their league would be a mistake... are they in the  top ten leagues for quality ... No ....  but they are catching up and catching up very fast.

Helmet and armour on it is worth the 3 or so minutes to have a look, at the August best goals...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytFR37vszOo&t=49s&ab_channel=MajorLeagueSoccer

No helmet needed Middy, yes the play on the pitch has improved... although if you notice, that is mainly from foreign players NOT US players...... 

They can catch up as much as they like, fact is with only 20 odd professional clubs (mainly overseas designated stars) and no 2nd tier or below to drive growth their player pool is smaller than a country like Croatia for example..... 

That is pretty much the only thing about them I'd actively emulate if I were running the APL instead of Clownsend; a damn sight better strategy than giving senior coaching gigs to spuds like Ruben Zadkovich💡

And in fact lower-tier football over there is being suffocated by MLS' stubbornness in refusing to adopt pro/rel...San Diego Loyal have just been forced to fold, to give one example. 

Mid, don't be concerned about ban or whatever, you have your opnion as does everyone.
Your still not reading the room, we/I don't wish for the mericanism bribe new supporter to a show, mate you can go back years of seeing good goal highlights not just now and just as the Saudi league is right now with even more quality most won't gravitate but those with actual vested interest or living there.
Don't think anyone is ignoring it per say but more so wgaf.
Sure I'll watch some highlights but I haven't sat through 1 game to date and likely won't for what for, heck I didn't watch SG whilst there and the countless other aging legends over the last 20yrs.
If there was P&R I'd watch with interest late season important games for the vibe and engagement of everything to lose.

It will improve just as everywhere else does in leagues BUT big deal its a closed shop.
I don't wish for mericanism ideas here, it will pollute the newbies just as AL did in the first place.
Thankfully some are finally seeing the light due to its own internal incompetance and how they have treated the fans here and NOT reading the room themselves, arrogance might I add because its all about the money.

A sport florish's when its got feet on the ground this end of the world compared to there.

I know you'd like the APL to flourish, at the same time it will strangle of lower leagues - surely you see that.

Their crowds were huge this season a long time before Messi went there. Yes he's added a lot of interest as it seems every celebrity in the country has to attend his games and Miami's highlights always get shown on mainstream sport shows which never show any other MLS. 

I know of their crowds pre Messi, just saying once the Messi sugar hit ends a % won't bother its a human trait world over bandwagon fans.

The one thing I will say is the US but more so CANADA have the best national team squad they've had in decades. 

Is this down to the growth of the MLS or is it just something in the water? 

I think there was a scout on here who mentioned about Australia after our World Cup showing that we played incredibly well as a team, but as individuals, we weren't seen as having top-level players that would be interesting for teams in the EPL or other top-flight leagues. 

Until we fix the football pyramid in this country and get things back to basics we won't ever produce a 'Modern Day Kewell/Viduka'. 

We are seeing far too much 'POTENTIAL' ( I stress this word because they leave too soon) leave our shores only to fail in Europe. One of the contributing factors to this is that our league in general is just not good enough at providing the right foundation for our players to improve. 

I know some probably think we shouldn't be focussing on developing players, rather just play the best players even if they are washed-up journeymen, but if it's good enough for Brazil, Argentina, Croatia, Serbia, Netherlands, Belgium and Portugal, then it's 100% good enough for us. 

FIX THE PYRAMID AND START PROMOTING THE YOUTH!!

Interesting tweet put out by the MLS poster called MLS Buz.. pertaining to their revenue ... 

https://twitter.com/MLS_Buzz/status/1700525590955102432?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1700525590955102432%7Ctwgr%5E04e34be9183782af0b0a80f9742ef9a5aac15a0d%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bigsoccer.com%2Fthreads%2Fthe-2023-mls-tv-thread.2124238%2Fpage-126

Inter Miami’s season ticket prices are way up for the 2024 season, nearly doubling in some sections of DRV PNK Stadium for the team’s first full season with Lionel Messi on board. Here’s what you need to know:

• According to a seat map sent out to potential season ticket holders Thursday, the center sections on the north end line are $884 per seat — up from $485 last season. Seats on the south end line are $867, up from $592 last year.
• Seats in the northwest midfield area range from $4,420 to $7,650 with access to various clubs, whereas seats in those sections went for between $2,575 and $3,609 (and up) in 2023.
• Inter Miami will now offer field-level season tickets on the east sideline, which are listed at $13,005 and include club access. Boxes on the west sideline start at $42,840 per season for four seats and include access to the Midfield Club.

See, this where there is misunderstanding of how marquee players work.

A marquee's primary role is to increase attendances, sponsors, viewers, media interest, merch sales, attracting other quality players, and ultimately increasing revenue.  WHILST THEY ARE THERE.

When they leave, you cannot expect that the same gains will continue.  What you can expect when they leave that is it will better than when the marquee first *arrived*.

AND here's the final point about marquees and how they work. 

When a particular marquee leaves leave YOU GET ANOTHER ONE, who will do the same.  Beckham-->Ibra-->Messi In this way, each marquee boosts the league when they are there, and leaves it in a  better place than when they first arrived.  Its snowballs over time

Oh yes like ADP….
that’s the diff they have the money there we do not ! 

Interesting article from Fortune... 

Soccer is taking over America–and proving Apple scored the biggest win in the sports streaming wars with its $2.5 billion MLS deal

https://fortune.com/2023/09/29/soccer-taking-over-america-apple-win-sports-streaming-wars-mls-deal-aden-ikram/