A Thirst For the Spectacular?

It started with a bicycle kick. Unbewnown to an American audience it was Pele, providing the country with its first taste of football in the credits of ABC’s World Wide of Sports – And it was a spectacular one. Soon afterwards the legendary Brazilian was there in person, turning out for the New York Cosmos in the 1975 season. Since then the MLS has been underwhelmed by the questionable genius of Freddy Adu and now, since 2005, the designated player rule which allows each MLS side to break the league’s team salary cap, which demands a collective wage bill of just under $3 million and was one of the primary factors which made the deal to bring David Beckham to the LA Galaxy possible. It is an odd situtation, America yearns, or at least is perceived to yearn, for the spectacular, but the the outcome is invariably the same. Adu engineered a move away to Benfica after failing to impress at Real Salt Lake, whilst Beckham, despite scoring a 60 yard ‘wonder goal’ in the eyes of the LA Times, engineered his own move to AC Milan having played just 35 games and scoring 5 goals. Does the American fascination with the spectacular really exist, or is it just a fearful European response to American growth based on too many Budweiser adverts?

As a journalist often writing for an audience who aren’t especially wise to the MLS but are keen to learn it is infuriating – when the league is portayed as unprofessional, unsuccessful and unstable it doesn’t just damage the reputation of the league, it impacts on mine, too. People ask ‘why write about that rubbish when you have the best of Europe on your doorstep?’. But this is a league that has bags of potential, and not just in the generic sense that people wrote about thirty years ago – the enormous country with a population of 240 million, a history of sporting excellence and money to burn – actual, tangiable potential that is there for all to see. Just ten years ago considerable doubts loomed over the MLS and whether it had a future at all, yet since then rising attendences have resulted in ESPN showing matches live globally, and the revenue and exposure that has produced for the clubs has allowed them to follow suit with Europe and sell their shirts for advertising since 2007. The league now receives four places oin the CONCACAF incarnation of the Champions League – winning that would give an American side an opportunity to play one of Europe’s best sides in the World Club Cup, credibility and recognition an inevitable and welcome byproduct of winning the trophy itself. In 2005 the LA Galaxy became the first American side to turn over a profit, the league hopes that by 2010 all its sides will be doing the same. Not only that, but the MLS is expanding – from fifteen to eighteen teams by 2010 when Portland, Seattle and Philadelphia will all have sides. These are exciting times for Major League Soccer, it is growing, thriving and making a future for itself with stability it could never have dreamt of ten years ago, and all before the ticker tape parades of glamorous foreign imports.

But American football is on the nether echelons of European media, a corner column of a broadsheet newspaper, if that. Even then, these newspapers are written for their domestic audience, there has to be a relvenace there for that audience for a piece to be written at all. The further news has to travel, the weaker it becomes. If a story isn’t exciting enough, if there isn’t enough scandal it may never reach us. So while the Italian match fixing scandal was a big enough story to take up column inches in our own national newspapers, three new MLS teams making their league debut is not. Lazy journalists will write about the correlation between the arrival of David Beckham at the LA Galaxy and MLS attendences without exploring the reality that they were increasing long before his arrival. Throughout his entire career, he has been the story. Even now, I find myself wrestling with the keyboard to prevent myself writing an entire paragraph about him. But he, on this occassion, is not the problem, he is simply a product of it. As with so many initiatives, the good intentions behind the designated player rule are clear. The world’s best players playing in the league increase media exposure, hopefully they increase attendences and television revenue, too. David Beckham playing in the MLS at or close to his peak could even improve the credibility of the league and the standard of play for the LA Galaxy at least. But at what cost? The rule makes a mockery of what, when you consider the runaway financial steam train of the Premier League, is a very good idea that the MLS, like many other new leagues, has introduced – a salary cap. In reality, all the Beckham move has succeeded in doing is enforcing tired, inaccurate European views of American football – a refuge for has beens from the European leagues to enjoy their final playing days in the sun, or a league of poor quality, insufficient to be selected for a national side. Again, journalists are quick to write half the story. They focus on the quality of the league but not the impact of thousands of miles of accumulated travelling might have on international fixtures. They take the few games Beckham has played for the club as the standard for the league as a whole, ignoring the fact that LA Galaxy have struggled in recent years and haven’t even made the playoffs since 2005. Is this fair? Probably not, but fair doesn’t always make the most interesting piece.

People could, of course, argue that as long as the league is growing, improving and succeeding at home then who cares if Europe is noticing? Well, that’s the issue, the MLS cares. The designated player rule is as much for Europe as it is for the domestic audiences. Europe has the money, it has the fans, it has the interest in football. Beckham sells shirts, 750,000 so far during his stint at the LA Galaxy alone, throughout Europe. The brand awareness that creates, regardless of the revenue of the shirt sales themselves, is massive. At this time American football needs Europe’s money, expertise and passion for the game, it simply cannot go it alone. America has turned up late to the party and is playing catch up, perhaps if circumstances were different it could have taken a more isolationist approach and waited for everyone else to follow – Not so now. The media circus that surrounds David Beckham shouldn’t detract from the fact that the MLS is making real progress. In an ideal world they would like European viewers to tune in for Beckham and stay for the quality. As of now, this hasn’t happened and Europe refuses to give American football the credit and recognition it has earnt in recent years. I doubt they will worry too much, that recognition will come. A World Club Cup championship success, a USA World Cup semi final, perhaps even a home grown player that can live up to their billing abroad. in the meantime they can enjoy an influx of European money, albeit at the expense of their, and perhaps my, immediate credibility and reputation abroad. Is there a thirst for the spectacular? Possibly a little, but only in as much as we all want high scoring games with skill and excitement. The key is to look past those things and realise that in reality, a project lies beneath with far more depth and substance than that.