The NHL Winter Classic came to Minnesota yesterday and 35,000 fans turned out...
Actually, no. That is a stadium shot of the home debut of Minnesota United F.C. The "Loons" were nipped at the death by fellow expansionist Atlanta 6-1. Fellow expansionist.
That followed MNUFC's 5-1 heart-stopper at Portland on March 3. It was enough to bring to mind Arsenal's not-ready-for-prime-time treble of 5-1's against Bayern Munich. It really was.
What Minnehaha's "start" says to me is that MLS itself is not only not-ready-for-prime-time, MLS is failing. Minnesota was not ready Minnesota...Yikes, they were put together at the last minute Inferior, they are composed of minor league players BrutallyExposed, this was expansion by necessity. Those are the ominous earmarks of failed past leagues in the U.S. like the World Hockey Association and World Football League. In this view MNUFC is the canary in the coal mine, a first sign that it is poisonous underneath.
Don Garber, MLS commissioner, has been on an expansion binge that has been worrying. MLS' finances are secret, it is structured as a privately-held company, soccer economists can only educatedly guess at the true state of the bottom line MLS_Business_Model, but Garber has kept on selling "franchises" to new "investors" in "untapped" markets, getting up to $150 million per. That is worrying because it looks like MLS is a pyramid scheme. Existing league investors, who, in this view are not seeing a return on their investment, are given a pro rata share of those expansion fees that is an artificial life preserver when they would sink and drown on their own. The league as a whole survives by riding the wave of enthusiasm of these new initiates, 35,000 for Minnesota's first game, 62,000 last year for Orlando's, while the old guard, Chicago, Columbus, Dallas, Colorado, DC, draw in the teens.
Until Minnesota, no MLS expansion team has been clearly unprepared to compete in the league. Minnesota is catastrophically unprepared. Minnesota is cold evidence that MLS has engaged in desperation expansion, and is failing.
This is Public Occurrences.
