MLS is a pyramid scheme. Like all pyramid schemes MLS will top off and then crumble.
The premier (not to be mentioned in the same breath with the Premier) league in American soccer, MLS turns 30 this year. Whence the next 30? There won't be a next thirty see above).
After 30 years, and having added its 30th team this year, MLS will top off at 32. And then what of the expansion fees that have become "addictive" to the legacy owners? (see above). The league is trying to build another minor level onto the top of its 32-story pyramid by starting minor-minor leagues, entree to which would require an expansion fee. Coming to a small city near you, the Johnstown "Jets" of MLS2.
After 30 years MLS is "10th or so" in domestic league quality. After 30 years. I know of no business venture in American history that has marketed a "We're # 10!" slogan.
MLS is trapped in a web of its own spinning. In a country where only the best get viewership, MLS per club streaming revenues from Apple are $8.3M per year. The bottom worst team in the Premier League got $125M for its one year up. Neither MLS nor Apple will release streaming and revenue numbers "but sources around the league suggest that they're not what either side had hoped. MLS gets a 50% cut of subscription fees over a certain threshold, but that hasn't been reached, even with Messi."
Upon founding 30 years ago MLS was obsessed with not going the way of its predecessor premier American soccer league, NASL. So they obsessively capped costs and salaries in order to survive, and with those caps and that goal they capped quality. To survive is not to thrive. They beheaded rock star teams from forming. No Cosmos for MLS, nah-ah. No 77,000 filling the Meadowlands either.
MLS spun a web that trapped it at "10th or so" worldwide. In need of television viewers, they capped spending on players who could attract eyeballs. Unable to fill professional tackle football stadia, they insisted on soccer-specific venues of approximately 30,000, about half that of NFL stadiums, and even big time college tackle football venue capacities. With it they capped attendance revenue. With revenue so-capped they could not spend money on elite quality players even if league rules permitted it. Instead, they sell their most promising players. "Addictive" expansion spreads the best players over more teams. Without the best players, nobody watches league matches. Rinse repeat.
"...I don't think that MLS teams should spend more on players," said Bobby Warshaw, a former player in the league and now the director of North America at Bloom Sports Partners, a sports advisory company specializing in strategy and recruitment. "I have not seen a financial model where it brings enough dollars back. ...There's no way out.
MLS belatedly (the last 10 years or so) got into the soccer academy business, a magic bullet to produce home-grown Generation Next superstars for the league at low cost. golden goose to train the best and the most athletic and turn them into quality first teamers. Manchester City is renowned as having one of, if not the, finest academy in the world. But to MLS the academies are not a magic bullet to shatter the mediocrity cycle of low quality and low viewership, the academies are a golden goose. MLS is a "sellers league" its long-time commissioner Don Garber has said. MLS develops players in its academies for the purpose of selling them to the major clubs in Europe. Man City bought one last month. MLS thereby tightens the mediocrity noose, ensuring that cheap home-grown talent does not stay at home, thereby increasing the quality disparity between them and the top European club teams, thereby sending curious eyeballs and ticket buyers abroad.
There's no way out. That's the real subject line of this post.
