Major Liga

Our last ROCS blog post explored the possibility of American football expansion to Europe. The NFL had won a recent poll conducted by Street & Smith's Sports Business Journal about which U.S. league would become the first to place a team outside North America^.(1) For this post, we'd like to skip the runner-up (no disrespect, NBA) and discuss the bronze medalist.

Major League Soccer came third in the poll. The placement actually seems a bit high because, as you may have read, they already have soccer teams in other countries. In fact, they have a lot of them. By a lot, I mean every single town bigger than a standard suburb (and many smaller) has one. That club has probably been there a hundred years, too. To find a footballless (I just made up a word with three consecutive "Ls" in it) area, you wouldn't just have to build a stadium, you'd have to go ahead and build the entire city.

"The Football Players," painted in 1952 by Nicolas de Staël

MLS has indeed talked about expanding more than any other league^,(2) so perhaps that fueled its place on the poll's podium. They seem to favor New York over old York and Atlanta, Georgia over Akhaltsikhe, Georgia. But what if the league did want to establish the MLS brand overseas? What we need here is a farfetched scenario so crazy it just might work.

Simply placing a team or two in some other country or two seems unlikely to work. Even with the summer schedule, you'd still have to compete with the established leagues at the beginning and end of your year and the national team tournaments in the middle. It's hard to see Old World fans getting excited to go see the new team take on the visiting Vancouver Whitecaps when a big Euro2016 match looms the next day. The logistical difficulties of transatlantic fixtures certainly factor in as well.

If you can't beat the establishment, maybe you have to join it. Could MLS form a mutually beneficial alliance with a European league? England seems an obvious locale because of the common language, but the Barclays Premier League already has a foothold in America through its television deals. As the world's most commercially powerful soccer league, the BPL likely wouldn't receive much of a boost from an MLS association.

But what about Spain? Why would the winners of the last three big international trophies want to marry their country’s footballing fate to what many perceive as a minor league? We can actually find a number of reasons that might interest both sides.

From the MLS perspective, an affiliation with La Liga allows it to instantly shed some of that minor league perception. If you compete on a regular basis with Barça and Real Madrid, you elevate your standing in the eyes of soccer fans. Suddenly you really are major league.

MLS does plenty of Spanish-language marketing and broadcasting already, simplifying joint ventures in those areas. The alliance also gives them a high-level inroad to broadening its Hispanic fan base.

The travel is easier than any other European league with whom the MLS might realistically partner. When the New England Revolution goes to play Celta Vigo,⁽³⁾ they’ll fly only 500 miles more than when they trek to LAX⁽⁴⁾ for a fixture with the Galaxy or Chivas USA. The traffic from the airport might go more quickly in Vigo, too. You’d still have long flights, but certainly shorter than the ones to play, say, Zenit Saint Petersburg. They’ll find a relatively mild Spanish climate awaiting them when they land as well.

From a La Liga perspective, they need a way to remedy the top-heavy structure that threatens to cripple the league.⁽⁵⁾ FC Barcelona and Real Madrid, with the occasional addition of one or two others, dominate competitively and financially.  The top clubs’ tradition and market sizes will always give them certain advantages, even if the league could somehow remedy the inequitable domestic television revenue distribution. The big franchises currently have limited motivation to take steps that compromise their positions. However, a potential entrée into the lucrative North American markets that gave them an advantage over the Manchester Uniteds, Bayern Munichs, and Juventuses might incentivize the giants to make some domestic concessions.

The Spanish economy’s downward spiral adds motivation. The United States may have a zillion-dollar national debt, but its economy remains an order of magnitude healthier than those of the Iberian Peninsula. Spanish teams would love to tap into a fresh group of consumers with money to spend on shirts, tourism, and sponsors’ products. None of the other relatively healthy economies in the world have the scale of the U.S./Canadian market, and the biggest, England and Germany, have no need for any sort of alliance with Spanish football. An infusion of American sports marketing knowhow could benefit Spanish clubs, too.

The Liga/MLS scenario is still a long shot, of course. You’d have to find a way to deal with issues of winter/summer schedules, relegation, salary caps, UEFA competitions, and playoffs. Competitively,  Barça and Real Madrid might win the MLS spotting their opponents two red cards a game. Still, playing the 1992 Dream Team helped spur basketball programs around the world to get better to combat American dominance.  Perhaps the elevated competition will hasten the American league’s ascendance as well. And Financial Fair Play initiatives could ease the salary discrepancies.

Perhaps one could start with having teams participate in each other’s domestic cup competitions. Or maybe it could work like baseball’s early years of interleague play, with limited crossover games and a meeting of league champions at some point.

Barcelona toyed with the idea of involvement in a Miami MLS franchise a few years back⁽⁶⁾ and has a regular preseason presence in the States.⁽⁷⁾ But can you imagine the atmosphere in Seattle for the second leg of a tie against Barça with the allied league’s title on the line? Now that would truly be major league.

Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns and related creative projects for sports entities through his company, Rush Olson Creative & Sports.

RushOlson.com

Linkedin.com/company/rush-olson-creative-&-sports

Facebook.com/RushOlsonCreativeandSports

Footnotes

⁽¹⁾ “Reader Survey,” Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal. November 25-December 1, 2013. P.26.

⁽²⁾ Ives Galarcep, “GARBER: MLS TO EXPAND TO 24 TEAMS BY 2020,” SBI. http://www.soccerbyives.net/2013/08/garber-expand-teams.html (accessed December 31, 2013).

⁽³⁾ “Distance from General Edward Lawrence Logan International Airport (BOS) to Vigo Airport (VGO),” Air Miles Calculator. http://www.airmilescalculator.com/distance/bos-to-vgo/ (accessed December 31, 2013).

⁽⁴⁾ “Distance from General Edward Lawrence Logan International Airport (BOS) to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX),“ Air Miles Calculator. http://www.airmilescalculator.com/distance/bos-to-lax/ (accessed December 31, 2013).

⁽⁵⁾ Tom Conn, “Gay de Liebana: All but Real Madrid, Barcelona and Athletic will disappear,” Inside Spanish Football. http://www.insidespanishfootball.com/35857/gay-de-liebana-all-but-real-madrid-barcelona-and-athletic-will-disappear/ (accessed December 19, 2013).

⁽⁶⁾ “After Florida once had two MLS teams, and after a Miami Barcelona bid looked on the fast track to approval by 2010, the whole idea is scrapped and the state remains without a team in the U.S. top-flight.,” goal.com. http://www.goal.com/en-us/news/1110/major-league-soccer/2009/03/03/1137156/miami-barcelona-mls-campaign-is-dead (accessed December 31, 2013).

⁽⁷⁾ Associated Press, “Barcelona signs five-year deal with MLS,” ESPN FC. http://espnfc.com/news/story?id=535599&&cc=5901 (accessed December 31, 2013).