Breathtaking U.S. College Sports Story

[Gob]

National Football League American football
United States 2011
av. attendance; 67,358
total attendance 17,124,389
(pop 311,591,917)


Premier League Association football
England / Wales
av. attendance; 34,601
total attendance 13,148,465
(pop 56,000,000)

[Scooter]

MLS has the third highest average attendance of any sport, behind football and baseball, but outstripping basketball and hockey.

I guess someone forgot to tell them that soccer was too boring to be worth paying to watch.

[Joe Guy]

If you are unaware of it, I suppose that's excusable, but no American over 50 would deny this obvious fact.

I deny it and guess what?

I'm over 50!

[Joe Guy]

Ok, so to make soccer appealing to the great unwashed, (American audience,) they will have to;

Double the goal size.
Have ad breaks every 2 minutes.
Allow players to use their hands.
Make scoring compulsory, at least once every ten minutes.

Anything else?

Perfect.

I like it better already.

[Lord Jim]

That's an interesting article Scooter...

MLS certainly has their PR work cut out for them....

I had never even heard of the league until this thread....(I've never seen a single story about the San Jose team on any local news sportscast, nor have I ever seen an article about them in the sports section of the Chronicle....the mainstream sports media coverage, at least in this market must be very sparse and buried...)

It looks like they've got a hardcore fan base, but they're still going to have to do something about the availability of ad revenue time during the games before they see any significant national exposure or serious money...

I checked out their website, and also an article on Wiki:

Seasons presently run from March to December, with each team playing 34 games in the regular season

That's going to be another problem from a TV revenue standpoint; that's an awfully long season to play so few games....That's going to make it difficult to sustain the interest of a television viewership beyond that hardcore that are actually attending the games.

Also, while it's true they are nosing out Basketball and Hockey in attendance per game, Basketball and Hockey both have 82 game seasons. (Also the ticket prices for those sports are significantly higher.)

Here's an interesting graphic comparing pro Football, Baseball, Basketball, Hockey and Soccer on a number of criteria:



You can either double click the image to see it properly, or go to this link:

http://www.insidemnsoccer.com/2012/05/1 ... tatistics/

I'll admit that pro soccer has become a more popular sport than I was aware that it had become, but it's still got a long way to go to really hit the big time, and it's got some structural problems to overcome before that can happen.

[Gob]

More games than the NFL Jim?

[Lord Jim]

Over a much longer season Strop....

March to December means they're playing 10 months a year; (not including the playoffs) I don't think 34 games is even once a week....

Plus the NFL of course has an average per game attendance nearly 50,000 spectators higher than the MLS, despite having an average ticket price of $113 versus $26....

Pro Soccer will never become as popular as Pro Football, but I can see a scenario whereby it could become at least as popular as hockey....

But they've got a ways to go, even to get to that level...

I see on their website that they signed a modest 30 million three year television deal with NBC; however:

For the 2012 season, NBC Sports signed a three-year deal with MLS to nationally televise 40 matches per year[1], primarily on the NBC Sports Network. All NBC telecasts will include pre- and post-game coverage, and NBC intends to promote its games during its other major sporting properties, such as the Olympics. More specifically, the new deal will see three regular season and two playoff matches on NBC (the first time since 2002 that this many MLS games were to be broadcast on English-language network television), as well as 38 regular season and 3 playoff matches on sister channel NBC Sports Network;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MLS_on_NBC

With that paltry amount of exposure on broadcast television, the game will continue to be a novelty sport for most sports fans; not something that would draw a regular following. They're going to have to do considerably better than that. (ESPN 2 and "The NBC Sports Network" ain't gonna cut it...)

They're also going to need to attract regular coverage from the major local sports reporting operations in their markets, and signing some deals with local stations to broadcast the games of local teams is something else they need to do.

I don't see how they get any of this done until the solve the commercial time problem.

[Gob]

Jim, as far as I can see the season runs mid Aug - March.

edited to add;

As of 2011, the nine largest metropolitan statistical areas in the United States by population without an MLS franchise are Miami, Atlanta, Detroit, Phoenix, Minneapolis–Saint Paul, San Diego, St. Louis, Tampa Bay and Baltimore. In addition to these, the cities of Buffalo, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Nashville, New Orleans, and Pittsburgh all have multiple major league franchises in other popular sports, but do not have MLS teams. On March 12, 2011 MLS Commissioner Don Garber cited several markets that are involved in discussions with the league office about future expansion: San Diego, Arizona, Las Vegas, Detroit, San Antonio, South Florida and Atlanta. Garber said. “I believe we will be larger than 20 teams,” and “I can’t say when that will be. But I can’t imagine that when this league is fully expanded that we don’t have teams in the Southeast, that we don’t have another team in the Midwest, that we’re not even expanding to the southern part of California."

[Lord Jim]

Jim, as far as I can see the season runs mid Aug - March.

Where do you see this? According to the Wiki article the season runs March- December:

Major League Soccer's regular season runs from March to October with its 19 teams playing 34 games in an unbalanced schedule.[3] Teams are divided into the Eastern and Western Conference. Midway through the season, teams break for the annual All-Star Game, a friendly game between the league's finest players and a major club from a different league. At the end of the regular season, the team with the highest point total is awarded the Supporters' Shield. The regular season is followed by the 10-team MLS Cup Playoffs ending with the MLS Cup championship final.[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Soccer

And if you look at the current standings on their own website, you'll see that a number of teams have clinched playoff spots; which wouldn't have happened unless the season was getting close to the end:

http://www.mlssoccer.com/standings

I think they will need to either shorten the number of months they play, or increase the number of games, (Even when the World Cup is going on, the teams play after two or three days of rest...there's no reason they can't play two-three games a week) or a bit of both, to develop a regular audience following (assuming they're on TV) beyond their hardcore fan base.

ETA:

Okay, that quote says "March to October" while in another place in the same article it says, "March to December"...

The December one must be right, because if you look on their website, you will see that a regular season game was played as recently as December 1st...

[Gob]

Apologies Jim, I was misslead.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/When_is_US_soccer_season

[Gob]

The season may be shorter as soccer is more physically demanding than other US sports.

[Lord Jim]

The season may be shorter as soccer is more physically demanding than other US sports.

Yeah...

I'll concede that it's more physically demanding then baseball, (which is why they're able to play four or five games a week) but it's certainly considerably less physically demanding than Pro Football....

I'd say it's about on a par with hockey in that regard, which is why I don't see why they can't play two-three times a week, (which they do already at least in international tournament competition)

[Gob]

Jim, pro footballers run for less than ten minutes a game, soccer players for anywhere up to 40.

edited to add;

Rugby not soccer I know...

[Lord Jim]

Jim, pro footballers run for less than ten minutes a game, soccer players for anywhere up to 40.

Perhaps it's escaped your notice, but there's a little more than "running" going on in a football game that would qualify as "physically demanding"....

And the "running" frequently involves trying to run through a group of three hundred pound muscle bound chaps who are running directly at you....

And a lot of the players in a soccer game actually do very little running...and when some are running, others aren't....

[dales]

Who in the h#ll wants to watch a game with grown men running around wearing short pants?

[Sean]

Who in the hell wants to watch a game with namby pambys grown men running around wearing full body armour?

[Sean]

And a lot of the players in a soccer game actually do very little running...and when some are running, others aren't....

Not at all true. The only players who cover less than 10kms in a game are the goalkeepers. Footballers average 10-15kms per game depending on their position. This includes walking, jogging, running and full sprints... not to mention constant changes in direction.

http://www.sportsscientists.com/2010/06 ... -game.html

[Gob]

As opposed to...

Football fans everywhere are preparing to settle in for the NFL's biggest and most electric weekend of the season—a four-game playoff marathon that will swallow up at least 12 hours of broadcast time over two days.

But here's something even dedicated students of the game may not fully appreciate: There's very little actual football in a football game.
[Football] Photo illustration: Jeff Mangiat, photos, Getty Images (2), Associated Press (cheerleader), NFL (replay)

According to a Wall Street Journal study of four recent broadcasts, and similar estimates by researchers, the average amount of time the ball is in play on the field during an NFL game is about 11 minutes.

In other words, if you tally up everything that happens between the time the ball is snapped and the play is whistled dead by the officials, there's barely enough time to prepare a hard-boiled egg. In fact, the average telecast devotes 56% more time to showing replays

[MajGenl.Meade]

... and even those figures are misleading. The game takes three hours to play from the first whistle to the last.

Allowing 20 minutes for half-time (maybe it's longer these days), that leaves 2hrs 40 minutes.

With 11 minutes playing time (and I suspect that's over estimated), that means the players stand around doing nothing not for 67 minutes but for 160 minutes. Given that each team consists of about a million players who run on and off ad lib (coach of the Bengals I think), most of whom are not on the field at all for half of the game and many who enter it for only a few seconds, American football must be one of the most over-hyped "spectacles" in the universe.

I say, take away the time-outs from the coaches (12 total) and from the officials (freely used any time the coaches have failed to stop their teams from playing long enough to get commercials played) - cut it to the actual playing time plus half-time that it is supposed to be - but make the playing time 80 minutes to compensate - take off the armour - allow tackling/blocking only the ball carrier - ban the forward pass - play around anyone who's injured - call it rugby and then you'd have a real man's game.

Meade

[Long Run]

And hence the slo-mo replay. It is interesting that one of the innovations in American football in the last few years is the increased tempo -- having less time expire between plays. In essence, doing the "hurry-up offense" for the entire game. Allows your good athletes more opportunities to make plays and tires out the defense more quickly (but then your own defense has to play more too).