There may have been broken hearts and shattered dreams across the US on Tuesday, but MLS promoters say unprecedented enthusiasm for the national team is evidence that the US soccer league has come of age.
At the league’s offices in New York, all eyes were on the US’ last-16 FIFA World Cup match in Brazil, where Team USA weathered a 90-minute assault by a powerful Belgium to lose 2-1 in extra-time.
Despite the loss, league officials had something to celebrate in Orlando, Florida, where midfielder Kaka, who in 2002 helped Brazil win their fifth World Cup, signed a contract with expansion MLS club Orlando City.
Photo: AFP
Both events add to the growing evidence that soccer has finally secured more than just a foothold in the US and that the anti-soccer fatalism that followed the collapse of the North American Soccer League in 1984 has withered.
In Salvador, Brazil, coach Jurgen Klinsmann’s side impressively managed to go through from the so-called “Group of Death” featuring Germany, Portugal and Ghana, a feat many had deemed impossible.
“We proved to the world we are a soccer nation!” MLS commissioner Don Garber said on Twitter minutes after the US-Belgium clash.
Millions of Americans have been glued to the action in Brazil — an impressive 14 million watched Germany beat the Stars and Stripes last Thursday. Because it was mid-week, the game also drew a record 1.7 million online viewers to beat even the Super Bowl, traditionally the biggest sporting event in the country.
With interest reaching fever pitch, corporate sponsors have lined up behind the team, but what thrills Garber even more is that Klinsmann stacked his starting lineups with an average of six MLS players.
“We need to be a league of choice for the top players in the world and that starts with being the league of choice for top American players,” Garber said.
US stars Michael Bradley and Clint Dempsey recently returned to the US after successful European ventures. MLS has earned a strong foreign contingent, including French superstar Thierry Henry, who joined the New York Red Bulls in 2010. Spain’s all-time leading goalscorer David Villa and former Real Madrid and AC Milan star Kaka have signed with New York City FC and Orlando respectively, two expansion teams set for their debuts in next year.
MLS, created in 1996 on the heels of the successful US hosting of the World Cup, is no longer seen as the poor cousin to other sports’ leagues like the NFL, MLB and NBA.
With 18,608 spectators on average per match, the soccer league has the third-highest per-game attendance of any US league, ahead of the NBA and NHL.
If Australia’s Tim Cahill, who plays for New York after many successful years in the English Premier League, is to be believed, the MLS is no last resort for aging stars.
“I think the best thing, more than anything, was my decision to come to the MLS,” he said.
“Soccer has had a number of false starts here” when Americans “weren’t quite ready,” Bill Sutton, director of a sports program at the University of South Florida, told Sports Business. “They’re more ready for it now than I’ve ever seen.”
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