At CRF we normally focus on Rapids news, as there are other great sources for national and global soccer analysis. However I believe today’s article from Kartik Krishnaiyer brings up an essential decision MLS has to make, and that very much affects us as Rapids fans. In his words, we have to decide to “try and be a good American leagues…or be a global player.”
From Kartik’s article:
MLS has to make a decision. Try and be a good American league, keeping the core of the national team player pool at home or be a global player by releasing the purse strings on clubs budgets and spending and allowing individual clubs to promote themselves outside their “assigned” market. (ie. Allow DC United to advertise on billboards in Dallas about Jamie Moreno, or even in South America, for example)
Right now, MLS is neither a good American league as the vast majority of US MNT pool players ply their trade abroad, nor a global player that has allowed clubs to build its own brand. MLS is a tweener league for lack of a better term. It is neither a league committed to developing nor promoting the American player, which would lead to one set of fans embracing it and promoting it, nor a bona-fide big league which would bring in even more fans.
Read the full article, which is in the context of atrocious MLS TV ratings.
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