MLS Hopes to Ride Tails of World Cup
Major League Soccer, still in its diapers, is about to take on the world.
The league’s third season begins Sunday, and, midway through it, MLS will run slap-bang into the biggest obstacle it has faced in its precarious existence.
A little thing called World Cup ’98.
Rather than suspend operations during the planet’s most popular single-sport event June 10-July 12, MLS leaders have decided to sling a hook onto the France ’98 bandwagon and see where it carries them.
Even if it is to oblivion.
“We plan to have a bureau in France to shepherd information back to MLS cities regarding MLS players in France,” Commissioner Doug Logan said Monday.
“Also, during two successive weeks, we’re going to be doing in-stadium doubleheaders, trying to combine a 3 p.m. Eastern time World Cup game in France [on stadium screens] with a live MLS game at 6 o’clock.
“We think that that will create a link and a bonding between what’s going on in France and here.”
The danger, of course, is that the comparison between World Cup soccer and the MLS version will not be kind to MLS.
The league also hopes to sign a few players from the 32 World Cup teams, but Sunil Gulati, the league’s deputy commissioner, said there is only a limited chance of that.
“The World Cup is Fifth Avenue,” Gulati said. “We’re going to be there. We’re going to look at players. But there aren’t a whole lot of mysteries at the World Cup. And when we’re competing with the European transfer market, we’re not going to outbid anybody.
“Yes, we’ve put some money aside to be able to find an interesting player, but if Ajax Amsterdam or Manchester United are looking at the same player, we’re going to be leaving that meeting real quickly.”
The league has lost several big-name players since the end of the 1997 season, most noticeably Italian stars Roberto Donadoni and Walter Zenga. But it also has signed more than a dozen newcomers, the chief attraction being Swedish goalkeeper Thomas Ravelli.
The origin and age of many of the new foreign players has been criticized, given MLS’ stated intention of seeking out younger players from Central and South America and Africa. But Gulati defended the new signings.
“Obviously, there have been more European players [acquired] than in the past,” he said. “That [does not mean] a shift in philosophy at the league level.
“The average age of the international players coming in this year is 28 1/2. While I don’t disagree that we’ve got some older players from Europe, we’ve also got some younger players, 20 and 21, from the Caribbean, for example.
“I think once a decision is made to look for European players, we’re not going to get players in their mid-20s from places like Spain and Italy and England and so on [because they are too expensive].
Under MLS’ single-entity concept, all players are signed by the league. Although teams are free to suggest whatever players they like, they are not always successful in getting them.
“We have turned away all sorts of requests from all sorts of coaches--too old, too young, not experienced enough, wrong country, not worth the money,” Gulati said. “That is something we do more frequently than just about anything else.”
In Sunday’s season opener, defending champion Washington D.C. United plays the Miami Fusion at Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in one of 10 games this season that will be carried live on ABC. The network will also televise the All-Star Game Aug. 2 from Orlando’s Citrus Bowl and MLS Cup ‘98, the championship game, from the Rose Bowl on Oct. 25.
The league’s national TV package also includes 21 games on ESPN2, 20 on Spanish-language Univision and eight on ESPN.
For the first time since its birth in 1996, the league has expanded, adding the Fusion in Miami and the Fire in Chicago.
Logan said that through the expansion draft and subsequent international player allocations and trades, both teams should immediately be able to hold their own in the 12-team league.
But the question being asked most often of MLS these days is: Can it hold its own in a World Cup year?
“The eyes of the world are going to be on our sport every four years,” Logan said. “As such, we hope that the interest generated by the World Cup is something we are going to be able to translate into viewership on TV and into attendance at our stadiums.
“We have a very elaborate cross-promotion program with ABC and ESPN so that they, in fact, will be promoting World Cup games during our games and vice versa.”
