Given Time to Celebrate, MLS Has Terrible Timing
The women and children had gone first, filling stadiums, spraying confetti and turning a three-week women’s soccer tournament into an American sociopolitical watershed, capped by the first-ever sweep of the covers of Time, Newsweek and Sports Illustrated by American soccer players.
A week later, it was time for the men, also known as Major League Soccer, also known as the American soccer underground. Saturday in San Diego, they were going to climb out of the bunker for a while, maybe draft a little off the runaway success of the Women’s World Cup, maybe bask for a few hours in the warm sunshine.
But by halftime of Saturday’s MLS All-Star game at Qualcomm Stadium, MLS Commissioner Doug Logan wore the weary look of a man who had just seen his league’s marquee event shrink before his very eyes, from showcase to secret ceremony.
A conflict with the live telecast of Mexico’s third-place Copa America match against Chile had taken a sizable bite out of the anticipated walk-up gate, with barely 10,000 spectators in their seats for the 12:30 p.m. kickoff.
Television coverage of the match, originally set for ABC, was bumped to ESPN2 so ABC could follow the developing story of the disappearance of John F. Kennedy Jr.’s private plane.
ABC’s British Open coverage met a similar fate because of the Kennedy story; it, too, was moved--but to ESPN, available in far more cable markets than ESPN2.
The MLS game was relegated to ESPN2--and because ESPN was broadcasting another golf tournament.
The U.S. Amateur Public Links Championship, which aired after the British Open.
No, if you were wondering, the American soccer revolution wasn’t won in three weeks in the summer of ’99. In truth, the uphill battle continues, trudging step by trudging step, with the men plugging ahead on nearly as steep an angle as before the Women’s World Cup.
Logan said he briefly thought about postponing Saturday’s game out of deference to the Kennedy situation, citing the 1963 shooting of President Kennedy and the national debate over whether NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle should have canceled games the following weekend, which he did not.
“When you go through situations like this, it’s interesting, the name ‘Kennedy’ comes up and then Rozelle and playing football or not playing the football games,” Logan said. “Significantly, I think, but less important, the thought crossed my mind at about 6:15 this morning--and stayed there for 10 seconds. . .
“I have a great deal of sympathy, first of all, for the families involved in this tragedy. I scratched my head and actually asked myself, ‘Should we even play today?’ But I think you’ve got to carry on and play on.”
Asked about the switch to ESPN2, Logan said with a shrug, “There’s very little you can do. . . . We had to make a major switch of television because more than a few people are riveted and watching this story develop.
“It’s a momentary blip [for MLS]. It’s the difference between a much larger audience and a smaller audience for this game. We’ll survive this stumble along the way. It’s just tough to throw a party under these circumstances. All-star games are parties. These are rather somber circumstances upon which to do this.”
More disappointing was the audience in the stands. Twenty minutes before kickoff, when the East and West squads jogged out to begin warmups, there appeared to be more people on the pitch than in the lower-level seats.
The announced turnstile count was 23,227, but that included attendance for the second game of the soccer doubleheader--the Mexican club Chivas versus Chile’s Universidad Catolica. Most press box estimates placed the All-Star game crowd closer to 15,000.
“Clearly, I would have preferred having more people in the stands,” Logan said at halftime. “But it’s a good game, a fun game. The crowd that’s here has been extraordinarily enthusiastic.”
