MLS Insists Less Is More This Season

Major League Soccer has talked for a long time about having “a bigger national footprint,” but the league has gone about it in an odd way since the end of last season.

Having lopped off a couple of its toes, so to speak, MLS will leave only 10 indentations in the sporting sand when its 2002 season opens Saturday.

That’s fine as far as footprints go--perfectly normal, in fact--but having 10 teams instead of 12 hardly makes MLS more prominent.

As part of an off-season of cutbacks and reevaluation, the league folded the Miami Fusion and Tampa Bay Mutiny. It then argued that smaller means stronger and that the concentration of player talent in the surviving 10 teams will make MLS games more competitive.

“If there is anything positive [about contraction], it will be that we had two teams that had some great players and they’ll make [the remaining] teams better,” Don Garber, the league’s commissioner, said Wednesday.

No doubt that’s accurate, but it didn’t help earlier this week when Bruce Arena, the U.S. national team coach, was quoted as saying that MLS “could fold at any time.” On Wednesday, Arena and Garber were quick to counter that impression.

“I was responding to a question regarding MLS’ role in player development,” Arena said, “and really should have stated it in a little better manner, simply saying that I don’t think their feet are on the ground yet to take on that huge financial responsibility of player development.

“With contraction and everything else, I think that’s the last thing on their minds right now. It’s going to take some time. I’m confident the league is going to prosper. I’m confident that 20 years down the road, MLS is going to be here.... I’m a big supporter of MLS. If I worded [the answer] incorrectly, I apologize.”

Garber, too, emphasized the league’s long-term viability.

“This league is here for the long haul,” he said. “One of our owners [the Anschutz Entertainment Group] just put $100 million into bricks and mortar [for a new stadium in Carson].... We’ve got a [new] five-year television agreement with ABC and ESPN.... It is inconceivable that anyone, with all due respect to our national team coach, can think that this league is not here for the long haul.

“It will be a long and, at times, difficult process, getting to where we need to get to, but no one should have any doubt [about the league’s future].”

The fact that five MLS teams are controlled by the Anschutz group, which Tuesday also added a half-ownership in the defending-champion San Jose Earthquakes, and that Hunt Sports’ stake in the league soon will grow from two teams to three with the addition of the Dallas Burn to its ranks, was dismissed by Garber as being not worrisome.

“We have a very committed, small group of people who have a vision of what professional soccer can be in this country,” he said. “One of our real goals is to expand the number of people who have that vision.

“What we need to do in order to attract more people into our fold is to have a more profitable business.

“In the long term, we want and expect to have a broader group of ownership, [but] we are where we are. The world has changed. The economy has changed. The fact that we still have a bunch of very committed and smart and well-to-do folks still engaged in our sport gives us more stability than we would have if they weren’t committed.”

In a game of feet, progress in MLS is measured in inches.