Things Soccer Could Do to Become More Popular

[Hubbs]

I'm sure there will be a good chunk of joke responses (make sure they're actually funny), but with all the talk of soccer's popularity here in the US, I've been thinking about some simple things that could be done to make the sport a bit more appealing to your average American. I don't think it's unreasonable to think that soccer could eventually compete with hockey to be a sort of "little brother" of major American sports, but a few tweaks would certainly help:

1. This clock nonsense has to stop. Someone in the FIFA thread said that MLS had experimented with a more rigid time format, and it had "ruined the flow of the game." Okay, then just have an official up in a booth whose sole task is to push two buttons, one that makes the clock start and one that makes the clock stop. The moment a ref raises his hand and blows his whistle, or the moment a ball crosses a boundary (including the goal line), Mr. Booth pushes the stop button. As soon as the ball is put back into play, Mr. Booth pushes the start button. Players could still set up their own free kicks in a hurry after a foul if they so chose. Same with throw-ins. Hell, my only understanding of soccer comes from playing it as a kid and watching the World Cup every four years, and I would have been able to do this job with about 90% effectiveness this summer. It's not hard to figure out when the clock should actually be running and when it shouldn't.

2. Make the teams sound American. I don't mean that their names have to be in English. I mean that we're all culturally comfortable with knowing that the "New York BLANKS" will be playing the "Atlanta BLANKS" tomorrow. This F.C. nonsense has to go. "Hail to the Washington Metropolitan Area Football Team" just doesn't sound the same as "Hail to the Redskins," at least not to us. And Chivas USA? What the hell? If a team has "USA" in its name, I expect it to be playing in a group stage or winning Olympic medals, not contending for first place in the Western Conference with Colorado and Salt Lake City. And once again, just to be clear, this isn't about English. I don't know any Americans who want the San Diego Padres to be the San Diego Fathers. Virtually every hockey fan will frequently refer to the Canadiens as the Habs. ****, half of the pro sports cities in California and Texas have Spanish names. But we do have a standard format for our teams: Location, name. In that order. The people who already attend Real Salt Lake games don't care what it's called, but the casual sports fans that will determine soccer's future feel a disconnect.

3. No corporate jerseys. Unless the L.A. Galaxy have been renamed the L.A. Herbalifes, this should not be their uniform:

Logo on the front. Name and number on the back. The end. I know, I know, people are gonna come in and tell me that the rest of the world does this, and that soccer needs the Los Angeles Herbalifes because there aren't commercial breaks during play. No. It's more important for MLS to put a stop than this than it is for the Premier League specifically because of where the sport is in America. You're building a brand, and that brand is not Herbalife. It's Major League Soccer. It's the L.A. Galaxy. It's the Seattle Sounders. It's the D.C. United. The people who advocate corporate jerseys in the States need to study our political campaigns. Candidates give out thousands upon thousands of yard signs and bumper stickers because study after study has shown how powerful the basic psychological effect of the herd mentality is, especially for candidates who start out without a lot of name recognition. If a candidate can get even 5% of likely voters to display yard signs and bumper stickers, the corresponding change in how many people would consider voting for that candidate is enormous. And nobody gets that change by handing out signs that say, "HERBALIFE... presented by Scott Brown."

Take the revenue hit now to build towards a larger fanbase. Do you want to spread popularity and awareness of the Seattle Sounders or the XBox 360?

4. Here it comes... expand the nets a bit. Not so much that our players will be completely disoriented in international play, but enough for there to be a noticeable uptick in the average number of goals per game. MLS should definitely take a long look at hockey here. The most common soccer jokes are about all of the nil-nil and 1-nil scores, and lecturing Americans about how we should simply adjust our sports culture to enjoy that sort of thing will never work. Baseball's the American sport that receives the most "it's too boring" complaints - imagine if MLB made rule changes that resulted in most games being 1-0. No one would watch. Virtually every major rule adjustment in American sports is made to increase scoring, from the forward pass to the three-point line to lowering the mound. Our sports culture isn't going to change. You might as well try to win Hindu diners over by going on and on about how they simply don't appreciate beef.

5. No ties. See above. Bring back the Golden Goal (sudden death overtime) and go to PKs after 30 mins if it still isn't decided.

6. Be willing to pay above market value for whatever amount of 30-second MLS spots it would take to get ESPN to turn the NCAA soccer semifinals and finals into another Frozen Four. (Maybe call it the Futbol Four or something.) I believe the finals are carried on ESPN2 already. Work with ESPN and the NCAA to get a little Futbol Four branding going, and pony up enough money to get the championship game on ESPN during an off day for major sports. If the Frozen Four can work, college soccer championships can work, too.

7. Hire a bunch of announcers who can say "gooooooooal" for at least thirty seconds in one breath. I'm only half-kidding. Popularity for dumb reasons is better than apathy for good reasons.

Keep 'em coming.

[d0ublestr0ker0ll]

Allow pads and hitting. Also 11 men on the field for each team, one side offense, one side defense. Passing and running with the ball should also be allowed.

[SKINS@THEGOALLINE]

Stick them "vuvuzelas" someplace.

[thebluefood]

Find some way to open up the offensive side of the game. That helped football before it became our number one sport.

[TradeTheBeal!]

Put it on ice and make the goal/ball really small. Nevermind, that didn't work either.

Seriously though, enough with the faked injuries.

[Sticksboi05]

Stricter rules on diving. The ref yesterday was excellent. He wasn't taking any of that diving crap.

In the end until the MLS pay rivals that of NBA/NFL it won't matter. Europe's best athletes grow up dreaming of playing in the World Cup. Our best athletes grow up dreaming to win a World Series or Superbowl. Until that changes we will not be a top tier team. We could be.

[SonOfWashington]

Allow pads and hitting. Also 11 men on the field for each team, one side offense, one side defense. Passing and running with the ball should also be allowed.

[Hubbs]

Stricter rules on diving. The ref yesterday was excellent. He wasn't taking any of that diving crap.

Definitely. MLS should recruit college soccer players to be American refs, and make it very clear that not only should they err on the side of not calling a foul without clearly seeing one themselves, but that diving is an automatic yellow every time. I think an even bigger difference-maker would be MLS making it standard procedure to review any suspected dives after the game, and automatically suspending the player in question without pay if there's clear evidence of shenanigans (either because there was actually no contact or because someone pulled a World Cup Special and cradled his elbow for five minutes after being hit in the leg). FIFA pays lip service to this "rule." We should enforce it.

In the end until the MLS pay rivals that of NBA/NFL it won't matter. Europe's best athletes grow up dreaming of playing in the World Cup. Our best athletes grow up dreaming to win a World Series or Superbowl. Until that changes we will not be a top tier team. We could be.

I think domestic popularity solves that problem. And I don't mean big-time popularity. If soccer can even get up to the level of golf - golf - we'll have more than enough kids who think they could actually make a life out of playing.

[SkinsHokieFan]

1. This clock nonsense has to stop. Someone in the FIFA thread said that MLS had experimented with a more rigid time format, and it had "ruined the flow of the game." Okay, then just have an official up in a booth whose sole task is to push two buttons, one that makes the clock start and one that makes the clock stop.

MLS did try the "start the clock at 45:00 and work backwards" approach in its early years. For some reason that simply did not catch on

2. Make the teams sound American. I don't mean that their names have to be in English. I mean that we're all culturally comfortable with knowing that the "New York BLANKS" will be playing the "Atlanta BLANKS" tomorrow. This F.C. nonsense has to go. "Hail to the Washington Metropolitan Area Football Team" just doesn't sound the same as "Hail to the Redskins," at least not to us. And Chivas USA? What the hell? If a team has "USA" in its name, I expect it to be playing in a group stage or winning Olympic medals, not contending for first place in the Western Conference with Colorado and Salt Lake City. And once again, just to be clear, this isn't about English. I don't know any Americans who want the San Diego Padres to be the San Diego Fathers. Virtually every hockey fan will frequently refer to the Canadiens as the Habs. ****, half of the pro sports cities in California and Texas have Spanish names. But we do have a standard format for our teams: Location, name. In that order. The people who already attend Real Salt Lake games don't care what it's called, but the casual sports fans that will determine soccer's future feel a disconnect.

This was something else MLS started off doing back in 1996. DC United. NY/NJ Metrostars. Columbus Crew, Kansas City Wiz, New England Revolution

I have no idea how we ended up with Chivas USA and Real Salt Lake

4. Here it comes... expand the nets a bit. Not so much that our players will be completely disoriented in international play, but enough for there to be a noticeable uptick in the average number of goals per game. MLS should definitely take a long look at hockey here. The most common soccer jokes are about all of the nil-nil and 1-nil scores, and lecturing Americans about how we should simply adjust our sports culture to enjoy that sort of thing will never work.

FIFA would not allow this at all.

Here is a good link from articles back in early 1996 talking about it

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P2-772996.html

Your ideas make sense, which is why MLS either experimented with them or wanted to (in the case of the nets) experiment with them. However, they simply didn't fly and we now have Chivas USA

Sometime shortly after the DC United dynasty ended, MLS decided to simply circle the wagons and focus on the purist soccer fans in America, and hope the national team could bring the casual fans in with good world cup showings

[Bubble Screen]

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[Warhead36]

Other than diving, Soccer is fine. Even the corporate logos on jerseys don't bother me, since there are no commercial breaks at all other than halftime they need some way to generate revenue.

BTW SHF, D.C. United is also a ripoff of a European team: Manchester United. Hey it brought us similar Man U like success early on. I personally think the European sounding team names are cool, although Real Salt Lake doesn't make sense since Real is supposed to mean Royal, which makes sense for Real Madrid as they are the supposed team of Spanish royalty, not really sure why our royalty would reside in Utah.

[thebluefood]

Other than diving, Soccer is fine. Even the corporate logos on jerseys don't bother me, since there are no commercial breaks at all other than halftime they need some way to generate revenue.

BTW SHF, D.C. United is also a ripoff of a European team: Manchester United. Hey it brought us similar Man U like success early on. I personally think the European sounding team names are cool, although Real Salt Lake doesn't make sense since Real is supposed to mean Royal, which makes sense for Real Madrid as they are the supposed team of Spanish royalty, not really sure why our royalty would reside in Utah.

Joesph Smith's soccer club, maybe?

[Destino]

Booo terrible list. First of all no one should fix a sport for Americans because frankly casual American sports fans are busy DESTROYING their own sports by selling out to casual fans. (the NBA is a travesty, the NFL favors the offense so heavily defenses will soon be asked to play blindfolded.) Focus instead of just improving the game entirely.

Here you go:

1 - Review all games after the fact and apply reds and yellow cards to players caught diving. This will without a doubt stop diving in soccer and greatly improve the experience.

2 - Eliminate "off side" once the ball crosses a certain point on the field. Defenses slow the game and prevent scoring too well by playing strikers off sides. Once the ball passes midfield (could be any zone) the attacking players should be free to run wild. This will increase scoring without crazy things like making the nets bigger.

3 - More subs. No one likes to watch exhausted players barely move around on TV. That is what over time looks like in the world cup. I'd make subs 5 per half. No coach will sub 10 players but this would allow some thought to be given to taking a star with a yellow out and putting him back in if needed. (or something similar.)

4 - Score board clock. This is obvious.

5 - Instant replay causes stoppage of play. That isn't good for soccer. what they need is another ref in the video room assisting the ref on the field. None of this stupid "walk to the video screen" nonsense. Just allow the ref to ask his counter part questions to speed up the review process.

[elkabong82]

better and more consistent camera angles. the mainstay overhead shot makes the players look too small and misses the actual action around the ball.

I've said for years FIFA should contact the NFL filming group for ideas because of the way they've revolutionized football through their additions of cameras and closer angles.

the current common camera angle in soccer is too far and gives a sense of detachment. you feel like you are watching from the back rows in the upperdecks.

[Hubbs]

MLS did try the "start the clock at 45:00 and work backwards" approach in its early years. For some reason that simply did not catch on

Yeah, I think it was you who posted about this in the FIFA thread. If it didn't catch on, then they did it wrong. "We tried one way and it didn't work" simply isn't good enough. There is absolutely no justification for making games last an arbitrary length of time over a set length of time. I could be pushing the start/stop button for the World Cup from my bed and get a pretty damn consistent clock without requiring a single additional stoppage of play.

FIFA would not allow this at all.

Here is a good link from articles back in early 1996 talking about it

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P2-772996.html

I can only read the first few sentences before I hit a registration wall, but my immediate response is, "So?"

No, really. I know that FIFA is God when it comes to soccer, and that an "excommunciation" of MLS would mean all sorts of barriers to playing against foreign teams or using foreign players. And if I were the Decider of MLS, I would tell FIFA that my mission is to make the sport popular to Americans. Americans don't really give a rat's ass about one of our teams playing a team from Belgium. We don't care that we won't be able to make a deal for David Beckham - and don't tell me that he hasn't gotten much attention because he wasn't really one of the best players in the world when that deal was made. Thanks to that dumb movie, he easily had the highest American Q rating of any soccer player when he came over. That was good enough for one game on ESPN and a couple SportsCenter highlights showing assists - assists, honey, come over here and see one of those! - before we all remembered that we'd rather watch the NIT or professional hot dog eating.

MLS competes with the WNBA for airtime and stories in the paper with FIFA's blessing. I'd tell FIFA that I'm gonna do whatever the hell I feel is necessary to carve out something resembling a market share in the largest economy in the world, which spends the most money on advertising in the world, seeking the attention of the most consumer power in the world. If I were to fail, well, we'd be right back where we started. And if I were even moderately successful, I'd sit in the middle of stacks of business numbers and tell FIFA that it's never too late to make a deal.

[Hubbs]

Destino, I like your offsides idea. And I think the NBA has all sorts of problems, but I don't think the commonality between them is an attempt to appeal to the casual fan. Hell, a few of the changes I'd make if I were David Stern would still be targeting the casual fan. Fewer timeouts, for example. The last two minutes of the game shouldn't take half an hour. What is it about appealing to casual fans that you think is ruining the NBA?

[spjunkies]

The only recommendation I have is for it to not exist.

[GhostofSparta]

People have already mentioned the diving, which is one of my big problems with the sport. This is probably the Americanness in my coming out, but they need to improve the offense of the game enough to allow a decent number of shots on goal. I mean, hockey usually has scores of 3-2 or 2-1, but there's usually about 40+ shots on goal by a good team, so not only are there lots of scoring opportunities, but the goalie has to actually be good. I'm not saying soccer goalies aren't good at what they do, but they're not tested nearly as much.

And that analogy comes from somebody who rarely watches hockey, but I can get into the playoffs/stanely cup games if I'm around the right people.

[Predicto]

Change the offsides rule.

Add a second referee

penalize diving for calls

Instant replay on goals and handballs calls.

And players that look like this:

Well, maybe the last one alone would be enough.

[Elessar78]

MLS tried some of this stuff. Games didn't end in ties... A clock that counts down... And they still go back to the classic style. To me if you implement all these changes then it's not really soccer anymore. I like your idea of using more american names for teams.

America either accepts the game as it is or it doesn't. I don't really care if the general population embbraces it. The existing soccer fan base is sustainabble and growing . And the national team is improving.

[renaissance]

I don't really have the energy to respond to all your ideas, but as for the team names I'll say a few things....

The united in DC United signifies the unifying of the fans and the organization. If you've ever been to a DCU game you'll see how much the team and its owner appreciate the fans and vice versa.

As for Chivas USA, they're owned by a Mexican dude who also owns a Mexican team whose nickname is the goats (which = chivas in spanish). So that's where their name comes from.

As for Real Salt Lake, I have no idea where their name came from.

As for everyone else, I think the majority of teams such as San Jose Earthquakes, LA Galaxy, Seattle Sounders, etc. are all pretty clearly "American".

Regarding sponsors on jerseys, I'm not sure how else you expect the MLS to support itself without sponsorships. Jersey sponsorships (just like stadium sponsors), bring in a ton of money. And did you ever see the early MLS jerseys??? They were "Americanized" (bright and flashy as opposed to clean and classic) and looked like ****.

[boysetsfire]

Keep 'em coming.

Ugh. Why should MLS change everything and appeal to your average american? If the league wants to be taken seriously from other countries doing everything you just stated will do the complete opposite of that. I understand your point of trying to get more fans and make it more "user friendly" for americans but going that route is all wrong. The league already tried Americanizing the sport. It didn't work. I would rather not speak of "the shootout" which would happen if the teams were still tied at regulation. What an abomination that was. If the league wants to grow even more and attract good foreign players then you might want to stick with the rules and regulations that other leagues around the world use. Nobody is going to want to play for a league where the rules are different than the biggest competitions such as the World Cup.

[Warhead36]

You can't really change the offside rule. It would absolutely destroy the game. It'd be like the NFL without a line of scrimmage.

[ixcuincle]

Need more American superstars

Barely know any superstars other than Donovan

[Predicto]

You can't really change the offside rule. It would absolutely destroy the game. It'd be like the NFL without a line of scrimmage.

Well, at least find a way to eliminate the offsides trap that defenders always pull.