Soccer trying to succeed in the soccer world

In most countries, the name of the game sounds the same. Words like football, fussball, futbol, ​​futebol ... not only sound the same, they are the same game. In America, however, they call it soccer. Major League Soccer (MLS) as an American professional soccer league has been around for some time.

Unlike other major league sports in the United States, MLS does not dominate the public attention of the sport on a world scale, nor is its ทัวร์ลาลีกา "World Champion." The MLS has undergone constant development. Did you get significant public and media attention in world football? Do not!

Soccer as the second, seventh or tenth most popular sport in the US It doesn't make a big difference, the American public will continue to follow the NFL, MLB, NHL or NBA. The world public would follow those leagues with the same attention that are the most prominent sports leagues in the world.

In recent years with the globalization of the media, the world sports scene has started to change; In that process, the English Premier League for football promotes itself as 'The World's Greatest Show' and is in fact the most popular and watched sports league in the world, with a current global audience of 500 million people. and media revenues during the 2007-2010 seasons of more than $ 5 billion. If the world is going to watch football leagues like the English Premiership or the Spanish League, who will watch major American league sports besides domestic viewers? Will a part of the American public also go to see the soccer leagues abroad? Such questions made soccer a problem in American sports.

Every now and then MLS officials would wake up from the drowsiness of being in the shadow of the top 4 major American leagues around the time the World Cup is being held and it becomes apparent how immense soccer is in terms of global public interest. , media attention, sponsors.

As the noise around the World Cup passes, MLS falls back into drowsiness. It was not to be like this after the 2006 World Cup in Germany, when the world public had a clear image of the modern stadiums of European football, the multi-million dollar player contracts ... the focus of world sport took over football.

This time it is not MLS that will take the initiative to promote MLS, it is the entire American professional sports entertainment industry. It is an economic opportunity in which the money that revolves around world football was too big to lose or discard.

In the summer of 2007, American soccer attempted to take over world soccer by storm by offering David Beckham a $ 250 million contract, the most expensive soccer player contract in the history of the sport, some described as the takeout deal. Beckham to the United States. It is believed to be the largest in the history of the sport. MLS sent a message to the world.

In the middle of summer, when the European leagues were in between seasons and the waters were calm, MLS got its desired exposure with dominated news with the Beckham family moving to Los Angeles. Did the stories overtake the world soccer media and public attention in favor of MLS? Do not!

Is it a long-term exposure worth $ 250 million? Time will tell. Fall is here, the European and international leagues are in full swing, the world sports news publishes fewer articles on Beckham, LA Galaxy and MLS. To make matters worse, LA is unlikely to make the play-offs, giving the media less to write about.

In the league that has had an overall loss of more than $ 350 million in the first 8 years after its founding (a 2004 BusinessWeek report), where currently only two teams, LA Galaxy and FC Dallas, are profitable with 3 additional. teams expected to be profitable within a year, a player's investment of $ 250 million seems like a gamble. If so, what are the odds?

In recent years, several notable players have opted to walk away from the top leagues in Europe and South America for a good financial contract with teams from the Gulf countries. Headlines reported major transfer deals, although there was little to no follow-up in media coverage of those leagues.

Not to forget, before the arrival of David Beckham, MLS tried to gain exposure with Freddy Adu, a player under 16 who was crowned the next Pelé. Adu received a lot of media attention, the world knew that he played for DC United in MLS.