Heading into year six, what is your view of MLS? Has its quality of play improved since TFC arrived? Are you looking forward to the MLS season?
5
4
3
2
1
Your view of MLS six years on
Heading into year six, what is your view of MLS? Has its quality of play improved since TFC arrived? Are you looking forward to the MLS season?
Moderator
The quality of play has improved. It's place on the global stage is pretty much the same though.
The league itself is becoming less mickey mouse as time goes on, and that's a good thing.
- Scott
“Heroism breaks its heart, and idealism its back, on the intransigence of the credulous and the mediocre, manipulated by the cynical and the corrupt.” ~Christopher Hitchens
I personally don't watch enough different leagues to know how
I gave it a 3. Its good, but it can be improved. Im sure if they were to allow different kit sponsors and increase advertising they could increase their arsenal. I was on classic football shirts.uk last night and found some old mls jerseys and they had like Colorado having their jerseys made by Nike, and it wasn't too bad.
I want to see some different designs instead of the typical adidas template. Having more sponsors involved in their portfolio could protentially increase awareness and maybe even attractiveness of the league. Just my opinion of course.
Are we just talking on-filed product? Then yes, the play has improved and there are more teams developing their style of play than ever before.
If we are we including growth of the league? Revenue? General interest? Growth on TV? Attraction for players as a league to play in? This might change how I would answer.
I don't understand why NA pro leagues don't let teams choose their own kit sponsors. I am sick of seeing adidas and their lack of effort design for a proper kit for TFC. I am sure if TFC got Nike/Umbro or Puma, our kits would look better. Adidas has been a joke so far for us and Canadian national teams.Originally Posted by Matt
the mls to gain credibility needs to be more forthcoming with information...as a fan, i feel they bend the rules to help certain teams...the salary cap/allocation is huge...until the MLS comes public with more information, i will always believe that certain things are rigged in favour of certain teams
edit: the word i have been looking for is transparency
Last edited by prizby; 01-22-2012 at 09:35 AM.
The MLS is a small growing league. They can negotiate a deal that can spread the benefit across all teams in the league. If teams went on their own you wuld basically have NYRB, LA, and a few other having $$ thrown at them and a bunch of other teams getting very little. The MLS is all about parity.
Improving for sure but still not that good. The two big issues IMHO right now are that teams still have to field 50k/year plumbers next to te good players which hurts the quality alot. Other issue that there isn't any quality on the bench which limits competition for spaces. This a big issue I don't often see mentioned.
That is a very valid point and I agree with you. However no matter what we did LA will always get the better players, along with new york. Quite frankly considering Toronto is a major city, you would think we would have able to attract a star player or 2 from Europe ( not including Frings and Koevermans who are exceptional cases)
so while i see that they want to make it fair, lets be honest LA will always have more money and be more attractive (Sun and warm weather pretty much all year compared to Toronto), so I wouldn't think it would make that much of a difference at this point.
Unless they have or will implement a salary cap.
I never would have gone out of my way to watch the Toronto Lynx. I do go out of my way to watch Toronto F.C. Like most Toronto sports fans I support all things Toronto as long as it is the top professional league (e.g., Jays, Raptors, Leafs).
Although MLS is not on the same level as MLB, NBA, and the NHL it is the best we have in North America.
Having TFC play at BMO Field right from the beginning was key... if they had started out in the Rogers Centre I wouldn't have gone...
Two things MLS did that I didn't like: 1) manipulating the Galaxatives schedule the year they got Beckham so that they would have more games once he arrived = Mickey Mouse. 2) Manipulating the Wizards schedule so that they would have more home games during the second half of last year's season so that more games would be in their new stadium = Mickey Mouse
For the next 10 - 15 years MLS should look to making sure that the top NCAA players play in MLS instead of going elsewhere...
addidas has been a sponsor from very early on and provides financial support for the league, especially in its early days. Variety of kit design is one of the last things that is a pressing issue for this league.
As far MLS rating I would say about a 4. From nothing to getting established world class players considering playing here as a serious option is a massive step forward. The quality is mile ahead of what it was 5,7 or 10 years ago. Can't wait to see what's in store as far as quality in 5-7 years.
The pressing issue would be increasing the cap substantially.
for the next 10-15 years, they should be focused on developing home grown academy kids and start getting away from the draft
Yes agree with that too. Less emphasis on scouring Europe for the dinner scraps (ie. Mista)...
Notably improved; 2007/2008 would do ok against 2011 in an all-star game, but if we just had a series of games between teams (every 2011 team faces three 2007s) 2011 would win a majority of the games, i think.
we're obviously nowhere close to competing with top leagues, but we have momentum and growth on our side. the league is going nowhere but up.
and, yes, the academy is crucial. i think the "few stars + cheap depth" model is here to stay for the next couple decades - it makes sense for a North American ticket-buying public - so good academies are essential to make sure those depth players are actually capable of contributing in league/CCL games. there's no rush to get 'better' DPs than players like Frings, that's what we need from 3 DPs per team - it's the other slots we can improve now and the academy is the best way.
There are changes I'd prefer, but it is improving. The product is getting better, teams are moving into better stadiums. And the league looks like it has staying power. Which wasn't the case 6 years ago when MLSE decided to build a glorified temporary stadium for TFC.
It would be nice if more teams created away atmospheres like Seattle and Portland.
The league still has a long way to go, but overall its better off than it was 6 years ago.
As for TFC, I don't think there's been much of a change. The grass in the stadium is nice, and hopefully this CCL run is a sign of having a team that could contend.
But the team probably is below the Argos in the minds of the casual sports fan in Toronto. Aside from 1 or 2 games a season, tickets are fairly easy to find. The media treat the club like an afterthought. And we have never had a star player that is the face of the franchise. While the question posted was about MLS 6 years on, I think thos points about TFC are indicative of a league that still has a hard time catching on with the established major sports.
...uh hate to ask. 5 being good, 1 being bad?
I've followed MLS since Geoff Aunger first laced them up for DC United. That was my entry into MLS, because of the Canadian players. Aunger, Bunbury (the first one), I forget the others.
I would say the league has been steadily improving. Beckham stuff has really sensationalized the league.
I hate to call 2007 an onward a new era in MLS, but it kind of was. 96' to 2007 was a lot of begging and pleading, and some looks from a distance. But with the addition of Toronto, Seattle, Vancouver and Portland... this league has a totally different look.
From 2007 to now, steady good changes. From 96' to now, crazy changes.
The focus has to be running this league as a business, make money, not a lot, just enough to say... yes, this is a business and I want to grow it.
If the entire league loses money, then its just a matter of time before it all ends.
It's gone from a 2 to a 3
But is that good or bad. We want it number 1 don't we?
Poll is too vague ...
It's good of course, but on a global scale it's still got a ways to go in almost every department.
What's the confusion about? 1 is abysmal, 5 is stellar. Think of it like ranking a movie. 1 is the latest Adam Sandler Flick, 5 is the next Christopher Nolan movie.
I went with a 4. My rationalization is that it's better than I expected, but certainly not in the top 10 leagues in the world. Most importantly, I have really enjoyed following the league despite our horrible results.
The league has definitely improved in the 5 years that TFC has been involved. The newer franchises seem to be the backbone of the MLS now, along with LA and NYRB.
My one concern is the low salary cap. DP rules have helped with this, but it has to double for the next upcoming CBA.
I must be honest, when I first started coming to games and watching the MLS, I cringed a lot of the time at the standard of play and the whole chereography behind it. However, now we have a decent league structure and the what seems to be the makings of a decent youth system. As with any League, team and even sport, it really does take time.
As for the support, closer road games and added frequency of them will add to the atmosphere and enjoyment of travelling. Also, the difficult two years or so just gone as TFC fans has really strenghtened the support. It's separated the die hard fans from the jonny come latelys. I think this could also apply to other teams.
Portland and Seattle have had a fantastic impact on the League, in terms of recognising what the game is really about as a fan. With Montreal joining the MLS, this really is a chance to get more exposure and more city interest in Toronto behind the team.
And yet I tend to rate EPL 1 ... just checked the latest movie rankings. The current box office hit is listed as 1, not 5 ...
Point is, if you're going to do a poll. Make it clear what the scoring means.
I also gave it a 3. It's come along way from the first time i ever saw it and it seems like each year, it gets better. We are no where near the big leagues but we are no small windows either. Each year, you are seeing players getting loan spells abroad to play in more competitive leagues. The same is true of the trials. Having these players go oversees for a while shows that the quality has gone up even if it is only marginally. It also has the snowball effect. Training with the big boys helps these guys. Talking to Stephen, he loved it. If they get nothing else out of it, at least they are training instead of sitting on a couch
The league has made tremendous strides in terms of overall quality since TFC's inaugral season in 2007. I would currently rank MLS a solid 3 out of 5; slightly above average in comparison to domestic leagues worldwide.
I think it's now become a fairly solid league, comparable to the second half of the English Championship and somewhat better than Ligue 2 in France.
I think that it will only continue to improve. There are a lot of European players who would like to come to North America for the lifestyle, if only the money were more comparable, which will be more and more the case as revenues increase.
Those who watched MLS in it's early days can certainly appreciate how far it's come. It was certainly very bare-bones low-budget in those early, pre-DP, low-attendance, no TV revenue years. I only started following it in 2004-2005 and it's so far ahead of where it was then, it's like a different league.
Last edited by Oldtimer; 01-22-2012 at 04:24 PM.
MLS is a tough, physical league, that emphasizes speed, and features plastic fields, grueling travel, extreme weather, and incompetent refs. - NK Toronto
I started following MLS in 2003. I don't think you can compare what we have now to then.
I gave MLS a 3. My opinion is that it is very slowly improving and the CCL is a big part of the reason why.
I started following MLS the year before TFC came in, the difference between then and now is unbelievable. Some of you need to go back and watch some of those season 1 games to really understand how awful the product was.
doesn't solve the fact that garber's favourite teams get special favours...hence why it only gets a 3
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote