MLS website disaster

For a league run almost entirely by PR hacks, it's little surprise that Major League Soccer tries to spin and control information more tightly than the Kremlin. In that context, the recent launch of its new website was a PR catastrophe for a league hoping to capitalize on a World Cup year. The Fake Sigi blog has a revealing analysis of the clusterf**k. Perhaps the most revealing thing of all is that despite the length of the piece, there were still screwups he left out.

The Beckham hypothesis

I was watching Fox Soccer Report when one of the hosts cracked that they would be featuring a new segment this year called "All [David] Beckham, all the time." Then he noted that he was just kidding. Everyone knew he was joking: that segment is not at all new. They're just borrowing the idea from ESPN's soccer coverage.

Hopefully Beckham will stay at AC Milan, where he's on loan, and not come back to the US and suck all the oxygen out of the US soccer community for yet another year.

Bits and pieces

SOCCER NUMBERS
People like to point to Major League Soccer's attendance figures as 'proof' that the sport will never make it. Never mind that recent friendlies (exhibitions) by foreign teams in the US drew huge crowds, most in excess of 60,000. But even MLS' own numbers aren't bad, when you consider the relative youth of the league. This is MLS' 14th season and its average attendance is 15,559 per game. 1916 was the year of the 14th World Series. The highest average attendance of any single team in 1916 was 8,830 per game. It wasn't until the year of the 27th World Series that even a single Major League Baseball team average more than 15,559 per game. MLS average attendance is actually comparable to that of Brazilian soccer's top division and higher than Scotland's top flight (despite the distorting presence of two huge clubs) and only slightly less than the NBA and NHL, though their television figures remain far less than pro basketball's.



GOP SUPPORTS SOCIALIZED MEDICINE
North Country Public Radio's blog had a piece on a proposal by Democrats to eliminate "socialized medicine" in America and the GOP's rejection of that plan.


LET'S SEE IF I'M UNDERSTANDING THIS RIGHT...
The contention of the right-wing during BushCheney's war against civil liberties was that the government was competent enough to kidnap foreigners abroad and take away their freedom ad infinitum arbitrarily and without oversight (by randomly claiming they are 'suspected terrorists'), was competent enough to conquer and administer two foreign countries (obviously a piece of cake!) and competent enough to invade your privacy without law or oversight ("if you're not an evildoer, you have nothing to fear"), but not competent enough to ensure every American can get (and use!) decent health care without going bankrupt. Basically their contention is that our government is competent enough run social programs in foreign countries but not our own.


SARAH AND MAHMOUD
Salon.com muses the similarities between two theocratic, anti-elitist, right-wing populists: the "president" of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Sarah Palin, who recently cut and ran as Alaska's chief executive.


SARAH AND BIG GOVERNMENT
Speaking of the woman who couldn't handle a full term as governor of Alaska but thinks herself qualified to be president of the United States, Brian Mann of North Country Public Radio has a good blog piece exploring then-Gov. Palin's love for big government and for leeching of taxpayers in other parts of the country. Alaska was the number one state in the country in terms of total Federal spending per capita... The vast majority of that money came from taxpayers in other states, from California to New York. Mann's writing a number of pieces, both blog and magazine, exploring the disconnect between conservatives' professed antipathy toward government and public spending and their actual actions when push comes to shove.


NO CHILD LEFT INSIDE
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation website has a profile of Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Youth from Nature Deficit Disorder. He was in the state as part of his "No Child Left Inside" campaign.


FAIR TRADE
A segment on Radio Netherlands' Bridges With Africa program questions the real impact of fair trade on African farmers.


THE CASE FOR KINDNESS
The public radio program On Point had a good show exploring the nature of kindness and why it's important.

Says it all, really

I think it's telling that this article in The Times of London about American soccer fans' hostile reaction a a certain overhyped fraud was filed not in the paper's football section but under Life Style > Women > Celebrity.

Chump change

The soccer world's most overpaid fraud, who I won't dignify by mentioning his name, has returned to the US' Major League Soccer and make sure that the league's players who actually want to play here don't get any media attention.

I never thought his signing by the league was a good idea. I knew the circus he'd bring with him would distract from the league rather than enhance it. The media attention has been fleeting and directed at his brand, rather than at the soccer.

He's proven to be a failure as a player in this league. He's proven to not give a toss about playing here. It's a testament to his unprofessionalism that he can be useless against Colorado Rapids and FC Dallas but light it up against Inter Milan and Juventus.

This book excerpt gives a lot of insight into exactly how unprofessional he has been.

Frankly, no player in his right mind would rather play for Los Angeles Galaxy than AC Milan. I understand that. But I wish he'd stop insulting everyone's intelligence.

The league's doing fine without him. There are many other foreign players who are actually making an impact in the league because they comport themselves like they actually want to be here. They are far more deserving of media attention than this fraud who's more interested in being 'an ambassador' (ie: expanding his already substantial business interests) than being, you know, a soccer player.

He's boring. He's been more or less useless on the field. As for intelligence and charisma, he makes George W. Bush seem like a cross between Einstein and Churchill. He adds nothing to American soccer but aggravation. It's too bad he can't just go away.

While we may lack the tradition of other countries, the American soccer community isn't quite as stupid and gullible as this Chump, his handlers and many other foreigners (and, for that matter, the league's 'braintrust') seem to think.

Update: Props to Los Angeles' forward Landon Donovan for calling out the fraud. No one can question Donovan's commitment to the Galaxy or to American soccer.

Joke of the week

The current joke of the week award goes to Los Angeles Galaxy forward Landon Donovan*.

(*-the name Landon Donovan comes from the Latin for "If you need four goals from the penalty spot against Guam, I'm your man but don't expect me to show up at all against anyone half way decent.")

Landycakes, as he is derisively referred to, came out in the press this week and declared that his club were the "giants" of Major League Soccer.

This came after Donovan's side were humiliated by Toronto FC for only the Canadian team's second away win in its two-year history.

Here are the last three overall regular season finishes for the 'giants' of MLS...

2007: 11th of 13
2006: 9th of 12
2005: 9th of 12

This year, they are tearing it up at tied for 10th of 13.

Though in fairness to Donovan, being in Los Angeles has probably afflicted him with Lalasitis. One site describes the pathology as: a chronic infectious disease, caused by a excessive hyperbole, delusions of grandeur, and cognitive dissonance, usually verbal in origin but often congenital, and affecting almost any club or team in MLS that Alexi Lalas is General Manager of [presently, the Los Angeles Galaxy]. In fact the disease was named after footballer, Alexi Lalas. Symptoms first appear in brain, mouth, genitals, and nerves.

Lalas has declared Los Angeles as MLS' 'Superclub.'

As great as he is at self-promotion, it's too bad that he's a crap at his actual job. The last two teams he's general managed have been garbage. The previous one left town during his tenure.

I fully expect hype machines Donovan and Lalas to be hired consultants on the new Phoenix Cardinals' 'giants of the NFL' campaign.

Or by ESPN.

Beckham's comet threatens to flame out early

I promised myself I wasn't going to write a piece on the obnoxious Beckhamania, as I loathe all things overhyped. But it's so suffocating those of us who are already Major League Soccer (MLS) fans that I can't help but vent.

MLS is trying to expand its appeal in the country. 18 million Americans play soccer, 80 percent more than play baseball. Millions follow foreign soccer leagues from Mexico, England and Italy, but the majority of these do not follow MLS.

The American league's popularity is growing steadily. MLS is the 12th most well-attended first division in the world, in only its 12th year of existence. The league's average attendance of nearly 15,000 fans a game is not that far off the National Hockey League's (16,486) or the National Basketball Association's (17,757).

The league's popularity is growing but not fast enough for the league's increasingly ambitious investors. And the increasing popularity hasn't translated into significantly increased TV ratings for MLS games. Too many people in America are soccer fans but not MLS fans and the league wants to change that.

With much fanfare, English player David Beckham recently signed a 5 year, $250 million contract with MLS and Los Angeles Galaxy.

Beckham is no longer even one of the best 50 soccer players in the world, but he is probably one of the world's top five most recognizible athletes. He is a pop star in a city whose middle name is celebrity. Beckham's primary jobs are to sell jerseys, to put fannies in the seats of other MLS stadia and to get the league media exposure.

He's already succeeded on all three counts. Even non-soccer fans know generally that some big soccer player is coming to the US. Media attention has been through the roof.

Ticket sales have skyrocketed too. New England and Columbus have sold twice as many tickets for LA's visits as they normally do. New York's average attendance is about 11,500 but they've already sold 50,000 (and counting) for the Galaxy game.

There's only one problem: Beckham's injured. He hurt his ankle in early June with England. He was given a cortisone shot and played in his former club Real Madrid's last two league games, which made the injury even worse. He arrived about a month ago but has only played 12 minutes for the Galaxy in one friendly (exhibition game) and only participated in a single (photo op) training season.

Galaxy coach Frank Yallop is being sensible. He won't play Beckham until the player is fully fit, lest the prize investment be injured even more severely.

The whole situation has been a mess for MLS and Los Angeles, whose marketing strategies for the season were based around Beckhamania. The club changed its logos and colors the day Beckham was introduced. The Galaxy's schedule was backloaded by the league with away games to maximize Beckham's impact on attendance (LA already sells out most of its home games).

Toronto FC has already issued a statement warning fans that no refunds would be given if Beckham didn't play. New York has done the same.

You'd think this would be self-evident. Soccer players, even massively hyped ones, are human beings. This is a sport where starters may run 7 miles a game or more for 90 minutes (with only one short break); none of this run hard for 8 seconds and catch your breath for 45 seconds stuff for soccer players.

In such an environment, having healthy ankles isn't an afterthought. This isn't rec soccer where players get subbed off every 10 minutes. The ticket stub says FC Dallas vs Los Angeles Galaxy, not Carlos Ruiz vs David Beckham.

But there are some idiots out there who don't get it. After the recent Dallas-LA game, one soccer mom whined "My daughter has a broken ankle and she sat in the car and made it up here for the game."

Because she expected that a little girl sitting in a car for 220 miles was going to magically send good vibrations to cure Beckham's ankle?

"We weren't going to waste the tickets, but it was a big disappointment," said one man, of whom it would be deceitful to call a fan.

This was after a 6-5 LA victory which was arguably the most entertaining game ever played between two MLS teams and this guy's abiding memory of the game was disappointment about who didn't play. What could a player with one good ankle have possibly added to one of the most remarkable games ever played between two US clubs?

But that doesn't matter. To these people, soccer has nothing to do with it. They were drawn to the game based on celebrity, flash, glamour and glitz.

Given the irrationality of our culture, I'm surprised no one's filed a lawsuit... yet.

In a way, you can't blame them. The media hype would have you believe that Beckham is here to save soccer in America. The MLS would (rightly) have you believe that soccer in America doesn't need saving; Beckham's only trying to take it to the next level.

LA general manager Alexi Lalas said that Beckham could have a bigger legacy on American soccer than Pele did. Of course, that's not as an outrageous statement as it might seem.

The old North American Soccer League was in tatters only a few years after Pele retired. And the NASL was never really that healthy, outside a few extremely successful teams, when he was there. So while Pele's contribution while he played was huge, the legacy he left was fleeting. But the headlines are going to be "Lalas: Beckham can be bigger than Pele."

In that way, MLS is a victim of its own strategy. It invited huge media exposure. But it's media exposure the league can't control now. It can't shove the genie back into the bottle and say "Don't come back until Becks is healthy."

MLS and LA based its marketing strategy on Beckham. But now that Beckham's injured, as is always a possibility in sports, everyone's calling for patience.

Given the gargantuan hype he helped flame, Lalas sounds more than a bit disingenuous when he called for everyone to realize that when they buy a ticket to see the Galaxy play, they're buying it to see a team and not just one player.

In order to succeed, MLS must try to bring in real fans, not just the ADD types who drool over the celebrity culture. MLS can not pander to those who watch one of the most thrilling soccer games you can possibly imagine only to whine about the 'big disappointment' of someone not playing.

MLS should learn from the National Hockey League's experience. In the early and mid-90s, the NHL tried all kinds of lame gimmicks to bring in the [insert dramatic music] casual fan.

The league threw franchises left and right at places where most people's only experience of real ice was in their glass of soda. The NHL now has more teams in the Sun Belt than it does in Canada. Even Canadian icon Wayne Gretzky was sent to, you guessed it, Los Angeles.

Ask yourself: where is the NHL now? Here's an anecdote to explain why.

I'll never forget being in the Peace Corps and watching a tape someone had brought back of the 1996 NHL all-star game. The broadcaster (Fox) destroyed the telecast with all this amateurish graphics. There was a blue cloud that surrounded the puck. A red comet tail graphic was made every time the puck was shot. It was obnoxious.

The purpose of the graphics was to make the game 'more accessible' to the casual fan, who apparently found it difficult to follow a black puck against the backdrop of white ice.

There were eight of us watching the game: myself and three others were hockey fans, four were not. The four hockey fans thought the graphics were idiotic. The four non-fans thought the graphics were really omigawdsuperfantasticallyawesome.

Ten minutes into the game, the four hockey fans were still there, bitching about not being able to follow the puck. All four of the non-fans, so enamored with the hip graphics, had left the room.

Ten years later, the NHL remains mostly ignored in the US, outside the northeast and a few other cities.

Beckham is the MLS' version of the comet tail graphic designed to bring in the [insert dramatic music] casual fan. But once the newness factor wears off, will the comet flame out? Once these folks gotten their dose of Beckham's celebrity and another takes his place, will these paparazzi followers still be buying MLS tickets? And more importantly, in the meantime, will the MLS have turned off the hard core soccer fans who are far more important to the league's long term success?

Update: this blog in the notoriously anti-US soccer Guardian opines that some of the passion of soccer around the world is starting to seep into MLS. This shouldn't degenerate into the hooliganism, racism and general irrationality that prevails in some places, but it's certainly a welcome antidote to the stale, homogeneized experiences offered by most US (professional) sports venues.