The standard of Major League Soccer continues to grow - be it in adding more franchises, in attendance figures, and as an on the field product.
As MLS continues it's rise, Andrew Keh of the New York Times writes about the idea of bringing in big names as Designated Players to continue the exposure of the league.
“As we deal with a more sophisticated soccer fan, we have to provide that audience with a brand of soccer that competes with what they can see on television, within the financial parameters that exist today for an emerging professional sports league,” M.L.S. Commissioner Don Garber said. “We’ve addressed that issue with the designated player rule.”
The match between the Los Angeles Galaxy and the Red Bulls on Friday could provide a strong indication of how far the league has progressed. Four designated players — the four highest-paid players in the league — will be on hand at the Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif., in a game that will be broadcast in high definition on ESPN2. (A fifth, Thierry Henry of the Red Bulls, did not travel to California because of a sprained knee.)
Beckham, who has yet to start a game this season as he continues his recovery from an Achilles’ tendon injury, and Donovan, the only American among 14 designated players currently in the league, are expected to play for the Galaxy. The Red Bulls are the only team with three designated players: Juan Pablo Angel, who has been with the club since 2007; Henry; and Rafael Marquez, who along with Henry joined the club over the summer from F.C. Barcelona, the Spanish champion.
“I’d like to say that we envisioned something like this,” Garber said of the star-studded affair. “But it’s fair to say the stars have sort of aligned with this game.”
When Beckham first arrived here, touring the country, turning matches into sideshows and painting himself as an ambassador (and his wife, Victoria, once known as Posh Spice from her days in the pop group the Spice Girls, as a soccer mom), his words were dismissed by some as lofty or, worse, hollow.
But within team front offices, there seems to be a near consensus now that Beckham’s value to the league has been immense. His mere presence has helped M.L.S. emerge from being an international soccer backwater and paved the way for stars like Cuauhtemoc Blanco, the Mexican playmaker who spent three successful years in Chicago, and the Red Bulls’ current stable of luminaries.
“Let’s be honest, from Blanco to Henry to Marquez — who is a huge name in any part of the country that has a Mexican fan base — those guys aren’t here if not for him,” Tom Payne, president of the Galaxy, said of Beckham.
And as the season winds down, various teams are searching for a roster centerpiece of their own.
Last month, Timothy J. Leiweke, the president and chief executive of AEG and the majority owner of the Houston Dynamo, sat down for dinner with the team’s chief operating officer, Chris Canetti, and Coach Dominic Kinnear. He gave them the green light to pursue a major international star. “His direct words were, I think, ‘Go big or go home,’ ” Canetti said.
Growing up in an era of the North American Soccer League, it is both exciting and scary to think of the rapid growth of the Designated Player - where it was the names of stars like Pele, Beckenbauer, Cruyff and Best that raised the NASL to great heights of exposure, it was also the price tag that went along with bringing those stars here to the US that ultimately led to the league's demise.
I hope the history lesson taught by the NASL can help MLS achieve new heights in their own model.
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