This week I am going off on a rather extreme tangent, at least for me.
The MLS Cup was held Saturday, and thanks to DVR technology I sort of watched the game. By that I mean I did tape it, and had it on as sort of background as I read a series of Christmas flavoured tales of Sherlock Holmes.
Soccer, at least the outdoor variety, has never caught my attention. The game is generally just too boring, as an example Toronto FC earned a berth on the final defeating Columbus by a combined two-game score of 1-0. That is 180-minutes-plus in which one shot made it into a net large enough to drive a half ton truck. For me, that just doesn’t cut it.
But, I am fiercely Canadian. I watch only the Canadian Football League, never watch baseball in the regular season without the Toronto Blue Jays being one of the teams involved, and ditto the NHL, it’s Canadian team participation, or a channel switch. So with TFC in the final I was at least drawn to tune in.
The same two teams met in the MLS Cup in 2016, the game going down to a shoot-out, which is far from an ideal way to determine a league champion. Seattle came out on top.
Toronto followed up this season with a league-leading 69 points and 20 wins, considerably better than the Sounders who finished second in the west with 53 points and 15 wins.
With the game in Toronto, and boisterous fans aplenty in attendance TFC were favoured to win, and they dominated the game winning 2-0 a score flattering the Sounders who had some outstanding goaltending from Stefan Frei.
Jozy Altidore would score the game-winner for TFC and earn game MVP honours as well.
This was the second MLS final I have watched, and they have not made me a diehard fan yet, but the finals were watchable based on a Canadian team being in the mix. Outdoor soccer would still not be among my top-10 team sports to watch, and a TFC win while great to see, didn’t raise the game on my list.
That said I will admit MLS is becoming a much more significant sport league in North America, and it may end up as DVRed background noise as I read on occasion next season.
The average attendance of 21,692 in 2016 was a 57 per cent increase over the 13,756 average in 2000. The total attendance of 7,375,144 in 2016 is more than triple the 2,215,019 total of 2002, notes Wikipedia.
With 22 teams, TFC, Montreal and Vancouver in Canada, and plans to grow by at least half a dozen more franchises it’s hard not to recognize soccer is becoming embedded at the pro level in North America. The league added its 21st and 22nd teams for 2017: Atlanta United FC and Minnesota United FC, and Atlanta has set records in terms of crowds.
“A new MLS record was set in Week 28 when 70,425 fans packed Atlanta United’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium to establish a new MLS single-game attendance mark. And that crowd was only topped by crowds at Manchester United’s Old Trafford, Borussia Dortmund’s Signal Iduna Park and Bayern Munich’s Allianz Arena,” detailed www.mlssoccer.com
The league has plans to add Los Angeles FC in 2018 and a Miami team, pending a finalized stadium plan.
In January of this year MLS announced Charlotte, Cincinnati, Detroit, Indianapolis, Nashville, Phoenix, Raleigh/Durham, Sacramento, San Antonio, San Diego, St. Louis, and Tampa/St. Petersburg as its official expansion candidates. Then in November MLS announced Cincinnati, Detroit, Nashville and Sacramento as the finalists for the 25th and 26th expansion teams. The winners in this current round of bidding are planned to join in 2020, with expansion fees of $150 million and are expected to be announced soon.
Granted the $150 million franchise fee is far from the reported $600-$700 million the National Hockey League is looking at as it eyes another addition, but I suspect the return on investment with the MLS might come far sooner.
Evidence of the development of the MLS is right here, as a non-soccer fan still dedicated a column to the league, and the success of TFC is certainly creating a greater buzz in Canada.
