MLS and Saudi Pro League

[Frozen Horse]

Crowds are up a little but the number of free and discounted tickets is growing. There have been so many false dawns, it's too soon by far to say soccer is growing.

Total MLS attendance is up almost 400% from 2002 to 2022.
Admittedly, there are many new franchises in that time: average attendance per match is only up 33%.
However, the fact that the average keeps rising DESPITE new teams being added tells us that there is still untapped interest in MLS

 

[Jonathan]

Nah. It's just money and location. Don't blame anyone for not wanting to live in Saudi Arabia. There's 0% chance it is because of competition.

I'm not arguing that it's because of the competition of the MLS by any means, but if he's being offered about a billion over two years to go to a place he's already a tourism ambassador for and he turns it down to go somewhere he'll be, still earning a lot, but presumably considerably less, it doesn't really make sense to put it down to just money. Think he essentially put it down to just wanting to take things a bit easier now and be out of the spotlight didn't cause he basically said he hated his time at PSG.

 

[JackG]

Hopefully the penny never drops for them.

I'm quite happy with the USA remaining a sleeping giant in the sport.

It might well be mrs Messi who has the final say

 

[jonny_greenings_sock]

I think the standard is raising in football in the US, the national team is objectively a lot better than it used to be and does really well in World Cups now. There’s quite a few North American players at top clubs around Europe.

Some of this will be down to MLS, some down to the WC they hosted in the 90s, some down to generally raised standards worldwide in coaching. And USA is an athletic powerhouse purely by size of population.

Kids playing soccer seems a lot more common in the US now, can our states-based posters confirm? I wonder if some of it is also down to football being a much safer sport for kids than American football, which has really taken a dark turn in recent years with the awareness of all the CTE.