You sure? I have an extra ticket (purchased yesterday, coincidentally enough, from a rabid Seagulls fan - I commended your blog to him).

That's an open invite to anyone unfortunate enough to be in Ohio tomorrow, btw.

Thanks AG, but I have to get stuff done tomorrow by the afternoon, after which I'll be getting very drunk watching an MLS quadruple-header (frankly, you have to drink heavily to get through an MLS quadruple-header, don't you?) at a bar owned oddly enough by Jay DeMerit.

Are you taking your camera? I'd love to get some photos of the day up on the blog.

It's not a very good camera, but I'll bring it along. Expect some .jpgs at about 3 AM Sunday.

Cheers. And by the way, once you've been in the Crew's crappy stadium, BMO Field will start to look and feel like Old Trafford. Especially now they have a stage at one end.

Columbus should become the first MLS team to build a second soccer-specific-stadium as soon as possible.

BMO is already a Theatre of Dreams.

Dreams are where we'll make the playoffs this year.

Another year of being a bitter and crusty fuck-the-worlder.

The thing is with promotion and relegation, I am tending to think it would work in the US. With the MLB, AAA teams get pretty good crowds along with AA. There are also quite a few Major League cities with minor league teams. There's an opportunity to have a truly countrywide/statewide league akin to college football or basketball.

The only reason the NFL-NBA can exist so well is because of the college farm/feeder system. Soccer is already seeing players skipping college.

The Relegation/Promotion thing is a built in thing that gives an immediate twist to sports coverage. Imagine the Mid Michigan Bucks making Division 1, or Beckham travelling to northern Nebraska because Warren Buffett decided to give a few million to a local team that bought enough players to get to the top division.

The bottom line is that we already have a gigantic league with college sports. It can be done, instead of this horrific footprint idea. Especially with gas prices going up, who the motherfucking fuck wants to travel 4 hours to see a fucking game ? That only works with NASCAR because there's only 1 or 2 races a year.

The vast majority of MLS fans want relegation/promotion. It would be a lot more fun.

But I just haven't seen a single sign it fits MLS' business plan, modelled on the NFL franchising system, which isn't really amenable to teams going up and down as it would provide a considerable risk to the value of them (who would pay $40m to buy into a second division team?).

I found the following comment on Bigsoccer (gasp) kind of interesting:

QUOTE:
The Latin American soccer culture includes a propensity to being a "walk up" crowd... repeated sellouts may effect that, I suppose... sales of tickets are often through local bodegas, who take a small cut on tickets... but this makes predicting a crowd and generating a crowd a real grass root problem (and also means that weather, opponent and other factors are likely to

This is really difficult to mesh with the business culture of US sports and I hope that they can get it right...

It's been noted that Chivas USA's season ticket sales, even taking into account their relatively poor crowds, are absolutely pitiful. I was also surprised to learn that despite the Fire's popularity in Chicago since Blanco arrived last July -- sold-out games for the most part -- it did not translate into a bump in season ticket sales (aside from Section 8). Yet I'm pretty sure we'll have good crowds as long as Blanco is playing.

But as the Hispanic crowd grows in MLS, that does raise the interesting issue of how that meshes with, as the poster says "the business culture of US sports". On the other hand, it might mean better playoff attendance, since this is more dependent on walk-up crowds -- and we saw a big bump in Chicago for that in 2008. The low crowds in the playoffs have always been one of the big disappointments about MLS.

Anyone who wants to catch the MLS "action" this weekend should note that Direct Kick has a free preview on all providers tomorrow. Let's see who can spot Gramsci first.

Look for the only 11 year-old in the crowd standing on his seat trying to get others to sing. I'll be next to him.

We were actually practicing songs so vigorously in the car on the way to his game tonight that I...um...well, let's just say I wasn't paying as close attention to the cab in front of me as I should have.

Nothing serious, but I'm not feeling very good about myself at the moment.

Shaka Hislop is the Guardian's (sorry I don't get the nameplay jokes) new MLS correspondent. He believes Chris Albright will really help out with the rookies on LA's backline.

Sigh.

Heh. Check out Shaka's views on Dallas:

QUOTE:
My old team, FC Dallas, should also be competitive this season. Their 22-year-old American midfielder Arturo Alvarez has all the makings of a top player, as comfortable on the ball as anyone I've seen since I was at West Ham with Joe Cole

This is quite amazing. Apparently Hislop continued playing top division football despite being legally blind since 2002.

Oh man, Antonio. I am at my parents' house and they just asked me what I was laughing at. Funny stuff.

It's nice that the Guardian has an MLS correspondent, and Shaka would seem to be perfect, with his long career in the US and England, but good lord. Next time someone finds an article from the British press about MLS that doesn't contain at least one factual error, please post it. I am serious about this.

jefe wrote:

QUOTE:
Shaka Hislop is the Guardian's (sorry I don't get the nameplay jokes) new MLS correspondent. He believes Chris Albright will really help out with the rookies on LA's backline.

Sigh.

Do they call him the "soccerball" correspondent? That's their usual charming way of talking about US soccer.

I noticed they read a comment on a recent podcast episode from an American critical of their disdain for MLS. James Richardson said something like "we should find someone we could talk to about it." I say we start a campaign for either imp or goldstone to be their MLS man.