Latinos offer three unique ingredients: 1. Latino kids have superior ball skills and are more comfortable in tight spaces. That seems to be taken as gospel now by the soccer cognoscenti. 2. Latino kids “need” the game to bring them opportunity. 3. Those same kids often play — are even given no option but to play — “unstructured” soccer where they develop a confidence and style that elevates their game — much like African-American kids playing on inner-city blacktops changed basketball and the NBA.

The Latino skill and hunger combined with the athleticism and power of the traditional Anglo affiliated and college player blended by a special national team coach is the recipe we should be after.

– Brad Rothenberg on the value of Latino talent in the U.S. (via Soccer America)

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If we assume that Rothenberg’s characterization of Latino players is correct, why are Latino kids blessed with superior ball skills and more comfortable in tight spaces? The broad diversity of hues and hairs within the Latino community suggests that it has nothing to do with DNA. So if nothing intrinsically makes a player great from birth, what is it about our method of development in the United States that supposedly creates definable skill sets compartmentalized by ethnicity or race?

Perhaps it has more to do with our regimented way of thinking than it has to do with ethnicity or race.

The ease in which we attribute characteristics to groups may come with short-term benefits under the guise of inclusion, but in the long-term, such mechanical thinking can be detrimental to player development because patterns of thought often have a habit of snowballing into gross generalizations based on perceived appearances. These generalizations, when based on ethnicity and race, can impact behavior, and specifically, how we identify, develop, and allocate players.

Rather than focusing on the recognition and attribution of skills to ethnic or racial groups, the analytical goal of group analysis should be to deconstruct what it is about certain structures that produce desired results. But we can’t be satisfied with the resulting characterizations. The next step has to be ensuring that the resulting formula is available to all.

And that’s the underlying, problematic effect of Rothenberg’s perfectly appropriate, short-term recipe. The language used to describe Latino players is too matter of fact, too permanent. It comes off as satisfied with the conclusion that ethnicities have hardened characteristics, which is a regimented way of thinking that compromises our ability to get the best out of all of our players, especially when it comes to developing a long-term vision for player development.

Let’s explore a bit, shall we?

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When a young player shows up for practice, a coach has to make a decision. “Where do I play this player?” Decisions are based on size, strength, speed and technical ability, but often other subconscious factors rooted in internalized ethnic and racial conditioning may also have a hand determining how coaches develop players.

The intersection of ethnicity / race and player development is a familiar space in American sports, particularly in American football. In American football, there has been a long-standing narrative about the influence of racial stereotyping on position assignments and responsibilities. There was a time when the common perception was that an African-American quarterback meant an option quarterback, a quarterback primarily reliant on running and athleticism, as opposed to a more conventional, white pocket passer. Although this mode of thinking has noticeably shifted over the last two decades, we aren’t far removed from a time when position assignments were dictated by rigidly formulaic casting, with African-American players starring as the naturally gifted athletes, and white players, the more cerebral option.

In 1968, the Oakland Raiders drafted Eldridge Dickey, making Dickey the first African-American quarterback ever to be drafted in the first round. Dickey, however, never played a single down at quarterback for the Raiders and was used as a receiver and kick returner. His story matches that of countless African-American quarterbacks who were seen at the college and NFL levels as athletes first, and reupholstered into anything but quarterbacks.

It wasn’t until 1978 that the next African-American quarterback, Doug Williams, would be drafted in the first round by the Washington Redskins. Williams went on to become the first African-American quarterback to win a Super Bowl.

Warren Moon, a player also from the class of ’78 who now ranks fifth all-time in NFL passing yards – ahead of legends Joe Montana and Johnny Unitas – graduated from the University of Washington and went undrafted. Moon, like Dickey ten years earlier, was also asked by NFL scouts to consider a change of position, in spite of running a pro-style offense in college and being named Rose Bowl MVP his senior year. He subsequently signed with the Canadian Football League’s Edmonton Eskimos, where he played his first seven years of professional football before joining the NFL to terrorize defenses as a conventional pocket passer.

It wasn’t until the 1990s when we started seeing African-Americans taking snaps at quarterback as regularly as they were lining up at other positions on the field. Since then, we have seen positive developments in how we perceive African-American quarterbacks, but it has been a long, arduous road with plenty of lessons and road bumps along the way.

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The last fifty years in the United States has taught us that legislative attempts and public cries to curb the effects of stereotyping are never enough to erase patterns of thought and behavior that have been embedded in our culture for centuries. Even the most enlightened among us are vessels of subconscious generalizations about ethnicity and race, simply because we are all inundated with common themes that are reinforced everywhere we look. That’s not just in sport, but also in politics and almost every other facet of our lives. A pre-Barack Obama example of this would be if someone asked you to think of an American president. My guess is that most people would think of a white man, and there is nothing inherently racist or discriminatory about that visualization. It is simply a side effect of people in a society tapping into a Rolodex of memories that is full of little, white cards with pictures of white, male presidents. But even if we concede that ethnic or racial generalizations are often backed by reflex rather than malicious intent, we should realize that our conditioning does have real world implications that influence how we vote, but even more broadly, how we allocate responsibility.

The same paradigm can be transferred to the struggles African-American quarterbacks faced when trying to break into the NFL for most of the league’s history. We know that outspoken proponents of segregation in the NFL, such as former Redskins owner George Marshall, who openly lobbied for the exclusion of African-Americans from the league, have played a prominent role in marginalizing African-American players. The Marshalls of the world are never hard to single out. But Marshalls alone can’t be responsible for implementing such widespread, exclusionary practices. It takes a village to exclude, even though many of the villagers aren’t operating with the same level of malice. It is just as likely that part of the reason why African-Americans continued to struggle to break into the quarterback position for so long, well past the Marshall era, is that those in charge of personnel decisions were also partially influenced by thought processes developed in an NFL era that was devoid of African-American quarterbacks, in a world where African-Americans were commonly seen as athletic and instinctual, and therefore, less capable of fulfilling the cerebral duties of a “proper” quarterback.

The story of African-American quarterbacks teaches us that we need to be conscious of ethnic and racial generalization. When you look at some of the great African-American quarterbacks who have graced the league since the early 90s, you have to wonder how many players have fallen through the cracks or been dismissed purely based on appearance.

Now, taking this principle over to the soccer field, are we in danger of repeating the same ethnic / racial compartmentalization mistake? The concern alluded to earlier is that the long-term effect of broad generalizations can be restricted player development opportunities. As much as it may be a valid observation that the Latino community has produced skillful, hungry players, Latino players can be more than skillful and hungry, just as they can lack both traits. But this problematic framing isn’t isolated to our regimented Latino characterizations; it also rears its head elsewhere in American soccer, particularly in the curious case of the American number 10.

In soccer, the closest thing to a quarterback is the traditional No. 10, perhaps more accurately described in the modern game as the playmaking midfielder, a player who operates as the brains of the team, dictating the flow, tempo, linking offense and defense, and having the technical ability to unlock defenses and maximize the utility of surrounding players. We are familiar with seeing No. 10s come out of Africa and the Caribbean, but African-American No. 10s are still a rarity at the highest levels.

Before continuing, it is necessary to emphasize that I am specifically referring to African-American players born and raised in the U.S. system, not players from Africa, the Caribbean, or players who emigrated to the United States after learning to play the game abroad. And there is a distinction to be made. Many players from Africa or the diaspora develop at a young age in communities immersed in soccer, in environments where creativity and expression are encouraged. Think Steve Zakuani, Charles Renken, Freddy Adu, Darlington Nagbe. But in the States, we seem to have a problem identifying and developing African-American versions of these players from scratch, which wouldn’t be so curious if there weren’t African-American players coming through at virtually every other position.

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Here’s a game to play at home:

• Name a few African-American forwards.
• Name a few African-American wingers.
• Name a few African-American fullbacks.
• Name a few African-American centerbacks.
• Name a few African-American goalkeepers.
• Name a few African-American holding/defensive midfielders.
• Now name a few African-American, playmaking midfielders.

One of these exercises is considerably harder than the others.

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This disparity becomes more obvious when you look at the increasingly diverse U.S. men’s national team pools (both at senior and youth levels) and at professional leagues around the country. Our players are multilingual, born in the States and abroad, and come from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. Access isn’t universal yet, but there are now more opportunities to break through than ever. Even African-American players, a group historically under-represented in soccer, are increasingly exceling at the highest levels of the game. Today, you can see African-American goalkeepers, wingers, holding midfielders, central defenders and fullbacks at major clubs across the United States and Canada. We are even seeing a significant number of these players moving on from our domestic leagues to European leagues. But given the emergence of African-American players across the field, the lack of African-American faces among the fraternity of midfield playmakers is a curious omission.

Is this phenomenon merely a coincidence, or might it have something to do with the same wiring that impacted the rate at which African-American quarterbacks were introduced into the NFL? It’s something that I’ve tried to understand for years. I have seen countless speedy, African-American players played at forward, on the wings, or at fullback, enough to wonder whether something happens during the development cycle that has historically ended up funneling African-American players to other positions. Thinking back to the NFL example, I can’t help but wonder whether the bottleneck that has prevented us from seeing African-American playmakers might lie with youth coaches and those making personnel decisions, people whose vision and worldviews largely dictate positional development.

One take on a youth soccer coach’s job description is that the coach should be responsible for a young player’s all-around development as opposed to developing specialized players. While specialization at too young of an age can yield results, it can also be a gateway to compartmentalization and hinder the development of robust skill sets that could end up paving the way to broader opportunities at a variety of positions.

Players develop a great deal by age 13-14. By that age, many coaches will have instilled certain traits in players that are hard to shake. If you are fast and placed on the wings, you will frequently tell future coaches that you are a winger, and the coaches will see your pace and often continue to frame you in that mold. Wingers can be easily moved to forward or even to fullback, but rarely do the skills of a pure winger translate into a playmaking role. Similarly, bigger, not-very-technical players likely won’t see time on the wings, but rather at center back, defensive midfielder, up top as a target player, or maybe even in goal. Whether we like to admit it or not, there is enough evidence to suggest that pigeonholing a player early as a specific type of player can fundamentally shape the player’s developmental trajectory, which isn’t necessarily an awful thing, as long as we don’t fall into a pattern of positioning players on the flawed basis of ethnicity or race.

Let’s revisit the presidential visualization exercise, but this time, we’ll apply it to the playmaker role. Visualize an American playmaker, a No. 10. What does he look like? It probably isn’t a far-fetched assumption that for many youth coaches, he isn’t African-American, which in and of itself is far from criminal. But how does one come up with that picture? Does it matter? Many youth coaches consciously determine a player’s position upon evaluating common attributes such as speed, physical build and technique, but is there a subconscious component to the decision making process that also appropriates value based on race or ethnicity? It is certainly feasible that the inability to see historical examples of, in this example, successful African-American playmakers, can make a coach less likely to visualize African-American players playing in the playmaking role, and therefore, less likely to develop African-Americans in a manner that allows them to succeed at the highest levels as playmakers. Again, this is not an example suggesting malicious intent, but rather one that recognizes a historically prominent side effect of visual conditioning and generalizing.

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When we begin to get too comfortable attributing skills and traits along ethnic or racial lines, we need to check ourselves. This goes for youth coaches, commentators, journalists, and anyone else whose language frames how we think about the game.

The idea that Latinos are the purveyors of skill and hunger is dangerous precisely because it leads us down the same generalized path that lead to the long-standing notion that African-American quarterbacks weren’t thinkers, and furthermore may partially explain why we have historically struggled to develop African-American playmakers.

We must recognize that our language matters. That’s not to say, for instance, that we can’t recognize the tremendous impact that Latino communities have had and will continue to have on U.S. soccer. But we must be careful about crossing that line where we begin thinking of Latino players, or any category of player, in a monolithic way that doesn’t differentiate between people, abilities, and potential. At the end of the day, you can’t teach DNA, but everything else can be learned. Therefore, our focus should be on learning about how certain communities develop desired skills and ensuring that those lessons are shared, rather than doubling down on stale thinking or tired, ethnic talking points if the ultimate goal is to maximize the potential of American players of all backgrounds in every position.

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Yesterday on the American Soccer Show, Ted Westervelt, founder of Soccerreform.us, shared his views on why he finds the current MLS structure to be an impediment to the soccer’s growth in the United States. He then attempted to lay out his alternative vision for the professional U.S. soccer system. After listening to Westervelt deliver his argument using a variety of metaphors and anecdotes (there’s talk of wolves and various canine experiments), I realized that several important details were missing from his vision (although a more robust argument can be found on his here on his website). As a public service, I want to help Westervelt out.

Westervelt’s basic argument seems to be that MLS is a domesticated animal that lacks authenticity. The lack of authenticity, he argues, creates a disconnect that accounts for the gap between the current MLS audience and the potential domestic soccer audience.

Westervelt believes that instituting the type of promotion/relegation (pro/rel) system that we see in leagues around the world would be a significant step towards attracting a much broader domestic audience. He suggests that one of MLS’ key failures is that the league props up owners by ensuring that teams can’t get relegated. Even though Westervelt admits that minimizing risk is a key component to successfully attracting investors to a young, American soccer experiment, he contends that these artificial protective measures ultimately result in a watered down version of the game that has minimal appeal, limits interest in the domestic game, and rewards mediocrity.

Westervelt’s argument, although a challenging one, isn’t devoid of sense. Strengthening the entire professional soccer system may be a better approach to build a national audience than simply propping up a handful of MLS teams over and over again regardless of performance.

But a significant question that Westervelt did not address is why he thinks that a move to pro/rel will shrink the authenticity gap and expand the domestic soccer audience in the United States.

Like many people, I can think of many reasons why instituting pro/rel at this stage could be catastrophic.  For instance, the risk of relegation to a big market team that has already poured millions of dollars into a business that doesn’t yet make a profit is substantial. Loss of investors, revenue, jobs and prestige is not a welcome proposition. Also, failure with one team would only breed uncertainty with others. And uncertainty is the mortal enemy of investment and growth. The doomsday scenario is that one team’s precipitous decline could lead to a domino effect resulting in a collapsed league.

But even with all that, there is an argument for why pro/rel is the right approach to growing the domestic game, rather than a horribly conceived path to Armageddon, that doesn’t involve rocket science, hallucinogens or an advanced degree.

Here it is. Opportunity to advance is marketable. Even when advancement doesn’t happen, the basic idea that it can happen has the potential to spark unprecedented interest at lower levels of U.S. professional soccer. As we’ve all learned by now, hope can be a powerful tool.

Currently, there are small to medium-sized clubs all over the country. The more prominent clubs outside of MLS played in the D2 Pro League and the USL Second Division, and will probably begin next season in either the NASL or the USL Pro League (which is an entirely different story for another time). These teams are in Miami, Rochester, Baltimore, Richmond, Charlotte, Orlando, Tampa Bay and many other major metropolitan areas.

The problem, however, is that for most of these teams, the reward for success is to show up again at the same place, usually against an assortment of teams from the same general pool, and try to do it all over again. For some soccer fans, that’s just fine. But you can see how that process might get a little monotonous, especially for a sport that hasn’t quite caught on as a spectator sport and faces more and more challenges from foreign leagues every year.

But consider how the story changes when the incentives change. Would it have an impact in your community if you knew that your local, lower league team could end up playing at Red Bull Arena and that Thierry Henry would be making the trip to your local ground next year if you finish in the top two league places? Probably. That one incentive has the potential to change how a community views its team. You can see how it might draw investors, increase attendance, local coverage, and ultimately national coverage as seasons draw to a close.

Today, for example, the Rochester Rhinos (formerly of the D2 Pro League) playing the Los Angeles Galaxy isn’t a significant national draw, nor is it a particularly fascinating national story. But if the story involved Rochester winning promotion, attracting additional investment, and then making it to the playoffs where they face the Galaxy and David Beckham, now you have a national story. That’s something that people could watch. The only thing people love as much as their home team is an underdog.

Americans are suckers for the David and Goliath story in sports. The media knows this. It’s why you find yourself cheering on random athletes in deadlifting competitions during the Olympics. And it’s why they play tear-inducing Incredible Hulk music while telling a story about the most tragic Olympian in a given competition. Context is everything. With pro/rel, there will be a David with Incredible Hulk music, if not several, every year.

As it stands, MLS doesn’t really have Davids or Goliaths. What we have is a bunch of Goliath’s younger brothers fighting each other year after year. Sure, interest will grow. But is this approach the most effective way to create a national audience? Maybe not. Or if you’re Westervelt, no.

But there’s the other side of the promotion argument to consider. Relegation.

No MLS owner wants to shell out $40 million for the right to be in MLS, on top of the extra millions to run a club, just to get relegated a few seasons later. Why would a major investor think that entering into an unproven market is a worthwhile endeavor and push, for instance, to finance a soccer specific stadium when revenues could very well evaporate with one poor season? Playing in a lower league against relatively unknown teams is not the path to significant revenue generation.

So for MLS owners, the sell can’t be a short-term sell because there is no short-term benefit to relegation. The focus, rather, should be on the how the spectacle that’s created in the medium-term will create better stories, which will, in turn, draw more national viewers, investors, and attention in the long-term. Removing salary caps will encourage owners to invest in personnel to provide the best chance to avoid relegation. For the responsible, the desire to spend huge sums of money on big names will be tempered by finding a balance between purchasing established players and developing players internally in academy systems.

It isn’t inconceivable that the overall package would be more lucrative to the businesses that truly believe they can be good businesses. It goes back to a fundamental tenant of American business: Competition creates better, more efficient businesses and improves overall quality. If you suck at what you do, you deserve to suffer the consequences.

However, Westervelt’s opposition comes from a place where artificially strengthening an elite group of teams makes sense because of the history of failed clubs and leagues in the United States. Looking back down at the lower domestic leagues, the suggestion that we need to be mindful that these teams routinely go out of business after a few years is certainly relevant, but at the same time, perhaps slightly out of context.

Maybe the reason some of these teams fail is because there’s already an artificial ceiling on what they can achieve. A lower league team with no prospect of vertical movement can only offer a limited dream to fans. However, a lower league team with a mid-size budget where there is the prospect of promotion might be able to attract investors who lack interest or capital to buy an MLS franchise. In fact, these are exactly the types of businesses that draw investment, especially in a shaky economic environment; businesses that require lower investment, but have huge potential upsides with the proper management and vision. It isn’t hard to see how a promotion model could entice lower league investors/owners to bring in new, bigger-name players, which could draw greater support from local communities as teams fight for promotion to a more competitive league, and ultimately, the most competitive league.

It’s difficult to deny the spirit and excitement around promotion and relegation once you’ve seen it in other leagues around the world. Each season brings new hope of possible promotion, which in itself, seems enough to draw support and national attention to teams that would otherwise fly under the radar. I mean, who cared about Blackpool at year ago?

In the U.S., that hope could very well translate into increased support, not necessarily for 15-20 MLS teams, but for fans of hundreds of other clubs around the country that may never buy into a big market vision unless there was a possibility, however slight, that their local team could one day meet that big market team in regular, meaningful competition. It sounds somewhat delusional, but you must have recognized by now that delusion and sport go hand in hand. Every year, even though one team will be the winner, all of us stumble into the season hoping that our team will be the victor. Sporting fan bases aren’t built on reality, they’re built on hope.

Looking at it this way, Westervelt’s vision of soccer utopia does make some sense. With pro/rel, the soccer narrative across all participating leagues becomes decreasingly stagnant and increasingly fascinating. And isn’t creating fascination in the sport from the bottom to the top what we want to do? In a nutshell, that’s why pro/rel might be a very reasonable solution to developing a more interested, vested U.S. soccer audience.

P.S. Remember, I’m not saying I agree with Westervelt, and I have yet to hear how the transition would be implemented, but I can see the outlines of why this vision may make sense. I’ll leave it to Westervelt, however, to explain the how because I can’t see this happening anytime soon.

Take it away, Mr. Piano Guy.

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Manchester City has moved into our backyard. City recenly announced a partnership with New York City-based Downtown United Soccer Club (DUSC) and Gotham Girls Football Club (GGFC). The goal of the partnership is to expand DUFC’s inner-city outreach program, City Soccer Initiative (CSI). CSI serves over 3,000 inner-city kids with a curriculum focused on critical life skils , fighting childhood obesity, and improving the general quality of life in underserved communities.

It’s good to see that City isn’t just using its wealth to buy every player on the planet. As part of the agreement between the parties, City will be providing ten scholarships every year to join DUSC and GGFC youth programs. City will also share its coaching expertise directly training DUSC and GGFC coaches and players, and will create exchange programs and a series of camps in New York City. The first Manchester City camp will be held the week of July 19 on Randall’s Island and will be led by Alex Gibson, former head coach of City’s youth academy.

Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, doesn’t it?

To learn more about Downtown United Soccer Club, visit www.dusc.net.

To learn more about Gotham Girls Football Club, visit www.gothamgirls.org.

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“ . . .  we are moved by the identity of the persons who act, rather than the label of their hats.”

— American Needle, Inc. vs. National Football League

Sometimes we get into the nitty gritty over here.  That’s because deep down we’re geeks, and more often than not, lawyers. I understand that sometimes it’s difficult to distinguish between the two, but that partially explains why we find Major League Soccer so interesting.

Major League Soccer’s single entity structure has been the subject of heated debate, especially at the beginning of the year when the collective bargaining agreement between MLS and the Major League Soccer Players Union expired.  Clive wrote a great piece outlining the single entity issue a few months ago.   With the Supreme Court’s recent decision in American Needle, Inc. vs. National Football League, revisiting the single entity issue is worth another look.

Sports leagues and fans have been eagerly awaiting the American Needle decision for a host of reasons, one of which was to see how the Supreme Court would address the NFL’s single entity argument, which I’ll briefly touch on below.  In a unanimous 9-0 decision, the Court ruled in favor of American Needle, holding that the NFL is not a single entity at least as applied to intellectual property licensing.

Although some may think that there are clear, hardened implications for MLS, the reality is that American Needle’s application to MLS is complex. But before delving into the ruling’s application to MLS, it is important to understand the Supreme Court’s decision.

American Needle is About the NFL and Intellectual Property Licensing

The narrow issue addressed by the Supreme Court was whether the NFL’s exclusive licensing agreement with National Football League Properties (NFLP) to develop, license and market intellectual property independently owned by the league’s 32 teams should be subject to antitrust scrutiny.

The NFL argued that it was a single entity, at least with respect to the challenged conduct, and therefore, its collusive conduct cannot be construed as anticompetitive because the teams, the NFL, and NFLP were incapable of conspiring under current antitrust law since a single entity cannot conspire with itself.

The single entity argument for sports leagues provides the basis for engaging in collusive behavior among competitors that would otherwise be illegal.  One of the keys to successfully making the single entity case is showing that there is a unity of economic interest among parties to an agreement, which can pave the way to permissible joint action.  But when separate economic actors pursing separate economic interests engage in concerted action, there is a disunity of interest that effectively deprives the market of independent centers of decision-making.

The Supreme Court unanimously shot down the NFL’s argument, ruling that the NFL does not have a unity of interest that would remove it from the jurisdiction of our antitrust laws. Writing the Court’s opinion, Justice Stevens explained:

The NFL teams do not possess either the unitary decision making quality or the single aggregation of economic power characteristic of independent action. Each of them is a substantial, independently owned, independently managed business, whose “general corporate actions are guided or determined” by “separate corporate consciousnesses,” and whose “objectives are” not “common.” They compete with one another, not only on the playing field, but to attract fans, for gate receipts, and for contracts with managerial and playing personnel. Directly relevant here, the teams are potentially competing suppliers in the market for intellectual property. When teams license such property, they are not pursuing the “common interests of the whole” league, but, instead, the interests of each “corporation itself.” (citations omitted)

Justice Stevens continues:

While teams have common interests such as promoting the NFL brand, they are still separate, profit maximizing entities, and their interests in licensing team trademarks are not necessarily aligned. Nor does it matter that the teams may find the alleged cooperation necessary to compete against other forms of entertainment. Although decisions made by NFLP are not as easily classified as concerted activity, the NFLP’s decisions about licensing the teams’ separately owned intellectual property are concerted activity and thus covered by §1 for the same reason that decisions made directly by the 32 teams are covered by §1. In making the relevant licensing decisions, NFLP is “an instrumentality” of the teams. (citations omitted)

Ah, legalese.  So what does that mean in English?  Two notable points stand out.

First, professional sports leagues calling themselves single entities are not single entities just because they call themselves that by name.  How leagues behave (meaning how ownership and control are allocated) determine whether there is an economic unity of interest, which determines whether certain collusive behavior is beyond the purview of our antitrust laws.

The NFL’s characteristics that were determinative in the Supreme Court’s ruling included the fact that: (1) licensing decisions are made by the 32 potential competitors, each owning its share of the jointly managed assets; and (2) the teams are “separately controlled potential competitors with economic interests that are distinct from NFLP’s financial well-being.”

Who controls the relevant assets is determinative.  In this case, individual, competing NFL teams with distinct economic interests own and control their respective assets, which is problematic for parties simultaneously claiming to be a single entity.

Second, the Supreme Court’s ruling applies specifically to the NFL’s behavior as applied to intellectual property, and is not a blanket or definitive ruling that necessarily applies to other types of concerted action between NFL teams.  In fact, the Court recognized permissible reasons for league members to engage in concerted action, notably reasoning that:

The fact that NFL teams share an interest in making the entire league successful and profitable, and that they must cooperate in the production and scheduling of games, provides a perfectly sensible justification for making a host of collective decisions.  While that same interest appliesto the teams in the NFL, it does not justify treating them as a single entity for §1 purposes when it comes to the marketing of the teams’ individually owned intellectual property. Other features of the NFL may also save agreements amongst the teams. We have recognized, for example, “that the interest in maintaining a competitive balance” among “athletic teams is legitimate and important.” It is, however, unquestionably an interest that may well justify a variety of collective decisions made by the teams. (citations omitted)

This leaves the door open for certain types of undefined concerted action between competitors in a sporting league, but certainly not to concerted action where assets are individually owned and controlled by teams.

MLS is Not the NFL

For MLS, one definitive rule to pay attention to from American Needle is that professional sports leagues in the United States that are structured like the NFL will be subject to antitrust scrutiny for similar behavior in intellectual property licensing. The saving grace for MLS, however, is that it is not structured like the NFL.

Major League Soccer clearly spent a lot of time analyzing other leagues to figure out what areas of operation it needed to own and control to give it the best shot of being legally construed as a single entity based on behavior, rather than name.

Consider the factors that led the Supreme Court to say that the NFL is not a single entity (even though it is applied to intellectual property) and compare them to MLS. In the NFL, individual teams own and control players, negotiate player movement independent of the league, and own the rights to their respective intellectual property.   In MLS, player contracts are negotiated with the league.  Players are signed to MLS, rather than to individual teams.  Salaries are paid by the league.  For the most part, player movement is ultimately determined by MLS.  National sponsors are partners with the league, not with the teams. For MLS to be treated like the NFL in American Needle, it would have to behave similarly to the NFL.  Clearly, it doesn’t.

So if you’re one of those who wonder why MLS is configured the way it is, and why, for example, teams don’t negotiate player contracts, now you know why.  Individial teams’ autonomy to negotiate and control player contracts, for instance, would create greater disunity of interest, which would make MLS more likey to lose a single entity argument. You can argue that this decision is unfair to the players or doesn’t make economic sense, but MLS either disagrees with you or simply believes that single entity is what it needs to preserve the league’s viability.  Whether MLS needs single entity to succeed is a separate issue.

American Needle Shouldn’t Make MLS Lose Sleep

Broadly assuming that single entity systems are in danger as a result of American Needle is a mistake.  What you can assume is that single entity is a more problematic argument for leagues structured like the NFL.  As explained above, MLS is not.

However, the more MLS decides to start behaving like the NFL (e.g. allocating control to individual teams), the more likely they will be subject to a successful challenge regarding its behavior.  But as it stands, the unique structural and behavioral elements of MLS means that American Needle probably won’t make MLS lose any sleep.  If anything, expect MLS to hold firm on its control over most of its quirky structural elements as a means of ensuring that it can successfully defend itself against future single entity challenges.

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3. MLS Labor Negotiations: What We Learned (or Didn’t) From The Countdown to 5PM

Soccer players aren’t born diving. It’s not like Cristiano Ronaldo stepped out of his mother’s womb and tripped over the doctor’s leg, rolling around in agony until a referee awarded a free kick.  At some point during the course of Cristiano Ronaldo’s career, something happened to him and the rest of his contemporaries that provided the right incentives to dive whenever presented with the opportunity.

Speaking of divers, Didier Drogba is playing pickup soccer with some friends and brushes against a defender. Do you expect his hulking frame to crumble to the ground?  If you believe, like I do, that he doesn’t go to ground in these circumstances, you’ve got to wonder what it is that leads to his vulnerability in matches that matter.

The difference between Drogba’s pickup match and English Premier League (EPL) matches is that EPL matches mean something.  For Drogba, ensuring that Chelsea finishes as high in the table as possible while maintaining a level of play that elevates his personal status requires taking advantage of every possible opportunity to win.  As the cost of losing matches or face increases, so does his propensity for diving.

The cost of losing has increased exponentially over the years.  These days each place in the final EPL standings is worth almost £1 million.  For many clubs, losing the money at stake can be crippling.  When Manchester United won the league back in 1993, they recived a winners’ check for £815,210.  Nottingham Forest finished the 1993 season at the bottom of the table, collecting £37,055.  Last year, Manchester United brought in a whopping £15,220,000 just for winning the league. This year Chelsea will be receiving a nice check for just over £16 million.  Portsmouth, this year’s worst team, will be awarded £800,424. Victories clearly mean a lot more these days.  And if victories mean more, so does every opportunity to gain an advantage.

Diving for an advantage is not a new invention.  But I do recall a time when the slightest contact with an opposing player’s shadow didn’t instinctively lead to writhing around on the pitch in agony.  Today, the diving pandemic seems to be touching everyone, even defenders and goalkeepers.

We’ve progressed from a time when only a handful of players dived to everyone diving –  yes, even English players.  No one can credibly claim anymore that it’s just the foreign players who embellish, even though the English media thoroughly enjoys demonizing foreign players for diving while regularly downplaying the misdeeds of English players.  Over the past few years, it’s become clear that the current crop of top English players, from John Terry at the back, through Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard in midfield to Wayne Rooney up top, are all prone to exaggeration.  The game is no longer about pride and hard work; it’s about gaining any advantage possible to get further.  It’s not just Drogba and Eduardo; they’re all doing it.

It’s precisely for this reason that Thierry Henry’s handball against Ireland in World Cup qualifying wasn’t particularly that outrageous.  The anger from the Hand of Henry derived from the fact that Henry wasn’t caught, not that he cheated.  The hypocrisy from commentators bordered on comical given that we watch cheaters every week, barely mustering enough energy for fake outrage.  The fact of the matter is that gaining an advantage by any means necessary has become the norm, even in England.

Players have been diving well before the crazy money arrived.  So it’s not just about the money.  For some players, before serious money took over, their currency was style.  Take a look and you’ll notice a correlation between flashy players and diving.  Cristiano Ronaldo, Nani, Dani Alves and basically anyone who does more stepovers than necessary will also fall more than necessary.  For these players, interfering with the aesthetics of their game will be met with diving and other forms of embellishment.  For these players, their style is their brand, and their brand has always been their meal ticket.  So the Cristiano Ronaldos of the world take every advantage to uphold the sanctity of their brand.  They either beat you and win, or fall over because you cheated.  Either way, they win.  That’s the diver’s modus operandi.

But now it’s not just the flashy players who need the advantage.  Now it’s everyone, and money may explain why all the kids are doing it. It’s too costly not to.

The more money that comes into the game, the less likely we’ll see a reversal in this trend.  The larger the global audience for the top leagues, the more likely players will continue diving to maintain their personal and club’s status.  And the more frequently players dive, the greater the likelihood that kids growing up will seek to emulate their heroes.  It’s a vicious circle.

To dive or not to dive.  Clearly, players have chosen the former.  The advantage derived from diving at this point clearly outweighs the advantages of staying on your feet, or having pride, or whatever it was that encouraged players to stand instead of fall.

Now that the diving trend has momentum, it will be hard to stop. So get used to players diving, especially in big matches and in major leagues.  Sadly, this is only the beginning.

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Something wrong?  No worries.  Just rub some money on it.

In the United States, conventional thinking suggests that investing in an assortment of bells and whistles is necessary to create top professional players.  Well, maybe we’re over-complicating things.

Here is a list of just a few items on the laundry list that U.S. soccer culture implies are required to develop a top level professional player:  (1) expensive cleats that bend the ball for you, (2) access to transportation or a car, (3) regular structured training sessions from U8 to through the end of high school, (4) access to the best competition available regionally or nationally, (5) athletic trainers, and (6) soccer-specific stadiums, or at least immaculately manicured lawns.

Given all that we seem to think goes into the development of a top professional player, why is it that countries with scores of kids who play barefoot, lack access to reliable transportation, play on dirt pitches, and lack access to coaching and facilities develop players who turn into some of the most technically-sound players in the world?

The answer in one word?  Imagination.  Although tangibles certainly influence development, a cursory look into the upbringing of some of the world’s greatest players reveals that development doesn’t just come down to money.  Or, said another way, the absence of the things that we believe we need won’t necessarily impede the development of top players.  Let’s not forget that we have all of the tangibles, but have not been able to translate tangible assets into a consistent supply of top level players yet.

Soccer is a game of imagination as much as it is a game of tactics.  Having the imagination to intuitively dance through a tight space as an after-thought versus making a conscious decision to do so may be the difference between a Messi and a Donovan.  How you play as a kid is formative.  Kids need to be able to imagine, and coaches are not the only source of imagination.

Perhaps the lack of access to regular top level football impacted the ability of kids growing up in the States only a few years back to be able to regularly imagine.  The long absence of soccer from our televisions had an impact on our imaginations.  Travel to Brazil, Argentina, across Africa or Europe, and you’ll find that kids playing in the street have imagination in abundance.  A ball made out of plastic bags and rope can support weeks of play.  Player after player will tell you stories about their formative experiences growing up in these types of environments.  All they needed was some imagination. Real Madrid’s Malian midfielder Mahamadou Diarra gave us a peek into his childhood in A Beautiful Game: Football Through the Eyes of the World’s Greatest Footballers (via The Guardian (UK)):

My first memory of football is playing in the street when I was eight or nine in Bamako [Mali's capital city].  There were 18 or 20 of us.  Quite a lot of them have gone on to become professional players.  We set out our own pitch, put stones down a metre apart to make a goal, and played two hours without break.  The best!

We’d get an old ball – one that had burst – from an older brother, cut a whole in it and stuff it full of old clothes so we could keep using it.  Those balls were hard, no bounce at all, but playing in the street was easier for us.

Diarra’s comments reveal that many things were lacking during his childhood that most of us consider essential to player development.  But the one thing that wasn’t lacking was imagination.

Similarly, in the United States, there is no shortage of inspiration for kids dreaming about the NBA, NFL, or MLB.  In so many neighborhoods, all you need is a milk crate, a few nails, and a tree to play basketball, and your imagination could take over.  I’m not naïve enough to believe that gear and facilities don’t have an important role in player development in the United States, but more than anything, it’s a culture of imagination that needs to be cultivated.

Soccer specific stadiums can be part of the imagination-building exercise, although this function is probably not part of MLS’ strategic vision/rationale for building soccer specific stadiums.  Taking a young, impressionable mind to a rocking Red Bull Arena filled to capacity can create dreams that might not capture the imagination of a young player in a 60,000 seat, but relatively empty, Giants Stadium.  When the Red Bulls played in Giant Stadium (yes, that’s a pun), you probably spent 50% of your time on the game, and 50% of the time examining the empty space. Now, Red Bull Arena allows New York fans to spend 50% of their time viewing the spectacle on the field, and 50% of their time thinking about how much better they are than everyone else.

Perhaps an Imagination Plan needs to be incorporated into the MLS strategic plan.  If you take a child from Bamako or Accra and a typical kid from the U.S., I’m not convinced that the kid with all of the advanced training regimes and access to top level gear will turn out to be the better player.  I think the track record speaks for itself.  We need to make sure that resources are not just allocated to technology and training regiments (although these two things are also important), but also to developing the right culture around playing the game that encourages creativity, a willingness to beat players, and instills a confidence that is grounded in more than just fitness and rigid tactical training.  Watching our youth national teams shows that we are headed in the right direction at the top levels.  But we need to find more ways to encourage imagination-building at the grassroots level.

Kids don’t need their soccer dreams to be manufactured.  The inspiration is already around us.  Tapping into this culture will allow our youngest kids to dream, and when the time comes, to waltz pass a defender at a World Cup as an after thought.

Next month, I’ll be heading to Africa and will interview a number of these impressionable minds.  Children without televisions can tell you about a memorable goal last week.  They’ll tell you about trekking to the local pub to sit outside and watch matches as their elders rant about their latest representative playing in Europe.  For all of the advanced technology that we have, there’s something that we can learn from these kids.  Perhaps it’s simply that player development is about more than material goods.  It is about how you dream.

So next time you want to tell your kids to stop daydreaming, hold on a moment because they might be daydreaming about soccer.  And if they’re not, encourage them to start.

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Related posts:

1. Compton United’s Field of Dreams, Or Lack Thereof
2. This Is What’s Wrong With American Youth Soccer
3. The Underbelly of U.S. Youth Soccer: Falling Through the Cracks

Don’t focus so much on what sides say they are going to do.  Strike looming.  Lockout possible.

Negotiating is all about posturing and leverage.  That much was clear after my first week of negotiations class in law school.  So the daily focus on what a player, player representative, or the league (or owners) says doesn’t really provide much information worthy of analysis. It does allow for endless unsubstantiated speculation about what might happen.  It’s a perfect situation for a 24/7 news cycle, but we don’t learn much from the speculation.

In labor negotiations, other than revelations about what issues are holding up the process, there are only two real newsworthy moments if you are interested in signals, which everyone seems to be since there’s rarely ever any real information to digest.  The first is when one of the sides starts to talk about a strike or lockout.  That signifies that there are really issues that the two sides are butting heads over.  One of the sides feels that it’s in their interest to raise the level of rhetoric.

The second, and last, newsworthy moment is when a strike actually happens.  Everything else is posturing and leveraging, which is simply an attempt to sway public opinion.  Posturing and leveraging is not news.  If it was, each passing day would provide us with something newsworthy to mull over.  Now Lindsay Lohan’s running soap opera with ex-girlfriend Samantha Ronson, that’s news.

Related posts:

1. MLS Labor Negotiations: What We Learned (or Didn’t) From The Countdown to 5PM
2. MLS Free Agency: Why Won’t MLS Budge? It Comes Down to Single Entity Treatment
3. Single Entity Time – American Needle and What it Means for MLS

Followers of U.S. soccer are used to stories of talented youth players failing to make the grade at the professional level. But we rarely ever hear about players who never scratched the surface of their potential because they were never given the opportunity to get out of the starting blocks. Why would we, right? Well, the key to building a more dynamic U.S. player pool may lie in exploring the underbelly of youth soccer.  Here’s my take on a piece of U.S. youth soccer based on my experiences.

I grew up in Baltimore City in a neighborhood that was about 95% African-American. No, it wasn’t The Wire, but it wasn’t suburbia either.

Although my neighborhood was always relatively tranquil, the nearby high school that I would have attended was not. The graduation rate was dismal and the school had its share of problems, once suspending 1,200 students in one day. So my parents sacrificed their paychecks and broke out the credit cards.

My parents decided early on that my brother and I needed to participate in something productive. So they signed us up for soccer and lacrosse in Baltimore County. Soccer made sense because my dad played. But I still don’t understand why they signed us up for lacrosse given that my parents were born in a developing country far, far away.  I still have a difficult time explaining lacrosse to my relatives.

At five years old, I quickly became obsessed with both sports. Within a year, I was playing up a few age groups. No one in my neighborhood played either soccer or lacrosse. When I left the house in my shinguards or lacrosse pads, without fail, I would have to field questions about where I was going from other kids in the neighborhood who really didn’t get the opportunity to venture out much.

“What the (expletive) is that racket?”

“Um, it’s a lacrosse stick.”

Years later, I made the soccer and lacrosse travel teams for my recreational league, which broadened my sporting radius. I was happy that I made the teams. I started playing year round, outdoor soccer in the fall, indoor in the winter, and then lacrosse in the spring.

Fast forward a few years. In seventh grade, I made the eighth grade soccer team in my private school. I played with a few kids who played something called club soccer. I’d never heard of it. “You mean travel team?” No. Apparently, it was called club soccer. But no matter. I could more than handle myself on the middle school pitches.  After practices, I would take the 45 minute bus ride back into the city.

In eighth grade, our soccer team went undefeated, and I have my eighth grade championship jacket to prove it.  We were the kings of the newly pubescent on the private school circuit.

I thrived whenever I stepped on a soccer field, but I still had no idea what else I could have been doing, or how else I could have been developing other than dribbling around the two trees in my backyard and practicing one touch passing against a brick wall. Technically, I was sound. I could pass short and long with both feet, shoot with both feet, dribble, and had some speed. Little did I know that other kids were being coached year round by top coaches in club soccer, playing tournaments around the country against top competition, and partaking in this impressive sounding Olympic Development Program (ODP).

With high school soccer on the horizon, I prepared myself by watching as much soccer as possible, playing pick up soccer where I could find it, running daily and dribbling aimlessly in the backyard testing out new moves on inanimate objects.  It was clearly time to find somewhere else to play, but I didn’t have the first clue where to go or how my family could pull off the logistics.

The summer before my freshman year was my first experience outside of travel team and middle school soccer. I begged my parents to let me try out for a soccer team that was about to go to Europe. “Suppose you make it? How would you propose we pay for that?” After a few days of negotiations, my parents eventually let me try out, determining that we would go with the “try out and we’ll see what happens” approach.

I made the team, and as usual, my parents sacrificed. A few credit card swipes later, I was on a plane to Europe where I played in several youth tournaments in Holland, Denmark, and Belgium. It was a life changing experience. I still wasn’t very knowledgeable about club soccer in the States, but I was well-versed on total football, Ajax and the Dutch National Team.  Holland was my soccer paradise.  We played clubs from Africa, South America and Europe. We spent every waking moment playing, talking about soccer, watching soccer, and hanging out with kids from other countries. That was when I started to realize that I needed to play more and at a higher level.  It was also there that I realized from coaches’ reactions that I could raise an eyebrow or two from people who played at very high levels.  Unfortunately, after the trip, I returned to backyard dribbling.  It was rather anticlimactic, but high school soccer was right around the corner.

I made varsity as a freshman and started most games, breaking the freshman scoring record along the way, which shortly afterward, was demolished multiple times by much better players. We had a decent team and I seemed to fit right in. One of our co-captains, who played club soccer and ODP, went off to play a bit at the University of Maryland.  I started to connect the dots.

The path to a higher level was becoming clearer.  I began to become increasingly aware of what it meant to play club soccer and ODP. However, I was hesitant to ask my parents to join because all of the teams I had heard about were nowhere near where we lived. But eventually, I asked. I desperately wanted to play with one of these clubs that play in tournaments all over the country and enter the State Cup.  A few of my high school teammates talked about these things all the time. But in Baltimore City, and especially in my neighborhood, club soccer was like most legislative processes – accessible to some, but invisible to a whole lot of the rest of us.

Again, my parents succumbed to my pressure and decided that they would figure out a way to make things work. I began playing in Columbia, Maryland in the spring of my freshman year with one of my best friends from high school. This was the first time I had ever played spring soccer. I was playing varsity lacrosse at the same time, so my plate was full. High school sports were manageable because there was a school bus that took us everywhere. But Columbia was about a forty-five minute drive from our house in Baltimore City.  Getting to practice and games wasn’t the easiest thing in the world for two parents working full-time jobs, but they continued to sacrifice in spite of me being an insufferable teenager. Imagine how difficult this journey would have been for a kid in a car-less single parent household. I was lucky that my parents could figure out a way to make it work.

Club soccer was intimidating. The parents were serious. They traveled everywhere with the team. They were just as vested in the game as their children. The kids had the newest gear. They had also developed intimate relationships with each other because, for the most part, they all lived near each other and had been playing together for years. Stepping into this team dynamic at the age of 16, it’s natural that you won’t immediately feel comfortable, especially when your presence might mean that someone’s kid might not play as much.  That’s not a welcome proposition for a parent who has already invested in multiple pairs of expensive cleats, trips to tournaments, and has committed hundreds of hours carpooling for years.

All of these factors took a toll on my confidence. I sometimes found myself making mistakes that I would never make. But that was the learning curve. Top club soccer has a built-in level of pressure that just doesn’t exist in your run-of-the-mill travel team. It was just a shame that my real learning curve started at 16.

During the fall of my sophomore year, I decided to follow my high school friend to ODP tryouts. I got a ride with him and his parents after school to go to tryouts, and then spent the night at his house since that was much easier than having my parents make the long trip after work. The logistics were already a headache and I hadn’t even attended the tryout yet.

There were a lot of similarities between club soccer and my ODP tryout experience.  I immediately realized that these kids had been playing together for years. They weren’t just teammates, they were friends. They joked with each other and the coaches like they were old drinking buddies.  Many of them had been playing together in club and high school. To say that the ODP environment was intimidating to a kid like me would be an understatement. It reminds me of the Dave Chappelle Sunny D skit. “What the f@*k is juice?” Well that was me. I was happy with the purple stuff because I didn’t know about juice.  I had to quickly familiarize myself with this juice product.

For those of you who don’t know how ODP works, here’s a quick primer. At each age group, twenty-five players are selected for the ODP (or state team) pool. Coaches at each age group select the twenty-five players from “open” tryouts each year.  The state ODP teams form the basis for regional team selection, which in turn forms the pool for national team selection.

There were countless kids at the ODP tryout I attended if I recall correctly. We were split up into teams and given a jersey. One of the players, who apparently had been in ODP for years, was told to warm us up. I guess he wasn’t really trying out. I quickly surmised that a significant number of the players were effectively already on the team. The whole process began to feel like a formality before the games even began. I wondered whether I was just wasting my time.

What happened at the ODP tryout next is a blur. I think I remember playing relatively well, but I also recall dunking a basketball at the age of 15 for some reason, which clearly never happened.  I don’t really recall what happened next. It might have been a letter or a phone call from the ODP coach, but much to my surprise, I made the team. I was surprised considering how entrenched some of the players were in the ODP system. I never expected to realistically even get a look.

It didn’t strike me at the time, but the journey to get in front of top coaches is a journey that too many kids will never be able to make under the current structure. In Maryland at the time, you basically had to live in the Columbia area or the Bethesda/Potomac area to be in the ODP loop, although the base has slightly expanded today. It was in these two areas where you would find the money, the clubs, and the coaches. If you grew up playing soccer in these areas, the likelihood that you were aware of ODP was exponentially higher than if you lived in Baltimore City.

Here’s the access problem in a nutshell.  Growing up in certain areas makes it increasingly likely that you will have access to good coaching and solid competition from a young age.  Clearly there’s a correlation between access to good coaching/competitive play and the development of a good player.  But let’s just assume that you happen to be good, but out of the top club soccer radius.  Chances are that you probably won’t know that ODP exists, especially if your parents aren’t savvy soccer hustlers.  It’s also likely that you won’t know about or have access to one of the unofficial ODP feeder clubs that increase your chances of at least knowing about ODP.  But even if we assume that a player is somehow good enough and knows about ODP, getting to tryouts and practices and games becomes a logistical nightmare since these events typically take place where most of the kids live.  Given these obstacles, it’s easy to see why ODP is simply not accessible for many children.  And the older you get, the likelihood of a player breaking into the system decreases.

Somehow I navigated the system. But by the time I put the pieces together, I was 16 years old. Nevertheless, ODP was a great experience. We got two weeks off of school to go to England and Wales during my sophomore year.  We played the Irish U-17 National Team, toured Old Trafford, went to see Swansea City vs. Cardiff City, and listened to everyone rave about a 19 year old Welsh kid named Ryan Giggs. It was an amazing experience that didn’t even remotely translate to people who lived in my neighborhood who were slightly baffled about what soccer was doing for me.

Thinking back on the ride, soccer has given me way too many great experiences to have any real regrets.  Of course I think back and play the “what if” game on occasion.  What if I played club soccer at a much younger age?  What if I had coaches who were actually trained to develop players?  But let’s be realistic, it’s not like I would have been the next big thing.  But I always wonder, how many kids fall through the cracks who might have the ability to really play if given the right opportunities to develop? I was just one kid out of one neighborhood who ended up playing ODP for a year before heading off to boarding school and college. I was fortunate. But there are tons of potentially great players out there, many who fall through the cracks simply because they don’t have access to coaching, development opportunities, and teams.  They don’t know about ODP, let alone club soccer.  They are simply shut out of the process from the outset.  And then we have to listen to talking heads and fans wonder why so many of our children take up other sports.  Of course there are other reasons at play, but it’s hard to woo a player who doesn’t have any meaningful access to the game.

I’m writing this because I’ve never read a first-hand account like this elsewhere.  They might be out there, but I haven’t seen them.  But I know that there are stories like this all over the country.  So I wonder, where is the attention to these issues in the burgeoning U.S. soccer community? Access to the game isn’t just a cause for the U.S. Soccer Foundation and a handful of non-profits and community organizations. It’s also the job of soccer fans who claim to care about the game in the United States to embrace these issues.  It’s the job of fans who complain about how one dimensional the U.S. National Team is at times to understand how we might be able to add talent by looking in new places and cultivating underdeveloped pools of talent. The process can’t start at age 16 or 17 where we pat each other on the back for the fortunate group of kids who somehow find their way through because Sandra Bullock adopted them. It has to start with young kids who percentage-wise will never have the opportunity to see how good they can be.  This is simply about consciously expanding access and opportunity.

We started Nutmeg Radio to write about soccer, but also to periodically give a voice to those who could benefit if some of the game’s systemic obstacles (and opportunities) are addressed on a regular basis.  Soccer is an amazing game that has allowed me to see, study, and continue learning about the world well after I became too old for youth soccer.  Outside of my parents, the game has probably been as instrumental in my development as any other influence.  Reaching out into communities in need will offer some of these opportunities to many kids whose sporting interests will inevitably be monopolized by the worlds of American football, basketball, or baseball.  Soccer is a powerful tool and it’s time that we all truly start to explore what the game can do for others, and the impact that increased access can ultimately have on the U.S. player pool.  There are win-wins for everyone here.

Related posts:

1. This Is What’s Wrong With American Youth Soccer
2. Rubbing Franklins On It Won’t Solve the Lack of Imagination Problem
3. Looking Beyond Seats On A U.S. Soccer Plane – Part II

Major League Soccer (MLS) wants to be popular. Looking at the professional sports landscape in the United States, the market is arguably already saturated.  Instead of just competing through measured, strategic growth, MLS may need to think outside of the box to make its mark.

In the history of MLS, steps have already been taken to think outside the box.  Remember the thirty-five yard penalty shootout?  Yeah, I’m trying to forget it too.  But at least it showed a genuine interest in devising ways to make the game more user friendly to a new market.  I’m of the opinion that the game on the field needs to be left alone.  It seems the league now gets that too.  But there is much to be done off the field to change how soccer is perceived by the general public.  The game needs to be cooler and needs to lose its suburban feel.

So where should MLS start?  Start by hanging out with some reputable celebrities who have actually already expressed an interest in the game.  Enter Brooklyn’s Finest, former street pharmacist and current businessman, Shawn Carter, aka Jay-Z.

Jay-Z likes soccer. In fact, he’s a self-proclaimed Arsenal fan who has expressed an interest in chatting with Cesc and the guys over lunch.  (Side note: I would seriously consider paying to sit in on a conversation between Jigga and Emmanuel Eboue.)  Jay-Z has also reportedly explored the possibility of buying a stake in Arsenal, but who knows whether there’s any truth to that.  The point is, clearly he respects the sport.

But the question is, what can Jay-Z do for soccer in the U.S.?

Jay-Z’s presence could help in two concrete ways that are tied to two of soccer’s biggest challenges in the U.S.

First, from a public relations perspective, Jay-Z can give U.S. soccer a needed facelift.  Soccer needs to be grown and sexy.  For years the league catered to teeny boppers.  As an adult, there was nothing cool about sitting in a stadium on pizza night next to an eight year old in a SpongeBob t-shirt or a fourteen year old girl screaming at the top of her lungs whenever (fill in the blank) touched the ball.  But times are changing.

The league already grasps the need for quality players. A quick look at some of the league’s acquisitions shows that acquiring star power on the field has been one of the league’s priorities.  And they’ve had some success.  Beckham and Blanco are names that come to mind.  In the early days, Valderamma was a great acquisition.  But the acquisition of name-brand players is not enough to grow the game.  Star power and sexiness are also required off the pitch.

U.S. Soccer is understandably quite weary of the star power/sexiness combination.  The old NASL was Hefner-sexy and had NBA-like star power.  For a period, the New York Cosmos were one of the sexiest brands around.  My favorite shirt growing up was a Cosmos shirt that listed all the players.  The team list ran like the sexiest galactico side ever assembled.  But sexy didn’t breed success for the league in the long run.  This time around, MLS is interested in measured growth.  But MLS should not categorically discard star power and sexiness off the pitch.  It just needs to learn to be more sophisticated in how it attempts to incorporate sexy.

Jay-Z would bring a level of coolness to soccer by simply expressing an interest in the league, or wearing a jersey, or going to matches.  He could begin to give the New York Red Bulls an aura befitting a team from New York.  And we all know how Jay-Z feels about New York, or in this case hopfully Harrison, NJ.  He could help create the type of aura that would be a natural fit for a player like Thierry Henry.  Someone like Jay-Z needs to be involved if the soccer powers want to reach a broader audience in the United States.  I am confident that his presence alone would show how quickly perspectives can change. Which brings me to my second point …

Soccer needs to strengthen its urban, multi-cultural presence.  Soccer already has a cultural place in the Latino community.  The U.S. needs to do a better job developing this talent pool.  But there is also serious work to be done in the African-American community where, from a cultural acceptance standpoint, soccer is an afterthought.   Obviously, this needs to change.  But how?

One way is to develop programs in the Latino and African-American communities.  There are organizations doing this throughout the country, although additional resources are always needed.

The other way to give soccer an urban-friendly facelift is by engaging a public figure with street cred to make the game official.  Jay-Z can do that by simply blessing the game in this country.  He can make soccer go from off the radar to cool in a heartbeat for millions who previously ignored the best sport on the planet.  For decades, soccer has been a largely suburban sport in the United States.  Suburban growth must continue, but developing the urban appetite for soccer is just as important in raising the level of play in the U.S.

Jay-Z is uniquely positioned to help soccer go urban because he genuinely likes the sport.  Acknowledging his appreciation for the game could lead to a greater profile for soccer in urban communities that have historically been excluded from the sport.  This would benefit communities by providing additional activities and opportunities for kids, and will ultimately enhance the U.S. player pool by expanding the player base into communities that sometimes produce amazing athletes, but mostly for other sports.  You might have to be over six feet tall to be a professional basketball player, but you can be 5′7″ and be a professional soccer player.

Surely someone is exploring ways to add personalities to the U.S. soccer landscape that would make soccer credible in communities that have traditionally ignored the sport.  Someone has thought about how to use Jay-Z before, right?  If Thierry Henry comes to play in New York, think of what the two of them could do for the profile of the game, not just the African-American community, but for young people watching the game in communities across the country.   I’m sorry to be the one to say this, but many people in communities that are underrepresented in U.S. soccer haven’t and won’t fall in love with David Beckham.  Beckham works with a certain demographic.  But to broaden the game’s appeal, you need personalities who appeal to different demographics.  MLS understands this concept if you look at the Beckham and Blanco acquisitions.  But it’s time to take the step into the African-American community and into popular culture.

So yes.  That’s my final answer.  Jay-Z.  The league needs to tap a prominent minority celebrity who can influence a younger generation.  And no one fits the bill better than him.  Once he gets on board, others will follow.  What was it about the game that made Jay-Z fall in love?  What made Kevin Garnett fall for Chelsea?  Getting these guys to share how they fell for the game will take MLS one step closer to being the cool kid, which is essential for the move from totally suburban to partially urban. What Jay-Z says is cool will have a difficult time not being cool.

Related posts:

1. Evolution of Style: Jay-Z and the Parallels Between Music and Soccer
2. Beowulf on MLS: Do I Want the League To Be Popular? Meh.
3. Welcome to the National Soccer League

After the dramatic “Countdown to 5pm” yesterday, here’s a list of what we know:

Not much.

However, looking at the statements released from both sides yesterday, a few things stand out.  I’ve translated both statements below.  First up, the Major League Soccer Players Union (MLSPU):

MLSPU Point 1: The CBA will not be extended past Feb. 25.

No translation needed. The players can continue to work under their existing contracts unless one side decides that there will be a strike or lockout.  The old CBA prohibited strikes and lockouts.  As of midnight, that section no longer applies.

MLSPU Point 2: They hope negotiations will resume at some point.

Negotiations will resume at some point.

MLSPU Point 3: There has not been enough progress made in negotiations to date to warrant an extension of the old agreement.

The old agreement is just not good enough for the players.  By saying that the old contract is expired and will not be renewed, we know that something new will come out of this process. What that is exactly remains to be seen.

MLSPU Point 4: Players are being advised to keep working for the time being without a CBA.

Players will simply keep showing up under their player contracts until they are instructed not to show up for work. They can decide to walk at any point. That could be today, the day before the season starts, or even mid-season if a new CBA has not been agreed upon. That the players have been instructed to keep working without a CBA simply means that the players did not strike at 12:00AM on February 26.

MLSPU Point 5: All options are being considered.

Means nothing.  It’s like saying three out of five options are being considered.  The problem is that no one knows what options are on the table.

MLSPU Point 6: They are committed to real changes regarding how MLS players are treated.

The players are really trying to do everything in their power to shake things up.  The wording here suggests what many of us already know – that players do not feel that they are treated fairly. The last CBA was in effect over a period of roughly five years.  This is their opportunity to address how players will be treated for arguably the next five years.  That is significant.

Generally, if you’re wondering why the players did not strike yesterday, well, so is everyone else.  There are several possibilities, but one rationale stands out.  As the season gets closer, a strike and subsequent work stoppage do slightly more damage to the league from a public relations standpoint. The players have effectively just turned up the temperature on management by holding on to the strike card and continuing to work as if the season will continue.

But that’s only part of the picture.  Let’s look at what MLS had to say. I’ve provided a few thoughts on each of their points.

MLS Point 1: Over the course of the past year, MLS has been negotiating with MLSPU on a new CBA.

Both sides had to make the decision to extend the old CBA.  MLS is clearly stating that it was MLSPU that decided not to agree to a further extension.  The league is also saying in no uncertain terms that they have been working to resolve this issue for some time.  They do not want to be seen as the bad guy, even though that will always be an uphill battle in a labor/management dispute.

MLS Point 2: The league will not lock out the players.

If there is a stoppage, the league is saying that it will be the players who will cause it, not MLS.  This may technically be accurate because presumably the players will be the ones deciding not to show up to work.  But the reason they would do so is because they believe the terms they are being offered are inadequate.  There’s certainly an argument that a stoppage would be as much the league’s fault as the players’ fault.  But as I’ve said before, without knowing the details, allocating fault is difficult at this point.

MLS Point 3: The league is prepared to start the season under the old CBA while they continue bargaining to reach an agreement on a new CBA.

MLS does not want a stoppage.  They know that nothing good will come from a work stoppage at this point.  In theory, the sides could continue negotiating forever. But if the sides can’t ultimately agree on terms, don’t expect the players to simply keep playing through the season.  No one should be shocked that the league is prepared to start the season under the old CBA.  What would have been shocking is if the league said, “The old agreement is just not good enough.  We should definitely hold off on the new season until we can get these guys a better deal.”  That would be shocking.

MLS Point 4: At some level MLS has addressed issues raised by the players regarding economics, guaranteed contracts, options, and the ability of a player to move to another MLS club if he is released by his current club.

This tells us a bit about what we already thought we knew, namely that money, contracts, options, and player movement are all issues on the table.  What we don’t know, however, is basically everything that is being negotiated.  This deal is in the details, which brings us to the final point from the MLS release …

MLS Point 5: MLS has provided detailed and substantial changes to the past CBA.  The league’s proposals will result in significant increased costs and will provide substantially provide more rights to the players.

These final two sentences are interesting. They say, “Hey, we addressed your needs in proposals that will raise our costs, but give you substantially more rights!” The league is basically saying that they have made significant concessions.  Again, they are insinuating that a deal not getting done is not down to them, but down to the players given that they have agreed to incur significant increased costs and provide substantially more rights to players.   It’s a well-framed public position for the league, but it really doesn’t mean much because we don’t know what rights were offered.  This fight isn’t about generic rights to players.  It is about specific terms, and until we know what is specifically being negotiated, we can’t say whether the proposals are reasonable or not.

Final Thoughts

The Catch-22 here is that the players need MLS to succeed and to continue growing.   One can hope that striking would just be a minor setback, but in reality MLS is a young league and we don’t quite know how a strike would impact the league’s viability going forward.

The players’ leverage is simply that they can adversely impact the league’s momentum whenever they desire.  There are times over the next few months when a strategic strike may be more devastating than others.  But then what?  Can the players even afford to strike for any significant amount of time?  At the end of the day, this is the league’s leverage.  They know many of the players need MLS.  Several players would have lucrative options in other leagues, but many players would simply be left in tough situations.  If there is a strike, once that card is played, the question becomes which side can afford to hold out longer.  My guess is that it’s the owners.  That’s just the current reality in MLS.  If this somehow was happening in the English Premier League, almost every player on a roster could find a home elsewhere making a good wage, even if that was in lower divisions.  Whether MLS players have other options remains to be seen.

I know I’ll be paying less attention to statements from both sides in the coming days (and hopefully not weeks or months).  At this point, we get almost as much as there is to get.  Until the details come out, public statements released by both sides will simply be posturing, which is fine, but fans should now just get back to watching Celebrity Fit Club until something notable happens.  Until then … nothing to see here.

Related posts:

1. A Few Words on MLS Negotiations: Lessons For Next Time
2. MLS Free Agency: Why Won’t MLS Budge? It Comes Down to Single Entity Treatment
3. Single Entity Time – American Needle and What it Means for MLS