MLS has survived the first two weeks.
Crowds were up only slightly over last year’s openers. Only two teams (the MetroStars and D.C. United) topped 20,000, and the WUSA debut in Washington outdrew every MLS opener.
But it could have been worse.
The worse thing that could have happened to MLS was that the WUSA opener took on USA ’99 proportions in terms of hype.
It didn’t happen.
To be sure, the coverage for the Freedom-CyperRays game was good, but it wasn’t so over the top that it paled MLS news by comparison. The San Jose Mercury-News didn’t even send a staffer to Washington.
This is a make-or-break year for MLS, no doubt about it. Attendance must improve. Season-ticket sales are up, but they had better be, considering clubs had two more months during the offseason to drum up interest.
To MLS’s credit, it has managed to create an air of excitement despite four straight years of declining attendance.
The emergence of an exciting crop of young stars is critical. MLS even managed to get a page 1 feature in USA Today on its teen stars.
The promising start by the U.S. national team, featuring such MLS heroes as the MetroStars’ Clint Mathis and Chicago’s Josh Wolff, in World Cup qualifying has helped.
The great danger was that MLS clubs could never duplicate the enthusiasm for the U.S. national team, as evidenced by the support in Columbus for the USA-Mexico game.
To the contrary, that support is the model upon which MLS clubs are building. If you watched the Chicago-D.C. game on ESPN2 (and ESPN), you’d have never guessed there were only 19,241 fans, such was noise the Barn Burners made in one corner of smoky Soldier Field.
In recent years, there hasn’t been much to cheer about on the MLS front. Finally, we see signs of life.