But here's the thing; Deford is supposed to be a sort of "elder statesman" of sports journalism, he's dignified with a regular spot on NPR --a demographic not necessarily known as a bastion of sports fandom-- where he regularly portrays himself as possessing sage-like insight into what's really going on in the world of professional sports.
And maybe he does possess such insight. I don't know. What I do know is that like so many of his colleagues, he is deeply ignorant where soccer is concerned, and far from tackling the subject of MLS with anything like penetrating insight, what he did in the above piece is to trot out virtually every tired old platitude about why nobody cares about MLS that we've all been hearing for the past 20 years.
The magisterial Deford holds forth at a library in Connecticut. Photo; Wiki commons.
First, he treats us to the old canard about how Latino fans are somehow going to save MLS from irrelevancy by raising it to new heights of popularity. Whether he is completely oblivious to the fact that this is a model that was abandoned back in the 1990's, or he is simply ignoring it, the fact remains; MLS has recognized for at least a decade that Latinos in the US don't give a shit (or at least not in numbers that matter) about MLS because time-zones being virtually the same in North vs South and Central America, there's no reason for them not to continue to follow their home teams, which is what they overwhelmingly tend to do.
Did Frank not get the memo that in recent years cities like Montreal, Portland and Vancouver (none of them especially well-known for having large Hispanic populations) got new MLS franchises while Chivas USA, the poster child for MLS's efforts to appeal to Latinos, was driven from the ranks as the unclean abomination it basically was?
In critical thinking, Frank, we call that a "straw man" argument.
Next, Frank moves on to the idea that soccer can never become mainstream in the US because it's not American and Americans really only like things that are American. Right. Go America! I don't know whether to laugh or be offended. Maybe I'll do both. Frank, you are showing your age good buddy. While there are plenty of Americans who, as you suggest, are insular, clannish and ridiculously patriotic, I would argue that most of us, or at least half of us, aren't, and that whatever the root of soccer's popularity issues in the US may be, they are not, as you and the legions of meat-head internet warriors would have us believe, related to the fact that soccer isn't American.
Frank's next point (and I think this is probably his strongest, though it says something for the quality of his arguments since it's still quite weak) is that European league play is widely available on US TVs and that it enjoys much higher ratings than MLS and that therefore, I guess, MLS can never hope to catch up. However, he says this immediately after stating that MLS has an average attendance of 19k per game, completely glossing over the fact that watching a game of "footy" with your pretentious asshole roommate who studied in Sheffield for a term, is completely different from watching a live match at a real stadium with thousands of other passionate fans.
Maybe Frank has never actually been to a live MLS match? (If I had the means, I would cordially invite him here to Portland for the full and proper experience, but alas, I do not.) This is the impression I get. Either way, surely he understands that there is a visceral difference between supporting some hypothetical team on the other side of the world --with which you have no real connection-- and actually going to your home stadium and cheering live with thousands of others. Whatever the attractions of the big European leagues may be --and no one can deny that they attract by far the best talent in the world-- they can never compete with the experience of being at a live match.
Frank wraps it up by invoking USMNT coach Klinsmann's recommendation that top US players should play in Europe, as if this is somehow a final nail in the coffin of his condemnation, never mind the fact that the same could easily be said of players from Brazil, Argentina or whatever other non-European powerhouse country one may choose to name.
So let me get this straight Frank, your argument is that because top Brazilian players will probably develop into even better players in the European leagues, as I think everyone acknowledges, Brazil will therefore never have an international presence in soccer?
Do you not see how stupid this makes you look?
As others have pointed out, your problem, Frank, is that you are old and are no longer looking in the right direction.
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