This Is American Soccer, US Soccer, MNT, WNT, and MLS - Tackling the subject of Soccer in the US, and worldwide.

Still waiting on Germany, this is the hand we’re dealt: the Winter Olympics begin this week, MLS pre-season is here with a new team, and the World Baseball Classic is a month away. Thinking over the sports of the moment, I thought there might be something to say about Nationalism. I found myself meditating on the idea more since working with Mariana, our Argentinean brother who proved nationalism is what you make of it in our debut story for The Diary Project. He also proved it is a very personal thing (as did Alex Rogriguez, who wavered about which nation to play baseball for in the WBC). Throughout the sporting landscape, nationalism is never too far away, but is it ever too close?

“where have you gone Joe Dimaggio, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you.”

On the MLS

We’ve talked plenty of the changing demographics of the U.S. and how it can be great for soccer here. Immigration rates show Mexicans as a largely untapped market, be it soccer tickets or political votes (for republicans, Hispanics are the new blacks, one elephant told me the other day). That being said, I’m trying to figure out Chivas USA.

With the San Jose Earthquakes moving to Texas as the 1836 (horrible name – can we not rid all sports of nicknames and mascots, leaving everything as simple the New York football club or the Atlanta baseball club?), I took notice for maybe the first time what all of this could mean to some people. For instance, I got this e-mail from a guy named Francisco the other day:

“Hey, quick question Adam. What do you think of Chivas U.S.A. ? As I watched the Mexican Chivas beat Colo Colo yesterday, the announcers talked about the acquiring of Claudio Suares for Chivas U.S.A. I understood the premise of bringing a Mexican based team here to the states, for fans or so I heard. I get the part of getting more people into stands and all, but can a team really achieve that while losing most of their games and acquiring retiring players? I was ecstatic when I heard that Houston was getting the San Jose franchise and now I hear it may be bought by another Mexican team, America. I am of Mexican descent and enjoy watching games from Mexican teams when they’re in town but I also enjoy watching MLS games. I’ve probably strayed away from my question much, so do you think teams like Chivas and possibly America have helped?”

What is in the name?

It’s struck me as one of those crazy coincidences that I had been thinking about the same topic when Francisco’s e-mail found its way to my in-box. After trying to find a good answer for him, all I really found to say was: this is the society we are living in. Like it or not, MLS is not exactly laughing all the way to the bank. With the game just beginning to find a consistent crowd in the U.S., it isn’t anything but obvious why they would create a team like Chivas USA in southern California or put a team in Houston. The Mexican populations are huge in these cities, and they are likely to buy some tickets for the only soccer game in town. As for the retiring players, a Mexican soccer fan might be even more intrigued to test out that first MLS game just to see a long-time favorite, Pele-old or not. It’s the MLS capitalizing on Nationalism, and it’s hard to blame them. If you want a viable professional soccer league in the U.S., these are the kind of things, call them marketing ploys or good business strategy, that we might just have to accept (for the time being anyhow). After the Houston team chose a name, Francisco wrote again:

“In an editorial in the local paper, professor Ramos of the University of Texas said the name was set to push away the Latino fans and even called for the removal of Sam Houston from the logo. Don’t know if you know much of Texas history, but 1836 is the year the state won its independence from Mexico lead by Sam Houston. Many TV stations, both in English and Spanish, have been covering the issue. It even reached my English professor, who has asked us to write a paper on this topic. Most of my friends are excited just getting a team. Personally, I approve of the name. I’m proud of Texas history. Also, 1836 is the year the city was founded and anyone in Houston could be proud of that.”

So here again, we see Nationalism is what you make of it. I don’t see it hurting, no matter how weird it might be on some levels - which begged a question. Would it seem as odd or odder or even racist if the MLS began an African expansion team in Atlanta? Should they have an English team in New England? Is that what the Revolution is?

On the Olympics

The Olympics used to be the stalwart of Nationalism, good sportsmanship and pride. Over the last decade things have changed. And here we are at Turino, or is it Turin? I think it is worse for me during the Winter Olympics, maybe because it is 60 degrees and raining in New York right now and maybe because we suck at almost all of the Winter events. I have a hard time calling a lot of this crap sports, so I’ll leave it at ‘events’. Don’t get me wrong. I love dropping into a half pipe on a snowboard, and curling is my guilty pleasure, but sports? I get it, and John Daly is an athlete, and some day, i’ll have a shot at a Gold Medal when my perfectly honed cow pie disc golf skills makes it into the games. Sport or not, talented or not, the Olympics is a matter of geopolitics (or at least it used to be – think Miracle on Ice). And when one country is not good at something, well, they just take some drugs and fling themselves down that skeleton course faster than the other countries – and call it nationalism. My disdain has me wanting to lay out the bare facts. After all, your patriotism is at stake people! Plus, don’t you want to know which Gold Medal winners we might inherent by defection?

to skate or not to… maybe i’ll ski and fire a gun, or that skeleton sled can’t be that competitive. I just want a medal!

The thrill is gone. The Olympics are getting their usual hype: 4765 channels of coverage. Esquire Magazine did a feature article on speed skater Apolo Anton Ohno. USA Today ran an article about how an unsuccessful track runner changed sports to speed skating because he would have a better chance at a gold medal. Hard to think he is doing it for the love of the sport. But there is one thing that allows for Esquire, the search for gold, and all the Olympic hype to justify itself. For starters, people do actually watch it. Whether that is for actual interest, the nationalistic combustion, or simply because that is what you have been doing for your entire life, I don’t know. But the real justification comes in the form of money.

It’s been years since Go For The Gold meant a measly medal you parade onto Letterman after the guy who just got kicked off Survivor so they can mock the fact that three weeks ago no one had any clue who in the hell you were before a quadruple sow cow, bobsled, or one-one-hundredth-of-a-second made you into a national hero (oh, by the way, soldiers are still dying in Iraq, Afghanistan, and probably a few other countries we aren’t even aware of). No, the real race in the Olympics is now and forever will be the one for those three months of fame, a few million dollars in endorsement deals and that always thrilling, if but a bit receding in the national conscious, cover of a Wheaties box. Seriously, does anyone eat that crap? Oh yeah, and there’s always that D.U.I a few months after the fifteen minutes wind down and the millions are almost gone. Thanks Michael Phelps, that was a sweet couple of weeks. I’ll never forget those four medals you won in archery. That was awesome!

Don’t Tread on Me

Maybe you are thinking that was off-topic a bit, but this is what lead my mind to wonder something. No matter the seemingly worthlessness of the Olympics, the invented sports, the you-barely-qualify-as-an-athlete competitors, they end up getting pretty solid ratings. It will help that the Olympics fall between the Super Bowl and the start of baseball, but still, people tune in and cheer for whatever American happens to be there, even if they won’t be able to remember the “athlete’s” name two weeks later. Mexican teams in the MLS pushes our league into new markets, again with the hopes of increased viewership.

So is it just about ratings? Why doesn’t U.S. soccer get the same fan support? Is not nationalism peddled in our sport? The Don’t Tread on Me campaign hasn’t even been to the television, but isn’t Nike pulling on the same heart strings? Released during qualifying and targeted at US MNT fans, the campaign is certainly patriotic, calling out to the one nation that seems it couldn’t care less. Like it or not, soccer is in a place where campaigns like this are utilized to not only motivate the fans that are committed already, but it speaks to those who have already written soccer off, in effect taking sides with the nations we will come up against in Germany. All of a sudden, it dawned on me. Flip this another way, and soccer is the Olympics. Soccer is the Tour De France. Can it be true? Are we destined for media attention once every four years? where does that leave soccer after the hoopla of 2006 has come and gone? Will anyone remember Landon, Beasley, or Onyewu’s name? Will more people check out an MLS game? Can we sustain the hype?

step up or stepped on?

After 2002, soccer was on the cover of Sports Illustrated and paraded around the talk show circuit – sound familiar? Did it do any good for the sport of soccer? Are we in a better spot than we were then? Most will argue the team is better, but the attention has barely changed, if at all. MLS is doing better, but hardly exploding. With few if any ways to quantify the popularity of American soccer, how well ABC and ESPN make out with Neilson might be quite a litmus test. Would the Mouse have bought the rights for the next two tournaments if we would have went out in the first round in 2002 on the heels of 1998? Will we beat the Olympics viewership? Could we possibly lose to the Tour De France? We have ABC, the Tour had OLN. If the U.S. fails to get out of the second round, will the ratings dip, showing viewers cease to care about the sport once their nation’s team has lost? These ratings numbers will help to prove where we are at – wherever that may be. If they are strong, we can parade them around whether we win or not. If they are weak, well, at least we have our sport, even if we have to live through another four years of being the butt of a joke. One day, we may not need Don’t Tread on Me. It could be a distant memory because our team is too good to play the underdog card or because our team, our fans, and our nation continue to get walked over.

Nationalism can provide that needed spark to ignite the eternal flame, but it also creates smoke, through which it is hard to see the whole picture. When all is said and done, when the fireworks are through and the smoke clears, it doesn’t matter what the MLS, the Olympic Committee, or the marketers say or do. Good performances by good athletes will win out over marketing. You see, it doesn’t matter how good Carl Lewis can sing the national anthem, it only matters how fast he can run.