Soccer- MLS finals ratings at all-time low

[thefish7]

I also have issues with the faking of injuries in soccer, but that might be a topic for another time. It is not as bad in the MLS as it is in internation soccer, but you almost never see a similar issue in hockey. NHL players take tremendous hits and get right up and resume playing. Even broken bones and major lacerations are fixed in the locker room and the players return to the ice. How many times do we see soccer players fake a fall or an injury, then lay on the soft ground and writhe for minutes to embellish it and try to get the official to call a penalty?

Yeah, agreed. Something American fans won't like, but to be honest, it's not a problem in MLS or NCAA games I've seen, and also not much of a big deal in the EPL either. Spanish and Italian soccer... ehhhhh.....

I still think fans thinking it's boring or not has nothing to do with the amount of scoring or backpassing or any of that. It's just if you were brought up a soccer fan. This feels a little bit like saying, all those other 6 billion people are nuts! That game's boring! If "exciting/fast play" was a driver of fan excitement then why hasn't ice hockey supassed soccer in those other countries?

[SFP]

The best part of the EPL (other than the play on the field) is the pyramid of promotion and relegation.

I agree with this and I'd like to see this in other sports!

T - I also believe they need to do something about the off sides and award teams that attack. The off-sides allows the D to sit back and wait. If you moved the off-side line to the top of the box then you could have a much more wide open field. A big field in these conditions would be very beneficial.

[SFP]

Also, the MLS did a poor job promoting the playoffs and finals.

[Fyrebyrd]

I'm late to this conversation and didn't read the prior posts, so my points have pry already been stated.

Before I launch into my list of reasons, I will say that I am a huge football(soccer) fan.

Reasons for low ratings:

1. The MLS is already a poor product with hopes of grandeur, but anyone who is really interested in football, knows that the MLS is not a good product and have far more interest in the bigger leagues and National competitions. This has been reflected heavily in the World Cup games and the EPL games which have had far better ratings.

2. The MLS did a miserable job of promoting this and managed to somehow hurt themselves by putting themselves in Sunday primetime on ESPN2. It use to be in the middle of the afternoon on ABC. Now granted it had to compete with American football, but at least it was on network television and was usually slotted at the same time when only one other NFL game was on.

3. Finally, it pitted two teams with some of the least recognizable names and least interested fan-bases. If it had been Seattle, or LA, or New York, or Chicago, it would have done significantly better.

I really don't agree with the argument that Football in America is not growing. I think it is, people just enjoy football that has major star quality. Would you guys watch a baseball game that was Baltimore vs. Pittsburgh?

[tornado]

1. The MLS is already a poor product ..

College soccer and Euro soccer -- if they ever dare to put them on TV - do extremely poorly as well.
Even the World Cup -- where TV ratings everywhere else in the world are enormous -- literally everyone watching --
averaged a 2.1 rating this year -- even tho that was up 40% over the even worse ratings in 2006.
The maximum ratings on the final game -- virtually no different from the 2006 final game rating -- still says no more than a few million people in the US were watching.
Even the Women's World Cup Final in 1999 was watched by more people than any men's World Cup game ever.

So how good are those World Cup ratings compared to other things we watch??
Well...the top World Cup ratings are not even in the ballpark with Dancing with the Stars...
but maybe roughly on par with the very WORST individual World Series game (which got about a 7 rating). Very few World Cup matches even came close to an average nightly episode of Hannity or Anderson Cooper...
Very average Monday Night Football games easily do better than the very Top World Cup drew.

[ChewaBrave]

I agree with this and I'd like to see this in other sports!

T - I also believe they need to do something about the off sides and award teams that attack. The off-sides allows the D to sit back and wait. If you moved the off-side line to the top of the box then you could have a much more wide open field. A big field in these conditions would be very beneficial.

I just don't think this is true. If you want to see an extremely boring game, change offsides to this. The only reason this opens up the game, is if you assume teams play the same way they do now, with this rule change - they wont. You'll see teams sit back and play even deeper, even more reluctant to move forward. The bottom line, defenses are going to align themselves, so that its still not possible to have a striker play behind them. And you'd basically see the end of midfield players, as there wouldn;t be any use for them - you'd have strikers and defenders and maybe a center midfielder, as the whole idea would be long ball to Usain Bolt from your defenders. You're probably significantly more likely to find teams playing with a sweeper or a fifth defender. Like it or not, the offsides rule as it exists, is what allows teams to move up the field, because they don't have to worry about Walcott just out sprinting them every time they lose the ball - thusly, ball movement becomes important, and skill when counter attacking is important. Soccer like most games is supposed to be a combination of speed, strength, organization and skill - dramatically shifting the offsides rules turns it in to an extremely boring track meet.

[SFP]

I never did say to remove the off side rule, just move the line down a bit more like hockey. Once the ball is down to a certain area then it could be a free for all. Take a look how lacrosse is played.

[ChewaBrave]

I never did say to remove the off side rule, just move the line down a bit more like hockey. Once the ball is down to a certain area then it could be a free for all. Take a look how lacrosse is played.

If you were to set a line, and move it to say the box or something, the defenders would all just stand at the line, they just aren't going to let strikers run around behind them. I would say lacrosse is a perfect example of how it would play out. In lacrosse only 6 players are allowed to attack, so the remaining players just stand there doing nothing for the most part in the defensive end - which coincidently is exactly what soccer players would do, only with a longer field, you have to correct for sprinting longer distances meaning, you are likely to have a substantial portion of your team playing defense.

As much as it may pain some people, the current use of offsides, is what allows soccer teams to move forward as they do now - it makes the game a real game honestly.