MLS All-Star Game Gives League Chance To Gain Worldwide Clout

Garber Feels All-Star Game Provides Opportunity To Convert More Fans To MLS

Tonight's MLS All-Star Game at Rio Tinto Stadium, which pits the league's All Stars against EPL club Everton, extends the "risk/reward situation for a league that's continually seeking worldwide footing and increased local following," according to Kurt Kragthorpe of the SALT LAKE TRIBUNE. The game is "only an exhibition, but it means everything to MLS, trying to beat an international opponent for the fifth year in a row." The number of "available soccer fans is not necessarily the problem" in the U.S., but the "real issue is making more of those people care about MLS." MLS Commissioner Don Garber: "We continue trying to convert the broad soccer market into fans of our teams. Playing in these exhibitions is an opportunity to do that." Kragthorpe writes MLS someday "may reach a point where this game will be just for fun," but at this stage, the All-Star Game "matters a lot to everybody in the league" (SALT LAKE TRIBUNE, 7/29). In Utah, Brad Rock writes the game for MLS is a "one-time-a-year chance to get noticed in places where soccer is life, i.e. almost anywhere outside the USA." Dynamo coach Dominic Kinnear, who will lead the MLS squad for the game, said, "I think when you look at the MLS season, there's always two marquee games. That would be the All-Star Game, and obviously the MLS Cup at the end of the season." Rock writes tonight's game is the "biggest game of the year for MLS and a scrimmage for Everton," though the EPL club "has been careful not to appear disdainful of America's soccer ambitions." Everton managers and players this week have "deftly balanced between praising MLS and admitting today's outcome isn't a top priority." MLS gets to "measure its progress, while Everton gets in a nice little preseason workout." While MLS has tried "various formats for its mid-season match -- it has played MLS vs. Team USA, East vs. West and MLS vs. MLS World formats -- this one has worked best." U.S. fans have "slurped it up with a straw" (DESERET NEWS, 7/29).

NOT THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN: YAHOO SPORTS' Martin Rogers wrote after a "month in which soccer, at least in terms of attendance, made a serious play to be recognized as mainstream" in the U.S. with World Football Challenge and Gold Cup matches, tonight's game is "in danger of being an afterthought." The "welcome invasion of high-profile international teams prompted a swell of interest this summer, with crowds flocking to games in eye-opening numbers," and at a time when "all is relatively quiet in many of the big American pro sports ... the MLS All-Star game is facing big competition for attention within its own sport." Rogers: "A school of thought within MLS is that any increase in exposure for soccer is positive for the league, yet it is going to be increasingly hard to get local fans interested in the home product when access to some of the world's best teams is so readily available" (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 7/28).

Beckham Not Included On MLS All-Star Team

MISSING FEATURE ATTRACTION: Real Salt Lake Owner Dave Checketts said that he "lobbied hard" for Garber to include Galaxy MF David Beckham on the MLS All-Star team, believing that Beckham "would have added some luster to the game in the same way Magic Johnson did at the 1992 NBA All-Star Game." Checketts: "But that was not a battle I was going to win" (SALT LAKE TRIBUNE, 7/25). ESPN SOCCERNET's Steve Davis wrote it "seems unimaginable that world soccer's most illustrious icon isn't an MLS All-Star," though his loan to AC Milan "prevented Beckham from playing more than one MLS contest before selections were made." It looks like MLS "might be a little 'over' the whole Beckham thing." Meanwhile, Davis noted "some reporters and bloggers seem bored and are starting a groundswell for a return to the old East-West format, or to a once-tried format of American MLS stars versus Foreign MLS Stars." A total of 34 players "participated in the last East-West format contest," and the league's talent pool "has surely improved since then" (ESPNSOCCERNET.com, 7/27).

TURNING THE TIDE: The WALL STREET JOURNAL's Futterman & Wingfield write there is "growing evidence that America's parochial attitude" toward soccer is "quickly fading." ESPN drew "about four million American television viewers" for last month's Brazil-U.S. Confederations Cup final, and Sunday's Mexico-U.S. Gold Cup final "drew nearly 80,000 fans to Giants Stadium." Also, by next year, MLS will have "nine soccer-specific stadiums, offering the same cozy atmosphere of arenas throughout Europe," and these "signs of strength, combined with one of youth sports' highest participation rates, have even the game's staunchest traditionalists believing that much-hyped, always just-around-the-corner U.S. soccer boom may finally be upon us." In many ways, the "greatest danger for America's domestic soccer league is the changing nature of the world," as the global sports TV market "now allows avid fans in the U.S. to ignore MLS and instead follow the world's best teams from afar." Ultimately, "success and credibility in soccer, as in any sport, comes down to winning" (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 7/29).