Star players like LAFC's Carlos Vela could help MLS reach new levels of popularityGETTY IMAGES
LAFC co-Owner Larry Berg predicted that MLS will surpass MLB in "popularity during the next 10 years," and Inter Miami CF co-Owner Jorge Mas maintained it will be "higher quality" than the EPL and LaLiga by '45, according to Ronald Blum of the AP. Mas said, "MLS 25 years from now will be Premier League-ish if we want to so-call it that on the metrics that leagues are measured by." FC Dallas Chair & CEO Clark Hunt, comparing soccer's progress in the U.S. to that of the NFL, said, "The momentum that we have I think has a chance to take us to where the NFL is today" (AP, 2/26). But YAHOO SPORTS' Doug McIntyre writes it will take MLS "a lot longer" than Berg's 10-year estimate to catch MLB or the NHL, leagues that have "been around for over a century." McIntyre: "MLS isn't even close right now. I can't see them bridging that gap in 10 years" (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 2/28). THE ATHLETIC's Sam Stejskal wrote any "serious observer of soccer in the U.S., Canada and the broader world would find" Berg and Mas' comments "at least a little bit delusional." A quarter-century into its existence, MLS is "still very, very far from reaching those heights." Stejskal: "It's good to be ambitious, but it'd also be good for Berg and Mas to perhaps be a bit more realistic" (THEATHLETIC.com, 2/26).
WISHFUL THINKING? In S.F., Ray Ratto wrote one has to "admire the MLS folks." They are "good at avoiding the one problem they haven't made enough of an advancement to solve, namely, creating a platform of homegrown players and managers who can match the world's best at skill and tactics." MLS will be the sport Berg and Mas "said it can be not in a number of years as much as a number of players." Ratto: "They expand to new cities every six weeks, but until those teams are populated with players who can electrify as well as edify, until they can develop players who entertain better than the retreads with big names, they will not have solved the thing they really need to do to make their league appointment viewing and attending" (957THEGAME.com, 2/27).
