By Paul Kennedy
How close is MLS to achieving its goal of being among the world’s premier soccer leagues? In a survey of the world’s top leaguesby monthly magazine World Soccer, MLS ranked seventh.
According a tweet by Sporting Intelligence, theGerman Bundesliga is the top league in the World Soccer rankings followed by the English Premier League. Spain’s La Liga, Italy’s Serie A and Brazil’s Serie A rounded out the top five.
Mexico’s Liga MX was sixth ahead of MLS, which finished in front of France’s Ligue 1, the Netherlands’ Eredivisie and Argentina’s Primera Division in the top 10.
The survey took intoaccount attendance, finances, goals, competitiveness, caliber of players and coaches, stadiums and success in continental competitions.
MLS has recently stated as its goal to be among theworld’s premier soccer leagues by 2022.
SPORTING KC SELLS OUT SEASON TICKETS. Sporting Kansas City’s allotment of 14,000 season tickets for the 2013season at Sporting Park are sold out. Beginning on Wednesday, prospective season-ticket members may join the club’s waiting list by placing a $50 non-refundable deposit per season ticket request.
“We’ve seen a tremendous response from our fans for tickets,” said Jake Reid, Sporting Kansas City’s chief revenue officer. “Their support is whatmakes the atmosphere at Sporting Park so incredible. Our season ticket base is the strongest it has ever been and this plan will ensure that new fans and groups have the opportunity to enjoy theexperience of attending our matches this season.”
Sporting Kansas City leads all MLS teams in new season-ticket members for 2013 and have averaged over a 90% season-ticket member renewalrate for the last three seasons.
THE SOCCER DON IN ACTION. Want to see MLS commissioner Don Garber at work inhis New York office? He answers questions from fans via Twitter on Tuesday afternoon, a tough afternoon as his favorite, Barcelona, got hammered by Bayern Munich, 4-0 in the UEFA Champions League.
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The MLS ahead of France, Argentina?? Really?? There seems to be a big gap between MX and MLS. I dont think that the gap is even bigger between MX and Argentina or France.
“big gap between MX and MLS”? How do you figure. I understand that MX has consistently beaten MLS, but if you look at the most recent CONCACAF Champions League, the results were very close. In fact, only one game in the entire Champion’s league between an MLS team and an MX team (Houston at Santos Laguna) was decided by more than one goal. Moreover, MLS won many of the individual matches, though they obviously lost both of the semifinals in the aggregate.
Remember, the survey includes a number of factors beyond the quality of play such as attendance, finances, goals, competitiveness, stadiums etc. MLS is a very competitive league. The gap between the top club and bottom is not that wide. Its clubs are sound financially. The attendance is very good and growing. There are brand new stadiums being built almost every year with more on the way. Italy has built only one new stadium (Juventus) since 1990 when they hosted the World Cup. Most of their stadiums are crap.
Luis..Argentina puts out great players, but they generally play elsewhere. Their domestic league is not great. League 1 is a bit of a financial mess. Obviously PSG is better by a wide margin than anyone in MLS, but after that the quality drops significantly.
Cummon guys, all but 1 or 2 MLS teams would be relegated if they played 2nd Division in the UK. MLS is somewhere around an honest 10-15th.
Same could be said then about most teams from other leagues behind MLS then also Allan…….and, no there is not a big gap between MX & MLS, and the concacaf CL has very little attraction or prestige to be using it as a measuring stick….
7th in the World regarding caliber of players and coaches? Are we serious?
Hey guys…I’m picking out bits and pieces from your posts…”MLS a very competitive league?” Please explain because without the “one element” that we all know of which exists in almost every league around the world it is not possible.
Thank goodness for the New York Cosmos at East Rutherford…AND thank goodness for the Seattle Sounders!!! Old NASL Average 14,440MLS Average: 23,140You would think after 29 years it would get drastically better! It has…by around 10.000!!!
We need to be absolutely ceratain that reported data is accurate…there are mutiple references to data other than “Sporting Intelligence.” Here’s a query for you…”How many leagues in the world utilize “2” countries to make up their Premier Divisions? Maybe “Sporting Ingelligence” can answer that one!!!
Hey Allan:You mention the Championship! Absolutely correct! To be even more precise, some MLS clubs are at the best the caliber of European 2nd and 3rd divisions. We need to accept this. US Soccer needs to intervene and create a Div 1,2,3 so maybe, just maybe, we might inch to level Paul Kennedy is referring to!!!
Hahahahahaha, what a joke. Don’t you see that this poll/survey was taken by an American magazine? You Americans are so sad, create your own poll where mostly your own people vote and then claim to be in the top 10 in the world. LMAO! The MLS ranks in the top 30, MAYBE, definitely top 50.seriously, LMFAO!