Today’s MLSSoccer.com: All you need to know about purple unicorns
Editorial: MLS silence on CBA has backfired
by Steve Clare, Editor Prost Amerika
President, NASR
Did you know that the 2015 Major League Soccer season may not start on time?
Well you wouldn’t if you got all your news from MLSSoccer.com or the league’s twitter account. You also might not if your reading was restricted to the clubs’ press releases. Given that you are reading this editorial though, you probably do though.
You also probably know if you have read twitter, Facebook, talked to another fan, or even read the most Front Office-friendly fan site. Everyone it seems is talking about the potential strike or lockout and most have an opinion on it.
The problem is though that hard facts are hard to come by and in that situation, people will always fill that vacuum with their best guesses. That means that misinformation and guesstimates appear to have the same currency as the musings of those genuinely close to the heartbeat of the action.
The second problem is credibility.
As the first day of the season draws near, we still do not know if we will have a season.
Yet the clubs, otherwise silent on the biggest issue of the year, continue to fling out sales emails advising us where to buy kit, or tickets, or who the latest corporate sponsor is. Everything is geared to telling us how to hand over our money to them and their corporate friends. There is no shortage of information there.
It may be time to remind the league and the clubs that fans’ sole purpose is not to make them rich.
These sales blasts seem to ignore that fans are in it for the football; and without any football, they are not interested in buying the official burger of the Chicago Fire, even if it tastes delicious; or who has purchased naming rights to a stadium that’s going to remain empty all year.
We love the sport because we want to watch it and yes; fans are prepared to be fleeced on occasion for the privilege but they are also want to be more than that.
To add insult to injury, they are asking fans to part with money while in some eyes denying fair pay and work practises to their employees. That’s not to say this editorial is taking sides; but if you had already taken the side of the Players’ Union in your heart, the continued bilking is going to alienate you even further.
“Give us money so we can not pay players for you to watch. You you will have no football – but we still get your money.”
That is of course an overstatement but it characterizes a nasty gut reaction to the unabated flow of sales pitches, when the things we really need to hear are ignored.
Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the respective claims in the CBA negotiations, MLS and its clubs have developed a huge message problem. We understand the desire not to negotiate ‘through the media’. But the powerful should also understand fans’ desire not to be treated like children or cash-cows.
No-one is suggesting foghorn diplomacy. A simple MLS statement on mlssoccer.com outlining their official position would have been a start – as would juxtaposing it with the Players Union’s view on the same page. Basic stuff. Adult stuff.
But by MLSSoccer.com trying to be the universal goto place for MLS news while pretending the negotiation isn’t happening has made MLS look like parents trying to hide from the kids that mommy and daddy are getting divorced, even though we can see the removal van coming to take away daddy’s things.
Prost Amerika does not doubt that MLS are the guardians of club soccer in this country.
We certainly don’t join in the knee jerk criticism of the Commissioner resorted to by some at every turn. Even if some club owners may be motivated by greed, Commissioner Garber has regularly shown himself to be motivated by taking the right steps to expand, but also where necessary to reduce or slow down the league’s growth spurt.
But taking key (and tough) decisions does not mean you need to protect the public from the complexities. We know making soccer profitable in North America is tough. The official silence suggests you either do not know or do not trust your demographic.
Fans may or we may not have sympathy for your side, but at least allow them to grasp some of those complexities.
No-one is blaming the editors of MLSSoccer.com for this.
It is the official league site and if the league sets a policy of saying nothing, they are stuck with it. In fact, Editor Greg Lalas has our sympathy as do all the league and club media relations’ staffs, players, as well as the stadium catering workers, gate staff and stewards – all of whose livelihoods will be affected.
The news blackout needs a rethink because, Commissioner, one look at social media today suggests you are losing the debate, and losing it badly; and that’s before the players start even trying to pull our heartstrings.
Those fans who are being alienated by being kept uninformed are the best evangelists the league and the sport has, something you have graciously recognised many times before. You’re going to need them back when all this is over.
The sooner you start the easier it will be.
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