MLS, SI.com, Tennis

MLS Cup Sets Template For Future Soccer Success…

One of the most significant games in the history of professional soccer took place in the Pacific Northwest in the late summer of 1977, when the New York Cosmos, led by the legendary Pele, won their first North America Soccer league title by defeating the original Seattle Sounders 2-1 in Portland Oregon. This past weekend, perhaps the most important game since then in the evolution of professional soccer in the United States again took place in the Pacific Northwest, where a crowd of over 40,000 saw Real Salt Lake defeat the Los Angeles Galaxy 2-1 on penalty kicks to take the 2009 Major League Soccer title?

Is this championship more significant than say, last year’s win by the Columbus Crew in Los Angeles? Yes. First, the Sounders have become the model for expansion or relocation franchises anywhere, in any sport, in North America in the last ten years. The league and the team carefully chose owners, built grassroots support, established marketing partnerships, hired seasoned executives who knew the marketplace, and then continued to support all the efforts with smart ticketing programs, fan development, youth development and partnership programs. The result was a market that liked soccer but loved the brand at a time when their longstanding NBA team had left that market for Oklahoma City. Taking that local fervor, and then adding the support and pageantry of a championship game, albeit a neutral site game, with two franchises located west of the Rockies, one of which from a major market and featuring David Beckham, dropped another level of interest in. Then take all the community work that MLS’ brand support team added in, and factor in a market looking to expose itself to the world for a potential World Cup host, and you have an almost perfect mix of brand activation, star and celebrity pull (Sounders part owner Drew Carey did his work to build excitement and cache), game excitement, educated and passionate fans and a great venue. All makes for a great cap on another year of growth for professional soccer in North America by a league that has managed expectations over time and built a steady flow of success to maximize the opportunities that exist.

Now does a Sunday night against the NFL with no discernible ties to the east coast slow down the progress or put a damper on post-game success stories? Maybe a bit. Does that fact that one of last year’s finalists, the New York Red Bulls, had a disastrous season hurt media coverage back east? Yes. However the game and the area set up a great template for excitement in new expansion markets Philadelphia and Vancouver for the next few years and could probably also serve as a best practice for ANY sport looking to build a groundswell of excitement in a new market going forward. The NASL championship game was one of the high water marks for that league, which went the way of bad planning and ridiculous spending and met a tough demise only a few years later. MLS has learned from that lesson for sure, with smart business practices, growing grassroots support and partners who are being shown solid ROI. This championship in the Pacific Northwest will also be memorable, not for a one off success, but probably for a standard of success in branding that will be followed through on and grown in subsequent championship events for years to come.

Some other good reads…Yahoo sports’ Martin Rogers had a good profile of the LA Galaxy’s Landon Donovan in what could have been his final MLS match…si.com’s Grant Wahl has a good q and a with MLS Commissioner Don Garber…and the New York Times had a good look at ATP President Adam Helfant.