Soccer beats baseball in a tale of rise and fall of two sports
Major League Soccer cares more — about its sport and fans — than Major League Baseball.
MLS is smarter than MLB. MLS is more hip and advanced.
MLS sees the larger, longterm picture.
All the above qualify as the obvious explanations, right?
Because MLS announced Wednesday it is 100 percent coming back. MLB is still screwing around with your time, patience and increasingly wavering devotion. And I don’t know how else to explain this.
MLS is set to beat MLB back to the field.
I know this is the month of June in the year 2020. The world we’re all trying to live better lives in is upside down.
But … what in the world?
“The opportunity to have all 26 clubs in a controlled environment enables us to help protect the health of our players, coaches and staff as we return to play,” MLS commissioner Don Garber said.
Be honest: Did you know Garber’s name before you read that quote? It doesn’t matter. MLS beat MLB at the grand ol’ game — big business — and I’ve never been more proud to be a semi-MLS follower.
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred must be too busy trying to figure out how to embarrassingly force more than half of his league into the playoffs (after a two-month season) and better explain how professional baseball struggles to turn a financial profit.
Will the renewed version of this MLS season work?
Will the rising league successfully make it through a 26-team tournament?
The standard go-to answer in 2020 applies: To be determined.
But the just-unveiled event already sounds cool. And the simple fact the “MLS is Back Tournament” will precede the NBA’s arrival near Disney World tells you all you currently need to know.
The NBA is
MLS.
Dang.
MMA barely paused and proudly kept kicking. The NHL announced a 24-team playoff plan. NASCAR reignited its roar. IndyCar returned last weekend at Texas Motor Speedway. The PGA resumes Thursday in Fort Worth. Texas forever, right? On paper, with TBD looming over almost everything in our still-weird sports world, MLS took advantage of an unprecedented situation that MLB keeps pathetically whiffing at.
Someone was going to be first. Just like the slow reopening of neighborhood restaurants, small businesses and big-box stores, someone has to jump in the water — skillfully, successfully — instead of just staring at the water and talking about it.
If this all works out, MLS will control a key part of the national sports conversation like … well, MLS never has.
“This is another major step for the team, particularly now that we know when we’ll return to play next month in Orlando,” said Matt Jordan, Dynamo senior vice president and general manager. “Our players and staff have been working very hard both on and off the field over the last three months to get to this point.”
See how the magic works?
When a sport returns and teams begin playing again — the Dynamo will resume full-team training sessions Thursday; MLS’ splashy new tournament kicks off July 8 — they receive more coverage in the local sports section. And on national TV.
The timing of the coronavirus pandemic was horrible for 99 percent of America. The timing was
really bad for MLS, which had just started its new season and was riding a buzzing wave of increased attention and national expansion.
“Every club in every sport needs a winning team to help amplify what it’s trying to do from a business perspective, and ours is no different,” said John Walker, Dynamo president of business operations, during the team’s season opener Feb. 29 at BBVA Stadium. “Everybody here is having a really good time. Hopefully, they’ll tell friends. We’ll be aggressive at going back at people who are at this match and saying, ‘Come on back. Come back a second and third time. Bring a friend.’ There are plenty of people in town to support this club.”
American life completely changed a couple weeks later, and we’ve been anxiously waiting for normal to return ever since.
With the 54-match tournament housed in Orlando, Fla., the Dynamo’s local revamp remains on pause.
But soccer will help fill the surreal void, and MLS will be the first major team sports league back.
The NBA can watch and learn.
MLB’s billionaire owners and millionaire players would be furious — if they really cared. While baseball’s spoiled children kept fighting in public, Major League Soccer did what Major League Baseball could not.