Shame that MLS playoff game can get lost in shuffle
Tuesday night being basketball night, I hunkered down with my man Jim Underwood, who was born with pebbled skin on the pads of his fingers. As his international pro career wrapped in the mid-1970s, his deft touch has long been applied to the TV remote. The big dog can surf.
We schussed from Indiana-syracuse to Knicks-nets and back. At one point, we checked in on Blue Jackets-predators and it was already 3-0 and Wood said, “Damn, it got late early in Nashville tonight.” And that was the extent of our NHL viewing for the night, around 15 seconds.
All of this was a lead-up to the main attraction, No. 1 Duke at Ohio State, the late game on ESPN. Props to the Buckeyes for their dramatic second-half comeback and tremorous upset. Coach K looked like he had a Carolina Reaper pepper stuffed up one of his nostrils.
It was great television. Golden State-phoenix — a huge game, even at this early point in the NBA season — was dessert. For a nightcap, there was Ernie, Shaq, Kenny and Chuck and the best studio show in all of sports, on TNT.
Next morning it hit me.
We missed the soccer game.
The New England Revolution and New York City FC, tied 2-2 through 90 minutes plus 30 minutes of extra time, decided their Eastern Conference semifinal on penalty kicks. The revs were outkicked 5-3 and NYCFC escaped Foxborough with one of the biggest upsets in MLS Cup playoff history.
The Revolution set a record for points in a regular season (73 in 34 games). One of the league’s founding members, the Revs seemed primed to tear through the playoffs and win their first MLS Cup. They looked like the 2017 Toronto FC team, only better and more likable (no Michael Bradley).
NYCFC gave them the boot. A national television audience of 333,000 watched on FS1 and Fox Deportes. Compared to Golden State-phoenix (2.377 million), Knicks-nets (1.75 million) or Duke-ohio State (1.31 million), it seems a lot of people missed the soccer game. A terrific soccer game. Or, match, if you prefer. Context is important here.
On one hand, given the stakes, the audience for the New England-nycfc game is disappointing. It drew about as many eyeballs as Chucky: Inside the Episode on the Syfy channel.
On the other hand, NE-NYCFC outperformed an average MLS telecast, which normally draws around 285,000 viewers. And it did this on a night that was teeming with compelling sports programming. Put it this way: I’m a consumer of MLS playoff games and I lost it in the whorl of Tuesday night.
Those who make the MLS playoff schedule need to adjust their formation this time of year. Their audience is there. Consider:
The Western Conference semifinal pitting Portland against Colorado drew 1.85 million viewers on Thanksgiving Day. It wasn’t in the same league with Cowboysraiders — 37.84 million, the largest regular-season NFL TV audience since 1993 — but, not counting Allstar games and Cup finals, it was the most-watched MLS game in 17 years and the second-most-watched MLS regular-season game of all time.
(Longtime soccer writer Grant Wahl has floated the idea of having the MLS Cup final on Thanksgiving.)
Postseason playoffs are not the norm in the world of soccer. That MLS has always embraced this American concept is much to the league’s credit. Internationals who land on these shores to ply their trade are uniformly captivated by the playoff system, and the best of them embrace the challenge as the stakes increase. Witness Lucas Zelarayan’s sublimity in leading the Crew to the MLS Cup championship last year.
The 2020 playoffs have made for fine television. The two Eastern Conference semifinals went to penalty kicks. The top seeds on either side of the draw — New England and Colorado — were knocked out after first-round byes. Underdog road teams have won four of the past five games played.
Real Salt Lake is on one of those remarkable, captivating playoff runs that reverberates beyond the league. The franchise is on the auction block. The coach left at midseason, to join the staff at Seattle, because he was unsure about his future in Salt Lake.
The team qualified for the seventh and final playoff spot in the West on the last day of the season, on a goal in second-half stoppage time. The interim coach, Pablo Mastroeni, has tapped into the zeitgeist of his band of castoffs. They locked down the No. 2 seed Seattle Sounders and won on kicks. They unfurled their attack and beat the No. 3 seed Sporting Kansas City 2-1 in the conference semis.
Old friend Justin Meram set up Bobby Wood’s game-winner in second half stoppage time. It marked the eighth time this season that RSL has scored a game-winning goal beyond the 90th minute. That is the mark of the bulletproof.
It’s truly a shame the Crew failed to make the field, and defend their title. Damned rebranding.
The conference finals are set: No. 4 Portland hosts RSL Saturday night; and No. 2 Philadelphia hosts No. 4 NYCFC Sunday afternoon. I’ll be rooting for redemption for Portland goalkeeper Steve Clark, a wonderful human being, but if Meram beats him, that’d be all right. I’ll be pulling for Philly in the East because City. I’ll plan to watch.