I wanted to point out a few interesting quotes from the article and give you my thoughts on the answers Garber gave. I thought Straus did an excellent job at posing some tough questions to Garber and it was interesting to see him go into some PR speak and try to avoid certain questions.

Regarding Playoff Format:

Tighter Schedules, SuperLiga, CCL:

On Beckham:

Beckham owning a club and Expansion in general:

Rebranding:

Read more of the interview here.

SI.com’s newest writer and WVH fave Tobias Lopez wrote an interesting little piece yesterday on some comparisons between the old NASL and Major League Soccer. Normally I’m right on board with Lopez but on this not so much. For the most part Lopez is saying the league right now is following a little too closely in the footsteps of its predecessor.

I get pieces like this from time to time from folks either through email or comments. Hey its understandable to think the league is moving a little too rapidly here after all those years of saying they had learned from the NASL’s mistakes.

There are some arguments to the rapid expansion that I understand as well but looking at the facts the league is expanding right where it should be. The NASL went from nine teams in 1973 to 20 teams in 1975 and peaked at 24 in 1980. During all of this expansion in MLS we’ve never seen more than two teams come into the league at once. Doubt we’ll ever see more than that.

A lot of the worry however surrounds the Beckham rule or the Designated Player rule if you will. There is cause for worry and concern there that a club like New York can spend the money on three big name guys while other teams in the league fail to even spend the entire salary cap of $2.8 million.

I know teams back in the day spent a lot of money on players they couldn’t afford but what club in the world didn’t do that back then? I’m fairly certainly a lot of clubs around the world had issues with spending money just like they do today. We shouldn’t think the NASL was the only league that wasted lots of money.

I won’t even get into the attendance issues from this article. Its hard to compare what the New York clubs of today and back then are able to do at the gate (well this year speaking for the Red Bulls). A lot of clubs struggled at the gate back in the NASL days while attendance figures today aren’t as bad as we really make them out to be. Sure they could be better but the league is still fairly new when you really get down to things.

Again I’m a fan of Lopez’s work but some of these comparisons just don’t work for me. I’m all for the slow growth that the league has done as much as the next guy but I do think its time to stop worrying back the old NASL issues. Maybe after another season or two the worries will go away as MLS will pass the old NASL in number of year in operation.

It seems recently I’ve been getting messages and comments on the single table debate. Then over at the New York Times’ soccer blog, Jack Bell throws out his hopes for the idea and what to do with the playoff format.

The obvious question is: Why even bother with two conference? Why not a single table? Glad you asked.

Next season the league with expand to 18 teams, with the addition of Vancouver and Portland. That probably means that a team from the west will be shifted to the other conference, which could prove to be extra silly since the team farthest east is Houston. So perhaps it is time to consider the single table and another new playoff format, one which will make the regular season a bit more important.

With a single table, the top two teams in the regular season would qualify and have a first-round bye. The next four teams, for a total of six, would also advance to the postseason.

Bell mentions Houston for a possible move to the Eastern conference, I’ve been on board with suggesting Dallas due to the fact that there is a professional team here in Dallas that is in a division that is known as the NFC East.

Some of the discussion I’ve had recently was centered around a three division set up. I can for one tell you I hate that idea with a passion. I honestly believe when the league did a three conference/division set up a decade ago it was an idea that ultimately failed them at the time. Its confusing, uneven and just wrong…just wrong.

I’m fine with conferences and if the league continues to grow with more than 20 teams (which I think it will), I’m also fine with as many as four divisons within two conferences.

But deep down I am ready for a single table format here with this league. With two more additions next year it just make sense and I think the league knows that by now. They’ve entertained the thought of it for a while now and I wouldn’t be shocked to see them go that direction soon.

Bell also brings up another interesting though in terms of the playoff format. I’m not sure if it was intentional or a typo on his part but it sounds like he is saying they need to lower the number of clubs that get in to six. So next year with 18 clubs, only six get into the big dance. I like that idea.

I know this debate has gone on time and time again with this league but I do feel we’re getting close to a change in the coming years.

I do believe this is the first time an owner has actually stepped up and spoke out on the CBA issue in Major League Soccer. The LA Times sat down with LA Galaxy boss Tim Leiweke and discussed the lack of respect the owners are getting right now from the players.

“Here’s our issue, and I’m speaking on behalf of AEG,” Leiweke said in an interview with The Times on Monday. “We have spent to the tune of $300 million on soccer. We have spent money on facilities. We at one point owned six of the 10 teams to keep the league alive.

“I don’t even know how to react when I hear the players now saying that we have treated them poorly and they’re going to strike. The fact is, the Galaxy isn’t going to make money this year. There are only a couple of [MLS] teams that will make money this year.

“It’s not like this league is a work of completion. It’s not like we have accomplished what we have to accomplish to be stable and to know we have a great future. It’s not like we have reached the potential of a soccer league in this country.

“So when I hear them talk about striking and shutting the league down, I’ve got to tell you, they’re going to lose us when they talk like that.

“We do this out of passion. If this were a business, we would have quit this 10 years ago.”

“It would have been easy for us to quit over the last 10 years,” he said. “There were five different times we could have called it a day. But we didn’t. We fought through it.

“So for them to suddenly threaten that they’re going to shut it all down, I’m a little amazed at the lack of respect they show for the commitment that we all have made to get the league to where it’s at today.”

I’ve read and been told in the past AEG was one of the few owners that actually wants to make concessions to the players and based on that I would imagine they were one of the owners this time around that was at the center of making those concessions the league has talked about.

I’ll admit, I’ve been waiting for Leiweke and AEG to speak out on this issue. Its not secret that they along with the Hunts and the Krafts saved this league a while back from going under. Thankfully they aren’t about to quit on the league either even with this on-going issue.

There will certainly be some folks today that see the disrespect line and will run with it in support of the players. I loved that Leiweke talked about the league and the sport in general not reaching its full potential here. The players have to know that too. I kind of wonder too if the players even realize what the owners have put into this league at this point.

Leiweke said that it’s basically up to the players here, which is something we’ve been saying for a while. But like he said at the end of the article, its ridiculous and it needs to get done and be over here.

I wanted to start off today with an interesting take by Brian Straus, which may be one of the better thoughts on the labor issues surrounding the veteran players, not the younger players.

MLS has no incentive to make the Hartmans ($165,000 in 2009) and van den Berghs ($227,000) richer. It does have an incentive to leave as much space under its salary budget as it can to acquire notable players from overseas and to retain top young American talent — the kind of athletes that will generate interest in a league in which the vast majority of teams are still losing money. League officials already think many players are overpaid based upon what they’d be able to command from a club overseas, if anything.

Interesting. He had some other thoughts I wasn’t totally in agreement with but that one made me think a bit.

I had been planning all week on posting my overall thoughts on this madness but really the more I read into everything that is written the less I want to. Its all made my head hurt like never before. I’m still optimistic here that something will get done in the final hour but right now it hasn’t sounded good.

We do know that some players at least aren’t going to strike here. That’s positive to hear. I still think a strike by the players does nothing to change the issue here for them. They want certain things so badly but the league still holds all the power here. I think moving to a strike won’t kill off soccer in this country but it won’t help either, especially in a World Cup year. I think Kenn Tomasch put it well earlier, there wasn’t soccer for ten years before MLS and the game didn’t die here.

Hopefully we’ll have good news to report later on today.

Below are some of the best thoughts and comments I’ve seen out there on the whole CBA issue. I’m throwing out different opinions here so enjoy. Note, I may or may not agree with everything below but it’s definitely some of the best stuff I’ve seen on the matter today (and yesterday).

The 24th Minute: The CBA I Want To See

Match Fit USA: A US Fan Guide To The MLS CBA: Propagada

Match Fit USA: Free Agency – Flatlining Quality Growth

ESPN’s Jeff Carlisle: Work stoppage only option for players?

Fake Sigi Blog: Free Agency and Single Entity

SBI: MMCB On Labor Mess

Soccer America’s MLS Confidential: Clock Ticking As Labor Strife Continues

ASN: MLS, Players Closer To CBA Deal Than You Might Think

Spangler, like myself, loves the topic of sports journalism or in this case soccer journalism. I like it probably for some of the same reasons he does, my background is in journalism (though more on the broadcast side) and for some reason just the talk of media in general always interests me.

We’re at an interesting point though right now in journalism. If you’re reading this then you a contributing factor in some way to the demise of the print (newspaper and magazine) industry. Blogs are killing off those news services quicker than the old bosses at those papers would like to believe. I’ve worked in and around newspapers a decent bit to know that some folks in that industry still are too stubborn to really understand why their business is dying – but that is a subject for another day.

Spangler brings up two posts (1, 2) that I nearly talked about a couple days ago. It made me think about when was the last time I picked up a Soccer America. I went digging through some old things, brushing some dust off an old box in my garage I managed to find an old ragged copy of a SA (please don’t ask why I still have it…probably just the pack-rat in me from my Grandma’s side of the family). That last magazine was from 1998, an issue shortly after France’s win in the World Cup. Now I’m not buying this magazine anymore though I get random calls from their subscription office here and there still. Back then it was still a magazine, today its a lot less than that.

(sidebar- I’m not France fan so I have no idea why I kept this issue for 12+ years…that box also contained a lot of old random soccer stuff like a UVA soccer jersey from the mid-90s when I think Bruce Arena was still coaching there so it was random to say the least. The magazine wasn’t even fully intact either, cover fell off after picking it up too.)

Now I don’t want this to sound like a banter of what I think Soccer America or other soccer magazines should do right now but for what it is worth I can see why the magazine industry is struggling. In Soccer America’s case it may be because they charge too much for an issue that really lacks a lot of substance. Magazine reading is a lot like newspaper reading, you aren’t reading it for being the most current and update to date information – you read it because you want to. The internet along with blogs brings the news right to your face whenever you want it, unlike newspapers and magazines that bring it to you either on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

SA is doing a better job though with their online coverage but to a degree its becoming more blog like rather than magazine like. Then again most magazines that do well with their online footprint are more blog like then they are willing to admit.

Its just a thing right now, blogs are in while the old print style is out, dead, gone, or whatever adjective you want to place here. Then again a lot of blogs are out for the hits and pageviews rather than just putting out quality content. I fell victim to that at once and burnt myself out in the process. Thankfully I came back with a better understanding of what I wanted to do with this site. I think the best blogs out there aren’t in it for the hits and ad revenue, they’re just in it for the love of the game and the love to write about it.

For someone like myself who went through journalism school and has seen the ins and outs of the media business from nearly all angles its just an interesting time right now. Oddly enough I get most of my news every day from Twitter. Its weird to think we’ve gone from newspapers to websites to blogs to a 140-character post for getting news.

To tie it in with soccer we’re seeing all this change right before our eyes. Blogs are changing and getting smarter, the league is hiring quality writers to head up their new operation and before long the good bloggers out there will be hired up to actually make a living off what they do best. Its a weird cycle that is even weirder and harder to explain. Soccer and sports journalism isn’t dying too quickly here but it is changing in a way that most probably didn’t predict even two or three years ago.

I don’t think we are done with this change in the soccer media landscape. As the league and most of it’s clubs are set to relaunch their media sites we’ll see even more change in that department. Soccer and MLS are a little more into the new media trends of today and that helps the footprint of the sport moving forward. Magazines and newspapers got us started like they did with everything else but this is a new age in media, just time to do more with it like the league is slowly starting to do.

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I’ve probably made little to no sense here but for me it was something I needed to get out of my brain. I know my thought process is a bit random here and judging by the time I started writing this it’s taken me a couple hours to even get this all down. Sorry if this rambling was a waste to read, I know all too well that I am not the best writer at times. Again this was just merely a brain dump on my part.

Basically McCarthy offers a suggestion on how the league should re-do their scouting system. In a nutshell he says they should actually be more like the NHL. An idea that actually doesn’t sound too terrible on the surface.

Scouting is rough for MLS clubs due to the time that the college season goes on here in the States, which is right during the heart of the MLS season when teams are fighting to get into the playoffs. No team wants to spend time sending coaches to a college match in the middle of October when they are sitting a point out of a playoff spot. But what McCarthy says could be changed to will help teams out.

The concept is just as simple as it sounds. The NHL started its central scouting service in 1975 to serve its member clubs. Twenty-nine scouts – including eight full-time staffers and fifteen part-timers just to cover the U.S. and Canada – blanket North America and Europe and search for NHL prospects wherever they can be found. The service grades prospects on publicly-available criteria and issues two player ranking lists during the season. In addition to its player evaluation services, the central scouting service also offers weekly injury updates, supplies teams with game tapes and invites 100 top prospects to Toronto for medical and fitness testing.

Of course this model would be scaled down a bit for MLS. Plus this model would also get its own central service for player rankings and what not. Basically you’d take your Buzz Carricks of the world and hire them to scout full time for the league. Honestly a move that would benefit everyone involved.

The cost to do such a thing is probably the reason we will never see it take place in MLS. Not to mention folks will want academy players over college players down the road with the league putting proper emphasis on the academy system here we may not need this kind of scouting system anyways.

For improving the college draft this system wouldn’t be bad at all. It would give teams a chance to improve on those third and forth round picks that typically go nowhere after they are selected. I think getting the draft right is a vital part for clubs right now. The clubs who draft well over time typically do better in the league while those who don’t draft well do struggle.

What do you all think of this idea? Should the league spend some money on a good scouting system like this or not?

So if Freddy Adu comes home, where should he go? (Getty Images)

So it is a slow news day and I’m nearly thinking of taking the rest of the year off here. Still I wanted to post some extra thoughts on Freddy Adu and where in Major League Soccer he could go to. SBI posted some teams earlier and I wanted to add to it along with giving my thoughts on the teams already mentioned.

The teams in the discussion are Dallas, DC, Philadelphia, New York, RSL and Houston. Right away I’m throwing out those last three. New York makes little sense to me even though they are known for their poor decisions in roster choices. RSL fans have already let it be known to me that they don’t want Adu back, not even for dirt cheap. Houston only makes sense to me if they do end up losing Stuart Holden but even then I don’t really like the idea of it.

So that leaves Dallas, Philadelphia and DC from Ives’ list. I’m going to go ahead and throw a couple names in the hat that weren’t mentioned. Now you may like the idea or hate either way its a discussion piece.

I’m thinking along with those three others that could be interested would be Chicago, Chivas, Columbus, Colorado, and San Jose. Now given the fact that a couple of those clubs definitely won’t want to spend a lot on Adu they make a bit of sense because of their needs and how Adu plays.

Here’s my reasoning for each (along with further thoughts on the other three):

Chicago Fire:

With Blanco out of the picture this season for the Fire this bunch will need a playmaker in the midfield. Now whether or not you believe Adu is a playmaker he would provide some impact in the midfield for sure for the Fire. With Logan Pause and John Thornington in the midfield along with Adu that would create a midfield that I’d like to see if I were a Fire fan. Adu would have space to create and be able to set up with Patrick Nyarko and Brian McBride up top.

Chivas USA:

Chivas needs some flare in their attack and Adu could very well bring it for them. I’ll be honest, Chivas was the last club I came up with here in trying to find a destination for Adu. It’s not a sexy pick for either side really but it’s one that could work. I think Adu would do some good under Martin Vasquez.

Colorado Rapids:

Colorado has lacked a playmaker or an impact midfielder since they traded away Kyle Beckerman. With guys like Colin Clark in the midfield adding Adu would make some sense as it would help facilitate the attack to Conor Casey and Omar Cummings. Question is would Gary Smith be able to handle a hot-head like Adu? Its a risky pick but it could also help sell some seats out in Denver.

Columbus Crew:

I only put the Crew down here if they do end up losing Guillermo Barros Schelotto. If GBS stays then just ignore this thought.

FC Dallas:

Ives brought up Dallas as a likely destination for Adu and to me it really does make the most sense. While Dallas does not necessarily need Adu right this minute he would be someone that could contribute in the midfield if David Ferriera isn’t re-signed. Not to mention he would easily help sell some seats at Pizza Hut Park.

DC United:

All the points Ives brings up about DC are good ones. They need a midfielder to create in the attack in the badest of ways right now. Plus I do think that new manager Curt Onalfo would really help Adu get back on track. He did do good things with Eddie Johnson. I’d say he could do similar things with Adu.

Philadelphia Union

I honestly love the idea of Peter Nowak and Adu reuniting here. It sounds crazy but with Union being the top team in the new MLS Allocation Order it will be up to them to decide where Adu goes. I’d be willing to bet he’d fit in quite well with the new expansion team though.

San Jose Earthquakes

This could either be Bobby Convey 2.0 or it could be a welcome change that really helps the Quakes and Adu out. San Jose needs a boost in their midfield that they hoped to get out of Convey and Adu needs playing time.

[polldaddy poll=2442784]

I want to kickoff things tonight with a look on the issue of reporting coverage surrounding Major League Soccer. Tom over at Pitch Invasion posted a fantastic article earlier today about the lagging media coverage that MLS is getting hit by, particularly in the newspaper industry.

The main question asked is if/when will MLS clubs begin to hire their own beat writers for newspaper similar to what one hockey team in the NHL is doing. Honestly the ship has probably sailed for the league to do something like that since they have so many team blogs now and the cost of hiring a beat writer is probably a bit too much to handle.

It comes down to an industry thing in the newspaper business. I know first hand from working part-time at the Dallas Morning News that coverage for all sports not named football (NFL) or baseball are going down. Yes even NBA coverage is slipping a bit in some markets believe it or not. It also comes down to each newspaper going more digital and having writers be bloggers.

Take the Morning News for an example, their soccer coverage is next to nothing. I know they have a stringer for games and what not but they don’t staff a blogger nor even appear to want one.

I still believe we are a ways away from seeing a club hire a full-time beat writer or even blogger to follow the club on away games just to get their stories in the local paper. For one it is an investment that I believe some clubs just won’t be willing to make.

At the end of the day the thing that is more missed than just a box score in the paper is an objective voice that sees the team and doesn’t just fill copy in paper from a stringer that produces a few lines.

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More Schedule Debating

Link

Want some more fuel for that single table/change MLS to a August-May schedule debate? Just read these ideas from Kartik over at MLS Talk. Some are very valid points that I don’t believe have been really brought up before. Its all about regional rivalries and really makes a good bit of sense. To me it sounds like the thing to do from this article is keep conferences and not go to a single table. Conferences create better rivalries, which possibly could bring better coverage.

Honestly I still don’t believe the league will get to a August to May schedule for a long time here. Maybe once every and I mean every MLS club is in their own stadium, possibly including New England or even Seattle not being in Qwest for some reason that it could be done. Once each club is in their own digs it means the league has better chances to set up the schedule the way they want it and not have to deal with another sports team sharing the facility. I’d say come back to me in five years and see where we are at with things before we discuss flipping the schedule to make FIFA happy.

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A Bitch Slap To Dallas

Link

This one came from this morning. Steve Davis went on a big ol’ rant about re-branding things in MLS. For the lack of better terms he gave his and my home club FC Dallas a big ol’ bitch slap to their efforts of re-branding the club. While I think the switch from Burn to FC was much needed the efforts to make it go well hasn’t been good at all. Sad part its been five years since the switch!

This really summed it up for me:

Look, I could go on and on about bad print ads, nonsensical media buying strategies, ridiculously failed DP bids, money wasted on ballyhooed partnerships with foreign clubs, about running out of pizza countless times at Pizza Hut Park, about out-dated marketing strategies, about the long-term scourge of artificially inflated attendance numbers, about the mindless pursuit of the suburban family dollar, etc.

Bottom line, people figure it out. You are what you are, and you had better find a way to work with it.

You’ve heard me and a few others all year say what Dallas needs to do better and how they could do it but we’re all still waiting for it to happen. Dallas still hasn’t figured it out and it hasn’t been just this season.

Another thing here too about Pizza Hut Park that the Hunts continue to drop the ball with. Its a soccer facility. They really seem to forget that because they continue to not bring in any notable friendlies against FC Dallas from European clubs or top level clubs from South America or Mexico. Instead we get games against middle-level Latin America clubs that no one has ever heard of. Plus the facility is classy enough to get a decent US national team appearance from time to time. You can’t tell me that it wouldn’t be good enough for one of those early January friendlies for the national team.

Okay, I’m done ranting about FCD for the day. I’ll try to hold off until the end of the year for ranting about them again!