[mmbt0ne]

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you're biased

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no, I actually watch soccer. I'm a realist about it though.

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Here's the reality.

-Soccer will continue to grow in the US. Soccer will not crack into the top 3 sports for a long long long time if ever. That doesn't mean that soccer will never be successful.

-MLS has done a great job with the central authority making sure that teams don't spend themselves into bankruptcy, and letting the league grow on its own rather than forcing things up to this point.

-MLS really needs to get all of the teams other than NE (for reasons mentioned earlier) into SSSs or into better markets so that they can all be profitable. As soon as this happens they need to redo the CBA and bump the salary cap up to at least $7M to improve the ability to sign international players.

-They need to not get ahead of themselves and continue with the planned expansion to 16 teams by 2010, not the 20 that has been mentioned recently. That would be waaaaaay too many roster spots for not enough top level players and the game would suffer greatly. I nominate Las Vegas, Pac NW, San Jose, and either a 2nd Chicago or NY team right now. Later continue expansion to Vancouver, Montreal, Atlanta, and a 2nd of whichever Chicago or NY didn't come first.

-Within 5 years the MLS will be the 2nd largest revenue producing league in the Western Hemisphere behind Mexico's league. They will likely not pass Mexico for 20-30 or so years unless some rapid growth comes out of nowhere (see TSCs "US clubs playing Euro ones in matches that mean something" comment).

-The U20 FIFA World Cup and the U19 FIBA World Championships are both going on right now. ESPN bought the rights to one and has already shown a game on the flagship station. The other has no press at all. That's a huge step.