It’s in the title, folks. Every week during the MLS season, Backheeled will dive into the biggest Winners and Losers from around the league. This week, rivalry week arrived with a whimper, a young center back found the spotlight in Nashville, Wilfried Zaha showed his frustration, and more..
Loser: Rivalry week
With 60% of the league making the playoffs and no competitive consequences for being bad, MLS has precious few levers to pull to help make its regular season matter to the average fan. What are the stakes? Why should a fan on the East Coast stay up late for a Western Conference clash?
As MLS continues to fail to make a national imprint, those questions should really matter to the league’s decision-makers. At least one of the answers is simple: storylines.
MLS isn’t alone in its quest to find ways to make its largest inventory of games matter. The NBA, MLB, and NHL all struggle with the same problem. But what MLS lacks compared to those other leagues is a corner on the superstar market. The NBA does stars better than any other American sports league, pushing recognizable names front and center to capture broader audiences outside (and inside) their 30 team-based markets. Unlike the NBA, MLS doesn’t have the best soccer players in the world on offer, which means the league has to find other ways to showcase compelling stories throughout the year.
