MLS is shit. The one and only MLS game I've been to might as well have been a political rally.
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Sadly athletes being radicalized is something we're going to have to put up with. Especially since owners won't put the kibosh on their employee's on-field, in uniform, actions. They can say what they want off the clock (if their contract doesn't have something covering things they can't do even "off the clock" personal conduct clause, or liking the wrong Tweet, and the team can deal with retaining the player later if the things they choose to do on their own time carries over and affects the team.
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Messi is still one of the world's top players. His stats last year in PSG were good. And he was the best player in the World Cup and played every minute of that tournament. Not sure if there's another player named Messi you're thinking of.
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Of course women don't watch women's sports in large numbers. They don't want to pay for an inferior product any more than men do.
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Again where is this coming from. It is not backed by any data that shows audiences, predominantly women, are watching and attending national and champions league games in large numbers. Why is it hard for people to fathom that girls watching soccer and their moms and their dads might be drawn to the sport. And that they'd idolize women's soccer players the way we idolized Jordan and Montana? It's weird the way people project that someone else wouldn't like something just because it isn't for them.

MLS is an inferior product yet it's doing quite well with men and women. College sports especially outside big conferences is inferior. Minor league sports is inferior. Women's tennis is inferior. We watch inferior athleres all the time
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You said it yourself: Women's soccer needs help. It's not just a marketing thing. Women obviously aren't supporting the sport in large enough numbers. If they were, the revenue generated by the men's and women's teams would be comparable.

And those inferior sports/athletes generally don't bring in as much revenue as their superior counterparts.
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Sure but that's different from saying nobody watches it. Premier league will always be vastly superior to mls which will be superior to nwsl. That's a given. Of course it's crazy to ever believe revenue streams will ever be remotely comparable.

Equal pay on the surface is a crazy idea. But it's also not that simple. Growing women's soccer is good for both men and women, and now they get to jointly share in that growth. It brings in a lot of new fans and sponsors that are unique to women's instead of mens, and as the game grows it brings in more revenue to close the gap. The US is also a unique situation where the women (this year as an exception, of course) close the gap substantially when they play into the semis/finals where the men are typically bubble qualifiers. Men probably still deserve more pay but they are probabky on board with the idea that a strong men and women's sport is good for everyone.
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JFC, zilla. Do you have a word quota you have to hit today or what? Every post in this thread from you is a couple paragraph novella. Just say "I love women's soccer and sports bras" and be done with it.
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The draw of watching men's soccer is to see the skill of world class players.

The skills of women are not even remotely close. The same problem with women's basketball.

That's not to say women sports can't be marketable. There's a reason why women's tennis has equal interest to men's tennis and why women's figure skating is more popular than the men's. Women fights are also popular in the UFC because a fight is a fight.
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Really, it's the same as comparing MLS to other top professional leagues. I follow the Premier League avidly and watch every one of my club's matches and many others. I pay the subscriptions, I listen to the podcasts, I love the game. But there's an MLS team in the city where I live and I can't muster any interest because the level of play is so much lower. It's not quite like watching the XFL, but kind of.

I don't see men avidly following NWSL for that reason, but half the country is female and you would expect there to be no trouble selling out a 10,000 seat venue night after night if women supported the women's game the way men support the men's game.
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I think you get a professional minor league experience. A lot of it is built around the experience. Great place to watch games in nice stadiums, sing chants, awesome for kids and meeting people. 20k-30k per game is very healthy and it's probably all they really need
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The top 10 league thing is interesting. I think current MLS stacks up well against the likes of Brasileirao in Brazil, Argentine Primera, Liga MX, Eredivisie, Ukrainian Premier League, Portugal etc...

Some of those leagues have a team or two at the top which are hard to catch up with prestige\talent\money wise like Ajax but if you are putting two leagues top to bottom MLS play wise and look at attendance and attention MLS does just fine in that mix.
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At least one of the other national players hit the nail on the head today, paraphrasing here, but the one lady said the USNWT should have backed up all the pre-tournament talk on the pitch.

Very well said. Thang God the queen freak is gone...


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Poetic Justice.....This is like watching the Yankees lose in the playoffs.....
Glorious....
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Why, Why, a soccer post on a "TRUE FOOTBALL MESSAGE BOARD." Go to Europe if you wish to dribble on this sport. I understand most of the world luvs it, but it boring, boring, boring.
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