What the L.A. Sol demise can teach us about MLS

At times, it may seem that I'm going easy on Major League Soccer. On the other hand, there are times when I’ve blistered the league bosses or taken the whuppin’ stick to individual clubs. Suffice to say, there are some people in MLS offices who just wish I’d spend more time with my Bon Jovi cover band and less time tanning fannies around soccer’s top tier.

Still, I do try to take in the bigger picture when it comes to professional soccer in the United States. I try to introduce some nuance into the conversation, to add some context to the discussion and never drift too far from the inherent peril in the enterprise.

For supporting evidence of why that approach is necessary, see the unfortunate news out of Los Angeles yesterday: the highly successful L.A. Sol of Women’s Professional Soccer has folded.

Is this the first domino to fall in the demise of WPS? We can’t say just yet. Let’s hope not.

But as I’ve written before and said many times on radio, TV and podcast interviews, league startups are terribly difficult, a long slog along a road full of hazards. Have you seen The Road? Picture MLS and WPS (and WUSA about 10 years ago) as the grim-but-determined father and son, walking a long and treacherous road, one full of unspeakable peril, one that requires cautious navigation – and a certain faith that something better is waiting in sunnier points South.

I hate that WPS is already negotiating such a growing pain – but it’s hardly surprising. Here are words I wrote a year ago concerning the WPS launch:

“What we're talking about is real-world economics and market factors. There's a harsh reality when it comes to upstart professional leagues in any sport in the United States: It's a brutal slog.”

I wrote about how the history of domestic sports – not just soccer, but all sports – is littered with the corpses of failed leagues. You can read the entire piece here. Or I’ll just boil it all down in the following paragraphs from that piece:

“The bottom line here is a double whammy. First, launching any professional sports operation is problematic. No one can doubt American football's popularity here, right? And yet the landscape is littered with corpses of failed football startups. XFL, anyone?

The USFL debuted in 1983 and did manage to paddle out beyond the channel. But it was soon beached, foundering beneath the weight of massive losses. Baseball's domestic popularity is undeniable. And yet a poll just showed that 60 percent of baseball fans weren't interested in the recent World Baseball Classic, which underscores the difficulty in building awareness or interest in events with little history or brand equity.

Now marry all that with professional soccer's historic struggles domestically, and with women's leagues' struggles specifically. Even if WPS gains traction, any number of gremlins could undercut the effort: players' union pressures, rampant competition for entertainment dollars, unforeseen expenses, etc. Those are just the known unknowns. What about the unknown unknowns?

The sharpest sword today, of course, is the staggering economy. Luring ticket buyers is tougher. Corporate penny-pinching could dry up sponsor dollars. And market maladies could destabilize ownership or recalibrate tolerance for losses.

There are very highly placed officials in the domestic soccer establishment who share the same concerns -- although it does them no good to be on record about it. Suffice it to say, they want WPS to succeed but recognize the perilously slim margins.”

People who criticize MLS typically do so without the bigger picture in mind. One of our fellow bloggers at SB Nation likes to beat on MLS and its marketing flaws. His opinion is every bit as worthwhile as mine – I just don’t happen to agree in many cases.

No decision in MLS can ever be made in a vacuum, without carefully factoring in the larger economic ramifications. It’s easy to coach from the grandstands when it comes to the business side of the sport. We can all moan and groan and insist they are doing it all wrong. We can all be certain that we know a better way.

If we’re wrong, well, no worries. We just text message a friend and meet him for the Thai buffet down the street. I’m getting hungry thinking about it right now.

But if MLS officials fail to calculate correctly – well, they just find themselves in the graveyard next to the L.A. Sol. The stakes are slightly higher, to say the least. So calculations must be calibrated as such.

Here’s a prominent “for instance:” So many well-intentioned fans want MLS to spend more lavishly on salaries. Great. I’d love to see Thierry Henry or Rutgerus Johannes Martinus van Nistelrooij (you know him as Ruud van Nistelrooy) in an MLS uniform. But spending willy-nilly doomed another men’s pro soccer league at another time.

That’s just one example of many.

This is chess, not checkers. In fact, it’s chess played with a bunch of Rubik’s Cubes. It’s tough stuff with lots of moving parts.

When we all start hollering about how MLS should do this, or how MLS should spend for that or how MLS has it all wrong, we should all remember H.L. Mencken’s wise words: “For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat … and wrong.”

Short of that, we can just think about the L.A. Sol.