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Originally Posted by demonrail666
The next few years will be interesting for the MLS, which has apparently set itself the task of becoming the third biggest league behind the Prem and La Liga before the end of the decade. Sounds silly but it will likely overtake the Brazilian and Argentine leagues, which are apparently on the verge of a financial crisis, very soon, and if that happened it'd almost by default be the biggest league outside Europe. Lots of big structural/financial upheavals expected in the mls.
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I don't think its silly, around the end of the World Cup there were a few analysis articles trying to explain why Brazil shit the bed so mightily and they mentioned the significant decline in the talent pool for Brazilian leagues because of competition with Europe and even MLS in attracting players. I agree with that "by default" its becoming the largest league outside of Europe, indeed in short time it may even surpass the smaller leagues there by the economic reality that the US is bigger half of Europe combined.
Of course, the major problem the MLS has at this point is something the European leagues have no problems with, attendance. In Europe, futbol is mostly the only game in town, people go to live matches even for smaller teams or leagues. In the US, there are so many sports venues and leagues, between professional and college sports, that its hard for MLS to gain ground. It does has a growing TV share, which is the bread, butter, meat, and potatoes of American sports so it is at least on a kind of sustained life-support until the live audience fan base can grow.
To be sure, MLS is more talented than its reputation abroad suggests, its just a matter of time before an American audience grows to realize this and buys into it. The market pitch for this current MLS season has been, "Watch some of your favorite stars from the World Cup" since practically the entire USMNT currently plays in the MLS..