There were two developments on the expansion front in Major League Soccer in this past week, that generated two very different reactions in the American soccer community.
In Minneapolis, MLS awarded a franchise to the Minnesota United group which is set to become the 23rd team in the ever-growing league.
From being a club that was at risk of going out of business in the NASL, Minnesota United are suddenly heading into American soccer’s big-time – and most people are pretty happy about that. Minnesota deserved an MLS team.
Also this week, David Beckham arrived in Miami for the first time since June, as he looks to create the 24th team in the league. The visit was, in the eyes of the hopeful, future supporters of his team in South Florida, long overdue. The well documented troubles that the lazily named ‘Miami Beckham United’ group have had in finding a stadium site had raised concerns that the new team in South Florida might not happen, Beckham’s absence merely added to that uncertainty.
Whenever there is news about Beckham and Miami, the soccer wing of social media buzzes with barely disguised contempt – and this week was no different. The arguments range from how MLS would be making a massive mistake to go to such a ‘crappy sports town’ to how Miami doesn’t ‘deserve’ a team and inevitably references the short-lived history of the (badly-named) Miami Fusion.
There are of course always those who can think of somewhere better or more deserving for MLS to set up in than Miami. This time there were even arguments that rising coastal waters caused by global warming should cause Don Garber to think again. And there is always a liberal amount of Beckham-bashing.
The sentiments were summed up by one tweet I received which declared: “Miami isn’t even in the league yet and I’m already sick of them.”
It is hard to fathom why there is such hostility towards the idea of an MLS team in Miami. The city is, after all, one of the biggest soccer markets in the United States. The diverse population is made up of scores of nationalities who traditionally love the game – Colombians, Argentines, Brazilians, Hondurans, Ecuadorians, Peruvians and El Salvadorians. Beyond the Latin-American communities, Miami is also home to a growing number of Europeans – from both East and West – that of course count soccer as their favorite sport.
The large Cuban-American community is always typecast as baseball lovers but, as with other aspects of life in that community, preferences and attitudes are changing with each generation. Today’s young Cuban-Americans are more likely to be watching Barcelona on beIN SPORTS (based in Hialeah by the way) than pining for the ballparks of Havana. Haitians? Crazy about the game. Jamaicans? They love it.
Ah, say the skeptics? But if Miami is so in love with soccer, why did the MLS’s Miami Fusion fail? Didn’t the city already have its chance and blew it? The main problem with that argument is that the club should really have been called the Fort Lauderdale Fusion. It didn’t play in Miami but at Lockhart Stadium, which is 35 miles from downtown Miami and (at the best of times) an hour’s drive away. Its distance culturally is probably even further. Yet, even stuck out in Broward County, next to a small airport, in an old stadium with few modern facilities, the Fusion still managed to draw an average crowd of over 11,100 in their final season in 2001. Not great, but not so far off the league average in that year of 14,900.
Recent attendances for friendly games in Miami shows the potential for the new club. Brazil v Colombia sold out the Miami Dolphins’s SunLife Stadium with 73,429 turning out for what was one of the loudest night’s that venue has experienced in years. Real Madrid and Chelsea drew over 67,000 and even two teams with no obvious connection to Miami’s Latin communities – Manchester United and Liverpool, attracted 51,000 fans, at just a few day’s notice.
Of course, the argument raised is that Miami may be full of soccer fans but they won’t become MLS fans. The Argentine who watches Boca Juniors and/or Real Madrid on television won’t be prepared to turn out to watch the lower standard of MLS.
This is the most relevant objection and the biggest challenge that will face a future club, to convince the population that the team will be worth watching. MLS has been successful in some small-to-medium-sized markets by selling the sport as a cool place for hipsters to drink craft beers, stand in scarves and chant strange versions of European soccer songs. That isn’t going to work in Miami and not only because humidity and long beards don’t go well together.
A new club in Miami needs to be big-time. It needs to be a club that looks and feels like an international team. My fear has been that Beckham would be advised into following the ‘tried and trusted’ approach of smaller cities that have made MLS work. But the comments out of the Beckham camp this week suggest they understand what they are dealing with.
Explaining the slow pace of progress, a source close to the Beckham camp told the Miami Herald they have been working on putting together the finances to ensure that a Beckham-owned club will be one that makes a real impact.
“Will we be a rich stable club or a very rich club that attracts a Ronaldo or a Messi, the caliber of player that would really excite fans in Miami? Will we build a 20,000-seat stadium or can we afford 60,000? Public land or private? Will our academy be the envy of MLS or the envy of all of Latin America?” asked the source. In even asking the question, he provides the answer.
There is no need to turn Miami’s massive soccer fan base into ‘MLS fans’, what will be needed is for them to become Miami fans. Messi and Ronaldo would help of course! But Beckham will need to ensure that the club is seen as something that the city can rally around and identify with. Yes, the club will need to make a splash with big name Designated Players to establish its serious soccer credentials. Yes, it will need a modern stadium in an accessible location. But above all the team will need to capture the identity of the modern Miami.
Miami’s identity, especially its sporting identity, can be hard to pin down, but I saw it emerge in the midst of the anti-LeBron, anti-Heat hysteria after the big-three were put together, when all the bitterness and jealousy came pouring upon the city and the team’s fans. The response was a defiant middle finger, a South Floridian version of the Millwall chant ‘no-one likes us, we don’t care’.
It is telling that during the Heat’s playoff campaigns, I sat in a packed, rocking, American Airlines Arena reading tweets from people in American soccer about imagined empty seats at the game.
Miami didn’t ‘deserve’ LeBron was the message. Miami didn’t ‘deserve’ a championship winning NBA team. And now we are told that Miami doesn’t deserve Beckham’s investment and doesn’t deserve a place in MLS.
What is it about Miami that makes it so ‘undeserving’? Perhaps Miami is just too different from the rest of the United States, a little bit too Hispanic, too much of a frontier town, too close to the Caribbean, to Cuba. “They don’t even speak English…”
Perhaps its the rather over-played television and movie image as a brash, in-your-face city that plays by different rules to the rest of the country that has generated a distrust. Perhaps it is just ignorance, a lack of knowledge about the vast majority of people in the city who live far from the South Beach glitz. Or perhaps it is simply jealousy that as well as living with palm trees, golden beaches and sunshine, the people of Miami will also have a soccer team owned by one of the biggest names in the game.
If Beckham and his team are as smart as they like to present themselves then they would be wise to latch on to that animosity, to use it to create a club that does things its own way, which doesn’t make patronizing token gestures towards the Hispanic community but which really represents that community. Beckham needs to forget everything he learnt in Hollywood and to be skeptical of MLS orthodoxy.
Instead, he needs to spend some time talking to people in Hialeah, in Little Havana, in Little Haiti, in Overtown, in Little Buenos Aires and all the diverse communities of the city. He discovered Miami through having an option for a franchise but he may have stumbled upon potentially the most vibrant soccer market in North America. He has to get it right.
Editor’s note: Every Thursday, World Soccer Talk featured columnist Simon Evans shares his thoughts and opinions on world soccer topics. You can follow Simon on Twitter at @sgevans. Plus, read Simon’s other columns for World Soccer Talk.