Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Major League Soccer in Milwaukee

I was on the road in Wisconsin for much of today, and I had the opportunity to listen to a lot of WTMJ 620 AM, and this story about luring Major League soccer to Milwaukee received a lot of play. Major League soccer cannot succeed in Milwaukee, and there are a host of reasons why.

#1 Wisconsin is a regional state.
What does that mean, you ask. Well, Wisconsin is not a rural area dominated by one or two major urban area like many other states are. Wisconsin actually has 15 urban areas. Because of this large number of urban areas, Milwaukee does not have the statewide influence and draw that Chicago does in Illinois or the Twin Cities do in Minnesota. For any professional sport team to be successful, they must draw from a large portion of their home state. A professional soccer team in Milwaukee will not be able to do that. A Major League Soccer team in Milwaukee will need to rely on Milwaukee alone, as it will not draw people from even Jefferson or Dodge counties to downtown, let alone far flung counties such as La Crosse, Eau Claire, or Brown Counties. The Packers draw statewide. The Brewers are starting to. The Bucks do when they are winning. A soccer team will not be able to draw enough people from the Marathon counties of the state to fill a 20,000 seat stadium 15 or 16 times a year.

#2 Soccer is not a party sport
I'm going to dip into stereotype on this, but Wisconsinites like to party with their sports. Soccer is not a party sport. The reason you drink during a soccer game is because for 58 of the 60 minutes of the game, there is nothing else to do. That's part of the reason soccer hooligans are such a problem in Europe. Drinking from boredom is not a party, it is an anesthesia.

#3 A stadium in the city is a huge error
As proposed, the stadium would be in the city of Milwaukee, at the site of the Pabst facility. Soccer is not a city sport in this country. It is a suburban sport. Many suburbanites will go into the city, but just as many live in the suburbs because they hate the city. How are you going to draw those people all the way to downtown to watch the fifth most popular sport in this country?

#4 Participatory Popularity versus fanaticism
This is my final point, but likely my most divisive. For any professional sports team to survive, it needs a large, fanatical base. Its profit is then made off of the casual fan. This would be problematic for soccer in Wisconsin. Soccer is a very popular sport for kids to play in Wisconsin. I have a large number of relatives who a younger than me, so I am familiar with the participatory popularity of this sport. Here's the problem for soccer, though. The best athletes are fanatical about football, basketball, baseball, and hockey, and they play those sports. While Wisconsin soccer has the occasional top tier soccer athlete, most kids who play soccer in Wisconsin do so not because of an all abiding love for the sport, but because they can make a go of it in that sport. They would not be a star in the big four sports, but in soccer they can get a good amount of playing time. So, while soccer is a very popular participatory sport, there are comparatively few soccer fanatics. Therefore, there is no strong base. There is just a strong casual interest, and that is not enough to make a team profitable, especially a team that wants to build a stadium that is going to cost $300 to $500 million-as much as an MLB or NFL stadium.

Unrelated side note
The Brewers future financial success depends on them drawing the statewide fans, and I think they are making strong motions in that direction. Miller Park has made that possible in ways I didn't think possible. I know of people who previous to Miller Park would have made the trip to Wrigley rather than County Stadium, and today they are planning trips to Milwaukee to see a ball game instead. I know some people have soured on the Brewers because they feel Selig lied to them about the stadium. I cannot defend Selig the owner, but this new stadium is making a huge difference in finally making the Brewers Wisconsin's team and not just Southeastern Wisconsin's team.

You paid a dollar for this post, and I just gave you a bonus two cents.

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