The Problem With the MLS All-Star Game

Initially, I was going to spend some of these thoughts on Two Fat Bastards in the increasingly-unlikely-seeming event that we manage to successfully record one. But they got a little wordy and eventually it was clear the podcast was liable to become an MLS All-Star rant. Which would be completely unacceptable, because we need to talk about Landon Donovan too.

I’m no Eurosnob. I love many North American innovations in the world’s game. Salary caps, playoffs, even drafting unaffiliated young players, all of those things improve the sport in my books. The MLS All-Star Game should be on that good list. League all-stars versus a major international club is a potentially compelling format and one that could never be duplicated by any of the other North American leagues. The MLS players have something legitimate to play for: there are few better opportunities for your average MLS star to show the world how he handles first-class competition. And, whatever you think of European worship in North American soccer, seeing a major team from abroad kick a ball against familiar faces in something like anger is a rare treat. In short, on principle I am all for an MLS all-star game. The big European leagues don’t have them, but since they prefer match-fixing, title buying, corruption, and chronic bankruptcy I don’t consider their opinion relevant.

I have one, and only one, problem with the MLS All-Star Game. It is, however, serious. By making it a mid-week game Major League Soccer tangibly mauls its regular season for the sake of what is still only a friendly. And that’s terrible.

Other leagues don’t put themselves in this situation. In Major League Baseball, the recent All-Star Game on July 16 was preceded by an off day on July 15 and two off days on July 17 and 18[1]: a very generous break in a league where teams play about eight days out of every nine[2]. The National Football League famously plays its all-star game after the regular season[3]. The NHL, for whom two games in two days is like two games in a week to an MLS team, gives their players less but still something: in 2012, the last year to feature an NHL All-Star Game players the last regular season game was January 25 for the All-Star Game on January 29. Regular season play resumed on January 31[4]. Even this break, good for its sport compared to MLS, is routinely criticized for putting too much strain on the star players. In addition, after Nagano 1998 the NHL began canceling its All-Star Game during Winter Olympic years, which might be relevant to those MLS All-Stars who have just finished up the Gold Cup. Finally, the National Basketball Association, infamous for a schedule that works many of its players beyond the breaking point, gives two days off prior to its All-Star game and one day off after (most teams in 2013 got three days off before)[5].

Some leagues offer better All-Star breaks to its marquee players (baseball, the NFL) and some worse (the NHL). None, however, ask what MLS asks. When an MLS team plays a midweek game in the regular season it’s something the manager has to carefully plan around to avoid breaking his team. Squad rotation is almost obligatory, especially if there’s travel between games. Such games are dreaded by managers, but at least come with the consolation that the other team is playing mid-week too: at most times it will almost even out. Not the MLS All-Star Game. Nearly every player gets on a flight there and a flight back, some longer than others. If your player goes 90 minutes, as Steven Beitashour, Jay DeMerit, and Dwayne De Rosario did last year, then you better hope your opposition is feeling too lazy to exploit it. (Beitashour’s Earthquakes were fortunate to draw a winnable game to Chicago with Beitashour missing the game entirely, DeMerit’s Whitecaps lost to Salt Lake with DeMerit playing conspicuously badly, and De Rosario’s DC United had the weekend off, the lucky bastards).

Imagine the NHL scheduling its All-Star game the day after those stars play in the regular season. Imagine a Major League Baseball team playing a day game, then a night-time All-Star double-header. In relative terms, that’s what the MLS All-Star Game is. It’s not a spectacle, it’s an obstacle.

All-star games in most leagues also serve a second purpose that isn’t important to anybody but the players. In any league other than MLS, non-All-Star players get to enjoy the All-Star break as a little mid-season vacation. It will probably be their longest stretch without a game and this allows a few days of relaxation and fun for the rank and file almost unheard of in professional sports these days. Not in MLS. Most teams have to play the weekend after the All-Star game. It’s business as usual in Vancouver this week for everybody but Camilo.

If MLS scheduled its All-Star Game on its own weekend then who could possibly complain? Hell, pull an NFL, hold the All-Star game the weekend before the MLS Cup final, and only stage it in warm-weather cities or indoor stadiums. Either way players not selected would enjoy a weekend off. All-Stars would put in extra work but nothing different from their routine. The game itself would benefit from being its own spectacle rather than a distraction before the real games in a few days. Everybody would win. Sure, MLS may have to make scheduling sacrifices, but that compromise is nothing compared to what they’re asking their All-Stars to do today.

The problem, I suspect, is the same problem we see with so many MLS decisions. To the millionaires who run the league it’s the regular season that’s the distraction, an unpleasant business that may be necessary but detracts from the European friendlies, All-Star games, MLS Cups, and other Marquee Events they can feel important at. No MLS team is innocent of putting Marquee Events, however irrelevant and even harmful to their competition, ahead of the ordinary games and the thousands of devoted fans paying top dollar for him. Every mid-week all-star game, every mid-season friendly, every World Football Challenge is another demonstration that Major League Soccer considers its own league play a lower priority to getting AS Roma onto one of their teams’ turf.

It’s hilarious hearing people within the league talking about how MLS has become a world-class league when their actions demonstrate they don’t believe it themselves.