COMMERCE CITY — Major League Soccer set an ambitious goal during the pursuit of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, and even though that bid failed, the goal remains.

When that World Cup is played a decade from now in Qatar, MLS wants to be acknowledged as one of the world’s top soccer leagues. MLS commissioner Don Garber said it is a realistic goal.

“Unfortunately, they thought it would be better to have it in Qatar and play those games at 120 degrees in the middle of the summer,” Garber said Tuesday on a visit to Denver for an MLS board of governors meeting. “I’m not convinced that those games will end up being played in the summer, but at the end of the day, they made a decision that did not derail us from our goal. The plan is to still try to create a league that can compete with the other soccer leagues around the world in four or five different ways.”

One of those ways is quality of play.

“That doesn’t mean we’re going to be as good as the (English) Premier League, it doesn’t mean we’re going to be able to have the Rapids play against their partner Arsenal and be able to beat them on a regular basis,” Garber said. “It means there are four or five leagues around the world that are respected on the quality side of being the best, and we believe in 10 years we should be able to create that.”

Another area is fan support, the amount of passion soccer fans have for their teams. Already, Garber said, MLS has passed France and Holland in average attendance per game and ranks seventh in the world. Leaguewide, there were 78 sellouts last season, and average game attendance exceeds that of the NBA and NHL.

“We should be able to have a fan environment that replicates what exists in other parts of the world,” Garber said, “so that the broad sports world and soccer world says our fans care about their clubs and care about their players the way they do in England and Spain and other places.”

A recent ESPN survey found that soccer is the second-most popular sport in the key age 12-24 demographic, behind only the NFL.

“The good thing about this ESPN poll, we didn’t ask for it, we didn’t do that research, it came over the transom,” Garber said. “That’s empowering to us … that gives us a market. We’ve got to go out and try to capture that market with the right players, with the right programming, with the right stadiums, with the right experiences. I can’t imagine how we don’t do that. The question isn’t if, it’s a matter of how long will it take to be able to achieve it.”

The Rapids rank 11th out of 19 MLS teams in attendance, averaging 15,683 . The league average is 18,787. They ranked 12th out of 18 teams (14,838) last season, coming off a season in which they won the MLS Cup.

MLS is hugely popular in Seattle, Portland, Toronto, Salt Lake City and the Kansas City, Mo., area. The Rapids aren’t there yet.

“I’d like to know that when you’re walking on 16th Street (Mall), you see a lot of Rapids fans,” Garber said. “You can’t buy that, you’ve got to earn that. You’ve got to find the right programs to be able to be relevant downtown.”

John Meyer: 303-954-1616 or jmeyer@denverpost.com