As MLS begins its 24th season, the league is entering a new era and occupying a more prominent place in the global soccer hierarchy. MLS has billed itself over the past few years as a league of choice, and in some key ways, it is beginning to act like it. For two decades, MLS operated beneath a ceiling of its own design. And certain league owners are beginning to push through it.



For too long and for too many, MLS was a final destination. Whether it was the so-called retirement league of David Beckham, Andrea Pirlo and Steven Gerrard or a welcome-home circuit for U.S. internationals like Tim Howard, Clint Dempsey and Michael Bradley, the league was decidedly not a launching pad for big careers.



It was as though MLS executives conflated “selling league” with “stepping stone.” As a result, MLS spent its first two decades on an island, trying to build something sustainable before it ventured into the tumult of the global soccer scene. That...