American Soccer Media Blues
You might have heard by now that Matthew Doyle, aka The Armchair Analyst, is no longer employed by mlssoccer.com. Doyle announced that his 15-year run as the league roster maven and in-house tactics explainer ended abruptly last week thanks to a "re-targeting" of the league website's written coverage[1].
He's now on Ghost (Ghost Squad Rise Up) with a plan for his newly independent content that includes both free and paid elements. Matt is also joining Kickback Media, home of Soccerwise and other American-soccer focused podcasts.
If you're an MLS sicko, I encourage you to support Matt and his work. American soccer desperately needs the coverage Doyle provides.
Doyle's end at the league's website represents the final nail in the coffin of MLS's in-house editorial arm. I'm old enough to remember the origins of that effort, when the league decided to cover itself and the American soccer semipro blogosphere (which was me, Matthew Tomaszewicz of The Shinguardian, Adam Spangler of This Is American Soccer, Miriti Murungi of Nutmeg Radio, Matt Rolf of Fake Sigi, and a bunch of other people my middle-aged brain is making me forget[2]) debated the ethics and impact of that decision in written pieces and on Twitter[3].
At the time, I wasn't a fan of the idea. As a young blogger and podcaster trying to make my bones in American soccer media, I saw the inherent conflict of interest as intractable and the powerful gravity of the league's coverage as a skewing force for the future of soccer media in America.
It was never about the individuals hired by MLS to do the work. I appreciate, respect, and generally like everyone who manned the wall at mlssoccer.com over the last decade-and-a-half. In a business as tough as this one, you learn not to judge how people make their livings—short of abetting crimes against humanity.
But I don't think I was wrong about the skewing. While it's not only down to the league's in-house coverage, the state of American soccer is no where close to where we hoped (or believed) it would be when we looked towards the future from those ancient days of 2010. What should be a golden age for coverage of the American version of the sport ahead of a World Cup on home soil is instead a post-apocalyptic scene where a few big players give lip service to the domestic game and a heaving mass of desperate, committed, independents scrape and claw to survive.
A lot of that stems from the general issues facing all kinds of legacy media in our current moment, though American soccer media never got a chance to reach saturation before the new information environment wrecked everything.
Back at the end of the oughts we imagined a world with newspaper beat writers for every MLS club, a robust class of columnists and analysts working both in print and online, and professional outlets treating MLS the same as they do the NFL, NBA, and Major League Baseball.
Sure, we had our head in the clouds, but it didn't seem impossible. Instead of that rosy picture, we ended up with a small handful of beat writers at a few newspapers[4], some half-hearted online-only coverage from the likes of ESPN[5], and no real penetration into the traditional sports spaces. Yes, sports content has fractured in every instance and lots of people are going to new media for takes and analysis, but there's a still longstanding foundation of coverage from big TV networks, big newspapers[6], and other legacy outlets on which those new things rest.
I can't say for sure that other outlets could have filled the void the league decided to step into with MLS editorial, though I think it's reasonable to speculate that more investment might have gone to startups and small shops[7] in a different environment. My belief (a self-serving one, to be sure) is that MLS leadership and corporate media missed a chance to build a soccer coverage ecosystem less susceptible to short-term trends and more capable of fleshing out the stories that would sell the game and lift everyone.
Bascially, no one wanted to do the work. I'll save you my thoughts on what role people with British accents played in all of this.
Even with the best of intentions, in-house coverage is always going to fall short in terms of legitimizing the league. If you're covering yourself, it means you're acknowledging that third parties won't do it, which speaks to your failures as a competition to capture attention.
It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. The longer you're the central hub for coverage, the more entrenched the idea becomes that you're the only hub for coverage.
I'm sad for Matt, and for David Gass, and for Greg Lalas, and for everyone else who built their media careers working for the league website only to have MLS pull the plug. Whatever my feelings about its inception, the league website and the people they brought in to tell MLS stories played a central role in how committed fans of the league followed their clubs and the wider competition. To yank that coverage away now is an insane decision that could only come from people who fundamentally misunderstand the relationship between fans and sports.
We're still without the kind of coherent, national conversation around MLS that we take for granted in all of the other major American sports.
So support Matt and everyone else who is hanging a shingle as an independent Americans soccer media operation. I hate that fans are now being asked to spend money in a dozen different places to get the type of coverage they deserve, but in lieu of a solution to a broken media model, this is all we got.
Here's my non-comprehensive (and likely to be updated—drop good ones in the comments) list of people you should turn to for excellent coverage of American soccer.
Sounder At Heart
Six One Five Soccer
The Blazing Musket
The District Press
Backheeled
Queen City Press
Footy Analytic Musings
Scarves and Spikes
The Disrespected
And Canada too!
TFC Republic
If you're a sucker for this stuff and/or you want to hear me and Jonathan Tannenwald name some guys[8] from American soccer media past, you can listen to the latest episode of The Best Soccer Show rightchere.
Matt was much more magnamimous towards his former employer than I might have been. But discretion is probably best. ↩︎
This is a list of American soccer people, but I should also acknowledge Canada. Richard Whittall, Duane Rollins, Ben Massey, et al. were all big parts of the wide North American soccer community almost from day one of my entry into the community. ↩︎
Oh, my kingdown for the old days of soccer Twitter. ↩︎
AFAIK, and with an acknowledgment that some of these reporters are covering multiple sports or are not full-time on the soccer beat, it's Jonathan Tannenwald at the Philadelphia Inquirer, Michelle Kaufman at the Miami Herald, Doug Roberson at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Kevin Baxter at the LA Times, Mark Ziegler at the San Diego Union-Tribune, Tom Timmerman at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Andy Greder at the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Brianna Mac Kay at the Columbus Dispatch, and Daniel Sperry at the Kansas City Star. Let me know who I'm missing. ↩︎
Jeff Carlisle is fantastic and ESPN still has people like Lizzy Becherano, Cesar Hernandez, and Ryan O'Hanlon doing good work, but The Worldwide Leader isn't nearly what we'd hoped it would be when it comes to American soccer. ↩︎
This is where I rage over the end of the sports section of the Washington Post. The paper shutting down the Post's sports deparment is like Notre Dame dropping its football program. ↩︎
I might have been involved in a few of these myself. ↩︎
"Guys" in the gender neutral sense. ↩︎
