Editorial - No MLSsoccer.com Fantasy?

By The Skipper

Please let it be known that this isn’t a normal Skipper piece in the style of The Onion, which I pride myself on.  Instead, it’s to levy a bit of criticism at the new website for Major League Soccer, MLSSoccer.com. The Skipper understands that, similar to a much-ballyhooed post by Fake Sigi (link), some might say that writing in anonymity would negate some credibility and that might be true, but The Skipper doesn’t care because The Skipper talks in the third person.

There have obviously been problems with the launch of the gleaming new digs from issues with the URL -- JimmyConradsMLS.com wasn’t approved -- to features not working.  Those bugs are slowly being fixed and eventually you will be able to witness the firepower of the fully armed and operational website.

However, there is one area that MLS completely missed the boat:  Fantasy MLS.

In years past MLS has bounced around with its official game from Yahoo! to Fox Soccer Channel.  But this year, there is not an official game offered by the league’s website.  Even with all of their problems, couldn’t they have just incorporated last year’s game?  The Skipper understands that the platform was cast aside, but the basis was there and with all the fancy technology in the MatchTrackers, a similar bit of code could have been used for fantasy lineups.

There is always the primo fantasy game, MFLS.  Yet the large majority of casual fans -- there are only 5 teams who officially call Kansas City home -- don’t know about the site and it’s not the easiest to understand when you first start out.

Here’s the thing, fantasy sports brings in the fans.  There’s a reason the NFL has boomed and DIRECTV can sell the NFL package for $300 when most markets have their home games shown all the time:  fans want to see their fantasy players.  Last year fantasy gave the fans in Detroit and St. Louis something to care about and, more importantly to the NFL and the networks, tune in to watch when their teams were playing for draft picks by the end of September.

However, MLS just didn’t have time to do the programming for a game.  Instead, they are hoping that fans would come to their website to read about games going on in Europe.  The Skipper doubts the Greek Super League’s website talks about what’s going on in La Liga or Serie A.  There was an attempt to read said website, but it’s all Greek to the Skipper.

If MLS is truly catering to soccer fans, from casual to hard core, then why not give them a reason to continually check their site in addition to news?  More page views are going to come about from fans checking the health status of their fantasy players and then how they did in their weekly games than those checking in to see what the latest rumors in Europe are.  Granted, part of those higher page views is due to the difficulty of finding just the simplest info such as a lack of a centralized injury page or even a plain scoreboard like on the old MLSnet.com.

Going back to the NFL comparison, there was a reason fans all around the country knew who the Chiefs’ Jamaal Charles was before he exploded for four straight 100-yard games.  That reason was purely due to fantasy football.  Similarly, right now more people around the country should know who Ryan Smith is and not have to wait for a few more 1-goal, 1-assist games to find out about the Wizards new Englishman.

The Skipper knows people all around the country and, for the most part, they don’t care about MLS games that don’t include their home side.  How many people from Columbus or Denver tuned in to the Thursday night game featuring Seattle and Dallas? Hazarding a guess, maybe the same number of people that actually showed up to the game in person?  But if there were more people playing Fantasy MLS, ratings would improve.

It won’t get a bump into ratings of an NFL game.  But just like the MNF game between the Titans and Jaguars this October, more people will tune in if they have Tenessee’s Chris Johnson or Jacksonville’s Maurice Jones-Drew.  With a fantasy game in place for MLS, more people would have tuned in on Thursday night to see how Jeff Cunningham’s pair of penalty k icks for FC Dallas or Seattle’s Fredy Montero and his goalazo free kick affected their team.

MLSSoccer.com still has issues they are dealing with but those issues should be wrapping up soon, which will give them a good nine months to bring fantasy back to the fans.  Hopefully, The Skipper will see the first head-to-head league in fantasy soccer, an idea that is now feasible thanks to expansion and enough goalkeepers to have a ten or twelve team league, but The Skipper isn’t expecting miracles.

If the league truly wants to grow its fan base, Fantasy MLS is an easy way to start drawing them in.  The Skipper guarantees this will get more people talking about the league than whether or not Robert Pires is coming to Philadelphia.

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of The Skipper, and not of the Jimmy Conrad.com staff (save for one) or of Jimmy Conrad.  If you want The Skipper to hear about your fantasies, he can be reached at theskipper@jimmyconrad.com.