On Tuesday afternoon, Major League Soccer Commissioner Don Garber conducted his annual year-end State of the League address. The format was a little different this year with the addition of a media roundtable providing the majority of the questions. Fan questions were also taken via Twitter.
Garber opened the discussion by taking look at the MLS careers of Landon Donovan and Thierry Henry, which will come to an end this season. He credited Donovan for being the first player to make MLS a “league of choice” for some of the world’s great players. “He was the first guy to say ‘this is a league I want to get behind,” said Garber. Henry closed out his MLS stint during the Eastern Conference Semi-Finals with the New York Red Bulls. “He’s thrilled us, he’s entertained us, he’s shocked us with his skill,”
said Garber of Henry. “He’s done things that will be forever etched in the video history of our sport.”
The Commissioner then discussed the importance of this year’s World Cup in generating interest in MLS. “Something seems to happen when we have the eyes of the world turning on the American and Canadian soccer market, where all of the sudden the sport rises to higher levels,” said Garber. “We believe, with our federation, that together we can win the World Cup.”
Scheduling near the end of the regular season was a big priority in Garber’s talk today. He announced “Decision Day” and the possibility of flex-scheduling for the 2015 season. Decision Day will look to ensure crucial final week fixtures will be played at the same time in both the Eastern and Western conferences to help increase end-of-season drama. MLS will look into Flex-scheduling, which has seen use in the NFL, and gives the league ability to put certain games during the final two weeks of the season into primetime TV time slots.
The upcoming Collective Bargaining Agreement was the hottest topic of conversation when the media roundtable began asking questions. “I’m confident that we will be able to reach an agreement that will be good for the league and good for the players,” said Garber. “I will say the dynamic is one that I would describe as positive.”
With Orlando City SC and New York City FC joining the league this year and Atlanta and LAFC in 2017, Don Garber made it clear that the league will sit at twenty-four teams by the end of the decade. “Our goal is to be able to put a stake in the ground on when the next team, or next two teams, are coming in,” said Garber. “Then we need to determine how many more teams could come in after that.”
The future and importance of the designated player rule was also discussed. “We have, within our system, been able to evolve how we attract players to our league and how we accommodate them on our rosters in a way where our clubs can be competitive with each other,” said Garber. “We need to be committed to this idea that any given club can win on any given day if they are smart.” In terms of attracting big name players during their prime, Garber highlighted with, “It’s about money, it’s about infrastructure, it’s about coaching, and it’s about people respecting our league more.
The 2014 MLS Best XI was also announced during the broadcast. Here were the winners:
GK - Bill Hamid - D.C. United
D - Bobby Boswell - D.C. United
D- Omar Gonzalez - L.A. Galaxy
D - Chad Marshall - Seattle Sounders FC
M - Landon Donovan - L.A. Galaxy
M - Thierry Henry - New York Red Bulls
M - Lee Nguyen - New England Revolution
M - Diego Valeri - Portland Timbers
F - Robbie Keane - L.A. Galaxy
F - Obafemi Martins - Seattle Sounders FC
F - Bradley Wright-Phillips - New York Red Bull
View the entire discussion below.
