Major League Soccer continued to extend its reach beyond U.S. borders on Tuesday by announcing the beginning of a multi-faceted partnership with the German Bundesliga. According to MLS Deputy Commissioner Ivan Gazidis, the league has Franz Beckenbauer to thank.
Though a continent apart geographically and in terms of history and prestige on the world soccer landscape, MLS and the Bundesliga will share common ground on a number of initiatives, particularly in the areas of sales and marketing. The agreement was launched at SPORTEL America in Miami Beach, where U.S. and international sports broadcasters gathered for a three-day marketplace.
The highlights of the deal will have MLS and Bundesliga officials exchanging their expertise on television production and rights sales, stadium design, corporate strategies and growing the market for soccer in the United States. MLS Commissioner Don Garber traced the seed of the partnership to a meeting he had with Bundesliga CEO Christian Seifert a year ago in London.
It was Beckenbauer, said Gazidis, who brought the idea to fruition through his relationship with Dietrich Mateschitz, the Austrian-born owner of Red Bull New York.
"Franz is the one who has brought us together and had this overall concept," Gazidis said. "This is the benefit of having a diverse ownership group with different connections around the world."
Seifert said his league began doing intensive studies of the U.S. soccer market about 18 months ago. German officials concluded the USA was a prime soccer territory because of its large number of participants, the growth of the Hispanic population and the building of new stadiums in MLS cities. Seifert called the arrangement with MLS "a milestone" for the Bundesliga because it marked the first such cooperation with a league outside Germany.
"What we want to do is support the growth of soccer in the U.S. on a long-term basis," Seifert said. "We are absolutely convinced there is more than a good chance that soccer has a bright future in the United States. For the Bundesliga, we want to help MLS increase the interest in soccer overall because if the interest in soccer increases, then interest in leagues like the Bundesliga increases."
How the two leagues will do that wasn't laid out in hard facts. Rather, Garber said, Tuesday was merely the unveiling of a working relationship that would be part of "raising the water level of the sport" in the U.S.
For MLS, that will likely mean working with German broadcasters to improve the production of league telecasts. Garber said German stadiums will be scouted by MLS for ideas on playing surfaces, hospitality areas and their location in relation to their communities. The Bundesliga's successful business model, which includes its world-best per-game attendance average of more than 39,000, will also be studied.
The Bundesliga may in turn tap the Americans for advice on selling TV rights to multiple carriers and branding its product for the global marketplace. The Germans could also seek help in designing and constructing NFL-style stadiums, and perhaps even take a long look at the salary-cap payroll system employed by MLS and other U.S. sports leagues.
Garber said the increased TV viewership of the 2006 World Cup in the U.S. was a flashpoint for seeing MLS in a new light.
"We took a step back and started believing and thinking we needed to connect much more closely with the rest of the football-playing world," Garber said.
"This is part of an outreach to get closer to the world globally," he added. "As you know, we're promoting international games and we have [three foreign] owners (Red Bull, Chivas USA and Toronto FC). I think you'll see more programs like this in the years to come. This is really just the beginning."
Jeff Rusnak is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
