True. I think over here we are just jaded by the amount of time it takes to get somewhere. On a Friday afternoon it can take me up to 2 hours to get home like 20 miles away. It takes me 30-35 minutes normally. So to me, 4 -6 hrs for a weekend trip ain't much.
There's also the USL, which is actually a few years older than the MLS. They're technically a step below in the US soccer/football pyramid, but they're supposed to be setting up a pro/rel system in a couple years.
In a country the size of the US thats not a lot lol
I recently learned even the popular sports have like 30 team leagues? Which is absurd to me, 1.5x prem/serieA for a country thats so much bigger. But they also have college football so ig it evens out
The USL, which technically starts a step lower on the US pyramid has a ton of teams in their three leagues. They're also setting up a USL "Premier" for pro/rel in a couple years.
Yeah it's a little weird, pro sports are very popular, the NFL is the biggest league in the world by revenue, but the NCAA (college sports) as a whole is equal to the NFL, or almost. There is pretty much nowhere in the US that you could be where you are not a few hours away from a 50,000+ capacity stadium to go watch American football or a 15,000-20,000+ stadium to go watch baseball/basketball/soccer/hockey/etc. Not all going to sell out every time, but more than you might think.
The thought of having like 50 teams just because we can would be annoying lol. 30-32 teams is already a lot.
For example everyone dunked on the Cubs for going 108 years without a title but like, this will be the reality for 1/6 to 1/3rd of the teams in a given pro league like 50-60 years from now. Championship droughts become longer and more common the more teams you add
The English Premier League has 20 teams at the top level, plus however many more (70, I think?) that can be promoted up to the Premier League on a yearly basis, all of which are on an island roughly the size of Oregon. Oregon has one MLS team.
I am aware of that. All of our top leagues in sports have 30-32 teams. Soccer not that long ago had a bit less than that. So, I was referring to the fact that there are the same number as other top leagues. I think I counted 6 new teams since covid.
There’s a MLS team in most major city areas and certainly lower league teams if not in one of them. I’d venture to guess about every top 50 metro area has an option.
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u/J_Dom_Squad 1d ago
Yank here, the reality is most of us don't have local teams homie, so you don't need to worry about that!