So I'm going back on my promise once again, and it only took me a few hours this time. But this just couldn't wait, and when the itch to write something hits, experience has told me to take advantage of it.
So I'd like to talk a little about the difficulty, or lack of success, the players have had in getting their message out during the CBA negotiations.
If you're a regular around here and if you've read the Super Fun series, you probably know very well what the MLSPU is trying to pry out of the owners; guaranteed contracts, free agency, and higher salaries being chief among the demands. You've likely read thousands of words on each of those topics, from various viewpoints and with various conclusions drawn by writers that span the "what should happen" spectrum.
But the question before us is whether or not the Players Union has done an adequate job of educating the general MLS fan base of their situation; according to some prominent names, more people are buying into the "MLS will fail with a strike" fallacy than siding with the players in their struggle for greater rights.
Perhaps I missed this; in the little circle I inhabit, sentiment has solidly been on the side of the players. So much so, in fact, that I've taken it upon myself to play counterpoint on a few occasions, even as I back the players in their quest for greater rights. It's not that I believe what the owners say, or that I myself hold the opinion that a strike would be a death blow for the league, I just have a natural tendency to play devil's advocate.
My largest concern with a player strike is that I view what they can gain (with the note that I have no belief that the owners will budge on free agency) as less important than starting the season on time and with the show-off moments that the opening of Red Bull Arena and the debut of the Philadelphia Union will provide. MLS only gets so many chances to strut, and both of those are opportunities that shouldn't be missed. Apologies to my friends on the Left Coast, but media attention in this country is driven by the I-95 corridor, and in the long run the league and the players will be better off for having had those flashy showcases happen.
Jamie Trecker wrote in his Fox Sports post this morning that he's received hundreds of emails that indicate confusion on the part of the fans; even though I think some of that can be chalked up to the more under-educated fans emailing Jamie because they disagree with his viewpoint (people who disagree are always more likely to write emails), it is troubling to hear that so many have twisted concepts of what the players want.
I'm not going assign blame to anyone with the MLSPU, because I'm not really sure who's fault this is. Ultimately, it does come down to the hired PR firm, who probably should have done a better job of coordinating the message. I really wonder, however, if it was just a task too large for a group of players in a under-covered sport.
Where were the players supposed to go? ESPN wasn't going to give the issue much coverage prior to a labor stoppage (and even then, who knows how much time they'd give it), and the MLSPU were able to get quotes and explanations out through the biggest outlets the soccer world had to offer. It just so happens that not everyone visits those website (because the biggest American soccer news outlets are invariably websites), making it all the more difficult to get the message out.
Short of out and out moaning, which certainly wouldn't be constructive (and which some might argue they've already done), I don't know what else the players could have done. They reached out where they could, even deigning to talk to more than one amateur podcast. They tweeted their hearts out, they leveraged every "MLS has it wrong" piece, they used their most visible members as mouthpieces in story after story. Perhaps they shut it down at the wrong times (though if the league asked them to for the sake of the negotiations, I don't think we can blame them), and maybe they leaned on a foreign organization few have ever heard of just a little too much; but they did talk, they did attempt to explain themselves, and they did use the tools at their disposal.
Management had a built-in advantage from a PR standpoint throughout the process. Even if you put aside the infrastructure MLS already had in place, it benefits from the perception that professional soccer in the US is always destined for failure if the wrong choices are made. As the initiators of possible change, the players' image suffers by consequence. For many, it's hard to understand why they would want to rock the boat now, when everything seems to be going so well.
