names like Pele, Franz Beckenbauer, and Johan Cruyff. The cover of Sports Illustrated in June, 1975, featured soccer on its cover for the first time. The player on the cover was Pele who was labeled the “savior” of soccer, and had just signed an astonishing-at-the-time $5 million contract to play for the New York Cosmos-crowds of more than 70,000 attended games for a short time and then the NASL fizzled out completely (Jones 1). Adding to these woes was US media reluctant to give coverage to soccer as readily as it does today and the existence of a new professional sports league in an era when corporate sponsorship was not the aggressive tidal wave it represents in today’s professional sports leagues.
With the advent of Major League Soccer in 1993-1994, so much has changed that the chances for economic success for professional soccer in the US are nearly guaranteed at the present time when one further examines the host of economic data that exist in support of such a viewpoint. First of all, MLS is not the NASL. The league is a single-entity one where economic ownership and investment are concerned. Instead of teams being able to use economic advantage to cause dangerous inner-league competition in a newly begun industry, the investors of MLS make economic decisions that are across-the-board for all teams in MLS and the risk is scattered among all teams. The economic system of MLS is one in which the investors share ownership of the franchises, though three of the 12 current teams (expanded from 10) are owned directly by the league. This economic system gives protection from the types of economic woes that beset previous leagues like the NASL, “Phil Anschutz owns 49% of the Rapids but a small part of six other franchises, as well. Just as those six investors own part of the Rapids…Marketing is done by the league, not by individual teams…The risk is spread throughout the league…The single-entity approach was ...