Where does MLS go from here? Don Garber previews the league’s future
With soccer booming across North America, where does Major League Soccer go next? MLS Commissioner Don Garber speaks candidly with Kyle Martino about the future trajectory of the league, capitalising on post-World Cup momentum, and taking American soccer to the next level.
Video Transcript
You know, you gotta have setbacks, yeah, and comebacks, right?
And setbacks, I mean, that's life, right?
Yeah.
Setbacks and comebacks.
I think about that all the time in, in running Major League Soccer.
Now we've gotta focus on how does our product get better?
All the things that we've done that have created st- st- stability, viability, and popularity, now we've gotta take a little more risk, and that risk is gonna be do we change our system?
Do you let teams do a little bit more?
Do you take more financial risk?
Do we have more incentives for developing players and things that coaches would never do?
But maybe you get a whole bunch of salary cap money if you play X number of minutes for y- young U.S. National team players.
Maybe we work with the federation and other leagues around the world to work on the types of loans so you don't send a player who's young and promising to Europe and never play, and then he's not good enough.
He would be better here.
We need to have the money to pay him, and we need to have the league that that player can develop in.
And now I think our focus has gotta be about the game.
Make the game bigger, better, and more productive in delivering what people saw, and that's not overnight.
And by the way, it's not about investing in a building.
This is, we have the hardware.
Now it's about software.
And in an international global market of players, that is really hard.
