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A conversation about the state of soccer media with Jason Davis
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One of the most consistent voices in the American soccer media space over the past 15 years has been Jason Davis. Currently with SiriusXM, he came up through the blogging and podcasting ranks on such outlets as MatchFit USA, ESPNFC, Best Soccer Show and Morning Kickaround. He’s also got a new newsletter.
With the Men’s World Cup a year away, Jeremiah felt like now would be a good time to have a larger conversation about the state of soccer media.
They may not have solved any big problems, but they did have an interesting conversation that went all over the place. Enjoy.
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Transcript
Introductions and New Roles
00:00:01
Speaker
Hi, I'm Will Bruin, and I was just recognized as a Seattle Sounders legend. Now I get to do voice reads for the Sounder at Heart podcast network. Here
Memorable Moments in Sounders History
00:00:11
Speaker
we go. Come on. Hey, O'Shaughnessy.
00:00:13
Speaker
Let's go. What save by Frye. The Seattle Sounders have done it. MLS Cup winning. Here comes Ruiz Dias through the middle to crowd it for Seattle.
00:00:29
Speaker
And now they truly can start the celebrations. It's the Sounders MLS Cup. Nico Lodero leaves absolutely no doubt. The Sounders rule the region.
00:00:43
Speaker
Seattle, Sounders, it's got built.
00:00:52
Speaker
This feels fucking awesome. This is a tiny dog. Nice work on your little yacht yat thing. And Portland can't say shit. know, what was the thought process in terms of who you decided to use and who you didn't?
00:01:06
Speaker
Ever since Southert Hart wrote a commentary that we didn't take over coming seriously. Go, not Seattle!
Sponsorship and Collaborations
00:01:18
Speaker
This episode of Nos Arietes is sponsored by Full Pull Wines, a Seattle-based wine retailer and proud sponsor of Nos Arietes since 2011. Full Pull was founded in 2009, is based in Seattle, and is owned and operated by longtime Sounder supporters.
00:01:32
Speaker
They offer the best boutique wines of the world to members of their mailing list, with special focus on their home, Pacific Northwest.
00:01:43
Speaker
Welcome back to another episode of No Sarietes on the Sounder at Heart Podcast Network. I am Jeremiah Oshan, and joining me today is I'm going to call a very special guest, someone who whose career has sort of paralleled mine in a lot of ways.
00:01:58
Speaker
I have been on his show. I am not sure. i think this is my, jay the Jason Davis of SiriusXM, Morning Kickaround, Best Soccer Show. He is one of the longer-serving people in this world.
00:02:13
Speaker
in this media forum right now. Whatever this is, Jeremiah. Whatever this is Jason, is this the first time you've been on my show? That is a good question.
00:02:24
Speaker
You guys have been doing this for a long time. So it's possible that in the mists of the past at some you know some date, neither of us can remember I was right on this. I was on No Sadiennes. I don't recall it necessarily, ah but that doesn't mean I didn't love it or didn't enjoy it if if it happened.
00:02:44
Speaker
Well, I should be the one that I would like to think I would be the one who would have a better memory of that. But I know we've I've interviewed you before. like we did I beent a did a big story on MLSsoccer.com probably 10 years ago about the state of podcasting in the in the industry, in the soccer space.
00:03:02
Speaker
And you were one of the main people I talked to for that story. So I know I've interviewed you. But in any case, it's great to have you on. It's been a while at the very least. It has absolutely been a while. But again, like said, you've been on probably every show I've done. I don't know you if you're on the best soccer show, but you've definitely been on and things I've done.
00:03:20
Speaker
Yes. Yes. We've. Yeah. in And yeah. And I appreciate It's always fun. ah You're doing you were the last thing I i was on, I believe, was wtf with ah with Winalda, which is always a good time.
00:03:36
Speaker
Yes. And absolutely. Fun times. So one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you, the main reason I wanted to talk to you is I just wanted to get a vibe of this, where we are as a soccer media industry right now. And it's, you know, I think in some ways I have to remind people,
00:03:55
Speaker
that 15 years ago when both you and I got into this business, there was a real vacuum of, there was almost nothing out there. There wasn't there like the the blogging space hadn't really kicked up. It was basically big soccer.
00:04:09
Speaker
And then maybe your local newspaper might, Have someone who sort of specialized in soccer, but there was almost no beat writers. Like, i think the Seattle Times is one of the first papers to have like a real dedicated, like ah putting real resources into There was Steve Goff, of course, who. Yes.
00:04:28
Speaker
Yeah. The timing of this is is serendipitous and that he he just is leaving the Washington Post. But I don't know, from your perspective, what got you it what made you interested in getting into this industry?
Jason Davis: Journey into Soccer Media
00:04:39
Speaker
and And can you kind of paint a picture a little bit of what you saw as the landscape back in when it was 09, right?
00:04:46
Speaker
So I started my blog in very late 2008. So was December. So we we can call it 09. For all intents and purposes, it was 09. MatchFit USA. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if I love remembering the name.
00:04:58
Speaker
i honestly don't remember it came from Jeremiah. I don't, I don't recall. think though that a lot of us, it was, we were all the same mindset, right? That, you know, obviously in Seattle, you were building up to the first season of the Sounders in Major League Soccer in 2009. Yeah.
00:05:13
Speaker
yeah I think a lot of us just saw there's not enough here. Or or I guess if you were a person, i mean, look, i I had been sort of in my head always a writer. I had you know written throughout my my scholastic career and those things. I hadn't been using that tool. i was working a job that I really didn't like. You know, those kinds of things are all elements to why I decided to do what I did.
00:05:35
Speaker
But I do think that if there was more, you know, it was Goff a little bit. It was, it was Ivis. It was, and it was you know, Bruce McGuire posting links was about the best we had back then. ah People remember that. Yeah.
00:05:51
Speaker
I think if there was more, probably I wouldn't have felt compelled. Again, I think a lot of it was life situation and I wanted to do something different with my life. And so I was, i was, you know, I pushed myself to do that.
00:06:03
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, it was that, that thing of like, I have ideas. I'm not seeing them expressed. I'm going to go and make my own thing. And it was also, you know, in terms of serendipity, it was that moment that,
00:06:16
Speaker
in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, when not only was was there not a lot of soccer stuff, just the idea of a blog was extremely in the zeitgeist. Yes, for sure. Anybody could start one.
00:06:31
Speaker
And so it was super easy. And because there wasn't a lot of soccer stuff, a blog could stand out. Like I was thinking about it the other day, and trust me, I don't know how this happened. I think I was nominated for a U.S. Soccer Blog of the Year Award at one point.
00:06:45
Speaker
Yeah. And Jeremiah, that doesn't exist anymore, and it shouldn't. Let's be honest. It should not exist. I think Ivis won it every year, which is probably fair. Yeah, that sounds right. Yeah. Yeah. ah but But just to even be in that position, in American soccer, a year or six months, ah eight months after starting my blog, just starting to write my thoughts out, it's kind of bonkers, right? like I think i I have enough of an ego to think I'm good at what I do, and I don't write as much as I used to, although am writing again.
00:07:15
Speaker
I think I was a decent writer then, but more than anything, I was just saying stuff people weren't seeing anywhere else. And that, it doesn't mean they were unique ideas. They just weren't covered the way that the rest of sports in America were covered, which we had taken for granted.
00:07:27
Speaker
Yeah, it was in. And what was funny is that I feel like by 2010, that was sort of when we were really getting up to speed. Like I know I joined esb Nation before the 2010 MLS season. That's when I first started writing for ah Sounder at Heart.
00:07:44
Speaker
that so And then that quickly turned into writing at SB Nation and getting getting a real job at SB Nation. And I, at least in my mind, the rise of the U S soccer blogging space very much mirrored sort of nations interest because we suddenly were flooding the zone with, with blogs everywhere.
00:08:05
Speaker
But it was kind of an interesting time that in that almost no one was really making money at that time. like No one was really like, maybe I, I, this was making a living. There was a, there were definitely a few, you know, Steve Davis was making a living.
00:08:18
Speaker
There were a handful of folks that were making a living, but it was really a product of, super interested people that were sort of breaking out from the big soccer space where that big soccer was really where all the conversation was happening.
00:08:34
Speaker
Yeah, it was all it was a DIY ethic, right? Which is what was magical about it. And, you know, i I'm not saying that things aren't better now in some ways. And, you know, obviously I'm full-time in soccer and i and I wouldn't be if things hadn't moved in a in a direction that allowed people to get paid to do this. And again, you've been employed...
00:08:54
Speaker
doing soccer since then, since 2010, which is great. ah But it wasn't it was kind of special, right? I was thinking about all of the blogs and all of the people who sort of graduated from from blogging back then. And, you know, some so some of that stuff, again, mists of the past, i mean unprofessional foul and avoiding the drop and...
00:09:13
Speaker
I mean, all this stuff that I cared about in terms of just people, ah some of it actually came out of Deadspin commenter sections. Like Deadspin head would post a soccer story. There'd be the commenters, the comment tap was it commentator or commenters.
00:09:27
Speaker
you know that's I've struggled with that a lot. And you would think as someone who worked in the fan media space that I would have a better sense of that. But I have oftentimes struggled.
00:09:37
Speaker
Yeah. The people who make comments. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of those people ended up, you know, ended up writing their, starting their own blogs in a dead spin kind of vein. And then that sparked a thing. And by the way, it was, ah it was, um it was, was a, ah it was transatlantic, this little blogging thing that exploded around that time. It wasn't just Americans. A lot of, I know a lot of of English people because of that era and working with them and it cross pollinating and you would, you would write a post for them and they would write a post for you you cross post them or whatever it was like,
00:10:08
Speaker
That was so fun. Again, we were not making any money. and And I would prefer to make money, but it was so much fun just to have that experience.
The Evolution of Soccer Blogging
00:10:17
Speaker
um um And I do think about it fondly in a lot of ways. and One of the things that I also think about that was kind of funny about that is that I don't know that we ever...
00:10:26
Speaker
Really believed it was building towards something. It was a way of taking up a lot of our time and we were passionate about it. But if you had asked me in 2010, what's why are you doing this?
00:10:37
Speaker
I would have just said, I don't have anything better to do, i think. Yeah, I think, again, i was in a situation where i had I had kind of been an underachiever for a number of years. And I and i had a at that that time, we were just talking about this. My son was born in May of 2008. I started my blog and in December of 2008.
00:10:56
Speaker
Probably not a responsible decision as a father when you have an infant in the house to be like, I'm going to give all my time to blogging and making a podcast, which I started in 2009. But I decided to do that. i think I do think it was like, even if I wasn't consciously thinking about it, I do think I wanted it to be something.
00:11:11
Speaker
I don't know that if I had a, I don't know that conceptualized what that would be. Well, yeah, sure. If I was like, oh, this is going to lead me to this job or that job. ah but it But it was, you know, it was... It was definitely for me, it was working towards something. Right. You said you got you you know started working for SB Nation. You started writing in 2010. Eventually that led to a full time job. yeah I got it was a contract job. I was a freelancer, essentially. But I i started writing for ESPN around that same time, 2010. And that's all based on the blog. Right. It's all based on just kind of being floating around, being in that space. Obviously, Twitter, when it was good, had a major role.
00:11:48
Speaker
and all that You became known because you were a person who wrote things down, could link to them, and also had comments about everything that was happening when you were on Twitter. Yeah, I remember around that time, I somehow found myself on the list of, i think it was like 10 soccer accounts that you Twitter accounts that you needed to follow.
00:12:08
Speaker
And the thing that struck me at that time was you and I were both on that list. And I had by far the few I had like a, I want to say maybe a 10th of the number of followers that you had.
00:12:19
Speaker
And then you had probably a 10th of the followers that the person above you had. Right. And then was And everyone else, it was like Grant Wall, saw like Ivis, Goff. It was like all these huge accounts. and ah And anyway, it was just kind of a funny, it kind of spoke to the the depth of the sort of the roster, so to speak. It was very much like an MLS roster, Jeremiah. We had the DPs at the top, and then way down. You and I were the guys on developmental contracts making $14K a year. That's who we were in the pecking order of all that. Although I will say that another thing that made that time special, and another thing that was a function of how small American soccer was,
00:12:57
Speaker
is that Not only did my blog get nominated for something alongside Ivis Gullerstep, but for the most part, Ivis and I had a little thing in the beginning, which was maybe more of a misunderstanding than anything else. But for the most part, everybody's welcoming.
00:13:10
Speaker
they like you know The thing that you can say about Grant Wall is that he was always like, oh, you're a part of this, you're writing, it doesn't matter how much you make, you're now part of the club, right? And... and And sometimes that reared its head in ways that were maybe not the greatest because Grant would very quickly come down on anybody who said anything negative about a colleague, quote unquote.
00:13:28
Speaker
But he was he was he was very welcoming. Like he was the guy, i remember meeting him in l LA for an MLS Cup that somehow I managed to travel for. but I think because I had a friend who lived in LA was going to give me logic. Like that's where we were, right?
00:13:40
Speaker
um And I remember going out there and they couldn't, MLS credentialed me. And we went to well like a Match Day Minus One event or a mixer or something on Manhattan Beach. And I was like, first time i ever met Grant Wall. And he's wearing like $1,000 Italian shoes, leather shoes. and And I'm just like this doofy guy with a messenger bag. Like, hey, nice to me. And he treats me like I'm the same as him.
00:14:01
Speaker
like i didn't write any stories about LeBron James. What are you talking about? I know that was, and I, one of my vivid memories similar to that was in 2000, it must've been 2013 when the U S was playing a qualifier in Seattle and we hosted, we kind of helped host a ah party at a, at a space here.
00:14:22
Speaker
And, And I was hanging out with Alexi Lawless and and Grant Wall. And I'm thinking, how did i get myself into this situation at all? And it was and and to their credit, you know, that you people can say ah and I have said a lot of things ah that are probably not flattering about both of those people over time.
00:14:43
Speaker
But one thing that is absolutely true is that they were very welcoming and they wanted to sort of spread the they wanted to spread the gospel of soccer. And they were willing to talk to anyone and they were willing to go on any podcast and yeah give time to people who...
00:15:02
Speaker
you You know, and there's not I don't think there's a lot of similarity. I don't I don't think you would find the equivalent people in any other in baseball, basketball, NFL, who are willing to give that kind of time to, you know, to nobodies, frankly. Nobodies. Yeah, that's what we were. We were nobodies. I mean, like ah Grant had Grant had the education. Grant had the sort Sports Illustrated credential.
00:15:24
Speaker
Obviously, Alexi is a World Cup player and an MLS executive who's moving into broadcasting at the time and all those things. and And we were nobodies. We didn't have any of those things on our resumes, and yet it was like, hey, Jason's here. let's you know and and And not...
American Soccer Media Landscape
00:15:40
Speaker
not talking down to us in any, in any way, which I do think is, but i also think that that's something interesting about American soccer. I do think there's some gatekeeping that happens, particularly when it comes to fandom.
00:15:51
Speaker
But I, but I, I also think that there's a very, a very distinct idea that, Hey, we need to be open. And yeah yeah a lot of people come to the game, not from being immersed in it as kids in ah in a culture, in a country that hasn't always appreciated soccer. So, I mean, you kind of have to accept all comers and say, you know, just because you only started seriously loving this game four years ago doesn't mean you're not valuable, right? We're not going to judge you on that.
00:16:19
Speaker
Absolutely. And one of the things I think about, i was thinking about this recently, is that we are just now, like this and the next this year really, and then maybe it started a few years ago, but we're barely now getting into a ah period where people are having – People are old enough. the the The first people who were alive were being born when and MLS launched are now at an age where they can have where they're having kids.
00:16:45
Speaker
yeah And this is really the first generation of kids being born into a world where their parents also only knew a world where MLS existed. And I do think that sort of changes the way that we, you know, we talk about passing this on.
00:17:00
Speaker
You know, i i you and i both grew up in ah in a world where there was really no professional soccer. And, you know, i was in I was a freshman in college when MLS played. Actually, i always think this is funny.
00:17:12
Speaker
I was going to San Jose State. So the first MLS game was being played on at my school. ah And I don't think I knew about it. Right. Yeah. Isn't that wild? Isn't that wild? It is kind of wild.
00:17:25
Speaker
Like, I remember realizing that being like, oh I was down the street when that game happened. And I don't remember even giving it a passing thought of going, trying to go. Yeah, that that I mean, I think that, yes, that – I actually but have been talking about this recently because Greg Lawless is doing ah a project where he's collecting memories from 94 with ah this collective called Club 11.
00:17:48
Speaker
And he came on Morning Kickaround and he kind of – he told people like, yeah you know, we want you to tell us your stories. If you've got pictures, especially if you've got video at a time when that was not a ubiquitous thing, like we'd love to collect all of this ahead of the World Cup coming back to the United States in 2026.
00:18:03
Speaker
And I said, you know, what sucks is I don't remember if I even thought about 1994. Like, I don't remember if I was aware of it. I'm sure as a sports-obsessed kid, and I would have been heading into, I would have been 14, almost 15 years old when the World Cup happened.
00:18:18
Speaker
I'm sure i I knew about it, but I guess I just didn't rate it enough to care and mark it in my memory. Probably was moving. I was a military brat. I was very into baseball. That was probably part of it.
00:18:31
Speaker
But i I do feel weird about that. And yet at the same time, I recognize that's sort of for our generation, Jeremiah, that is so prototypically American. And again, yes, there will be an era when it's like there was always an MLS. There was always this. There was always that.
00:18:47
Speaker
But for us, it gives us this sense of not taking things for granted, I think, is part of it. for sure think that. And, you know, I i was aware of the World Cup in 94 mainly because there were games being played near me. in pal Like I was living in the Bay Area.
00:19:03
Speaker
Palo Alto, Stanford hosted some games, some big games. And one of the my most vivid memory, though, of that tournament is reading a column in the in my local newspaper where he was bemoaning the offside rule. And he was saying how dumb the offside rule was and that it, it, that it should be more like hockey where there's just like a fixed line in the ground, i guess, kind of like the NASL.
00:19:28
Speaker
And I remember telling this to my soccer obsessed uncle who was like one of those um, He was coaching oh ah youth soccer and his kids were playing soccer.
00:19:41
Speaker
And all he so he was like into this and he just thought it was the dumbest thing he'd ever read. and And that was sort of my record. That was sort of my first realization that this is a sport that it has existed a long time before Americans have tried to yeah change it.
00:19:55
Speaker
And it was just kind of a kind of a formative memory for me. But any case, I bring this all. This is a long path into talking a bit about where we are as a soccer nation and where we are as a soccer consuming nation heading into the World Cup.
World Cup and American Soccer Evolution
00:20:12
Speaker
And, you know, the World Cup now is about a year, almost exactly a year away from from coming back to the United States. And in a lot of ways,
00:20:20
Speaker
the landscape could not be more different in terms of the way Americans talk about this sport. It is no longer a it's It's no longer a circus, just like the circus is coming to town. In some ways it still is, but in in most most people know what they're have a pretty good sense of what they're getting into.
00:20:38
Speaker
But I'm still sort of blown away at, and I guess maybe it's because the U.S. hasn't been very exciting or very good. And I think a lot of folks like myself, frankly, have become a little turned off by the whole U.S. national team vibe right now. Yeah. Yeah.
00:20:57
Speaker
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Speaker
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Speaker
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00:22:48
Speaker
But you're maybe a little in a different position. You're in media conversations, I assume, bigger media conversations where... You know you work for Sirius XM, who presumably this is about as big of a deal as it could be for them.
00:23:01
Speaker
What's your sense of where we are as a sort of soccer consuming nation a year out from the World Cup? Well, I mean, you're obviously right that it's very different from 94, but so much is different from 94. I'm not even sure that but that matters too much. I agree.
00:23:16
Speaker
yeah Because obviously 94, soccer was an oddity. Although, again, the reason 94 is the most attended World Cup or was, i guess we're probably going to... It's a number of games thing, but that World Cup is obviously famous for being the most attended World Cup ever.
00:23:30
Speaker
And a lot of that was driven by expat communities, by people who wanted to go out and see their team. I'm sure there were lots of traveling fans from abroad that always comes with a World Cup. But i I also think that, you know, every Italian in the tri-state area was trying to get to an Italy game in 1994, right?
00:23:46
Speaker
ah So that that, even though it was weird, there was still this other thing, but also back then in 94, right? And again, maybe one reason why it's so weird for me that I don't really have distinct memories of it.
00:23:57
Speaker
We were essentially a monoculture when it came to sports. Right. There really wasn't this fracturing. And now here we are in 2025 and everything's fractured.
00:24:08
Speaker
I mean, just getting attention on one thing is impossible. So while, you know, you might try to compare them, I think they're apples and oranges in that way. ah Very fair.
00:24:25
Speaker
kind of captures that fractured nature of it because you can't talk about soccer fans they're not ah monolith in the united states they never were But it's especially in evidence now because you know we're we're we're killing ourselves to make sense of the numbers that Don Garber gives us for Apple TV numbers for Major League Soccer games. That's been fascinating to see discussed, by the way. Yeah. and And of course, and even he is saying, like, we don't even know how to properly measure, you know, how to properly contextualize these numbers because it's a different world with how their product is being disseminated.
00:24:59
Speaker
We talk about the number of Mexican football fans in the United States. We know that's big. The Premier League's growth since NBC took over that contract. and And then you're just talking about, again, different communities and and people who only care about their little version of soccer that is specific to them or their community. And i don't I don't know what that means for the World Cup. like You think of the World Cup as a way to bring everybody together, Jeremiah, but I'm not sure.
00:25:28
Speaker
Yeah. And just to give a little bit more context to the, this idea of the monoculture, it's not that everyone was focused on one specific thing all the time. It's that that one specific thing was the main thing at that during that window. So like when the Olympics was going on, everyone was focused on the Olympics when,
00:25:48
Speaker
The NFL season was going on. Everyone was focused on the NFL or whatever. The game of the week could be the biggest thing on TV that week. And when the World Cup came to town, it was sort of the World Cup's turn, just like it's the U.S. Open's turn during golf at that time or yeah whatever, whatever be where Wimbledon was going to be the biggest event in the like everyone is going focused on Wimbledon. I don't know. I can't tell you who won Wimbledon for the last year.
00:26:15
Speaker
15 years, but there was, like right. Right. But in 1994, I probably could have told you who the reigning Wimbledon winner was. But also, do you you it in a sense, in the in the way that soccer is different and does affect this,
00:26:27
Speaker
particularly a year out from the World Cup. And you're talking about Wimbledon and the US Open, or I guess the British Open, the the Open just happened, right? Right. And those are things that I would have been very much more in tune with right in my younger years. Now, again, I work in soccer, so my focus has to be soccer. So I recognize I'm not um'm not typical in this way, but the amount of stuff happening is so much
Challenges of Soccer Content Saturation
00:26:48
Speaker
more, right? there's just It's just an abundance situation, and particularly with soccer.
00:26:52
Speaker
And again, this gets into whether or not it's been good for the game or it will be good for the world cup that we are just dealing with a deluge of soccer in our country. And everybody who's got any control over anything is throwing more soccer at at us to extract dollars from our pockets.
00:27:11
Speaker
So the club world cup and the gold cup all happening at the same time. And major league soccer is going on. And, you know, it's just, is I guess that would be the concern, right? That when we get to the World Cup, instead of the whole the whole focus going to the World Cup and everybody just kind of like, okay, this is great.
00:27:26
Speaker
Everybody goes, oh, I mean, I'm just just kind of over the soccer that's that's happening all the time. and And I just had a conversation with with somebody today, and I can't go into detail, but they were expressing how we kind of have to have an entryway that doesn't make people feel overwhelmed from the moment they decide to be soccer fans. Right.
00:27:46
Speaker
And I've always been interested in that, but I think it's especially hard now because we are fractured and because if you do decide to dive in or you decided to take your toes in the water, you can even easily become overwhelmed with everything that's that's out there. Even though, again, everybody's trying to make more stuff.
00:28:03
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, i I look at a show like Morning Kickaround, which is ah a YouTube show and a podcast that you're currently doing. And I think it's kind of illustrative of what you're talking about, where I would imagine, i don't know this, correct me if I'm wrong, but I would imagine it started started off as, hey, we want to be part of the daily soccer conversation.
00:28:20
Speaker
And then invariably it turns into, we're talking about promotion and relegation. We're talking about lower league soccer. We're talking about women's soccer. And it's all of a sudden, because it's like, how do you not talk about all these things that are going on?
00:28:34
Speaker
But it, it almost immediately like soccer is, is this weird thing. sport where it's not like you can, if you want to talk about soccer, you kind of have to like, and you, and you're taking that angle.
00:28:46
Speaker
You almost have to open it up to everything. Right. mean, because it's, yeah, yeah. You can't just be like, we're going to be a soccer show, but we're only going to talk about an MLS. Well, no, you're an MLS show. Yes. Right.
00:28:57
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, and you can't, I mean, okay, this is not how my brain works anyway. Like i'll and I'll, I'll admit, and this is, I think, recognizing your strengths and, and really you want to follow your heart. and And if you're in media, you want to follow your heart with what you cover. Right. I choose not to be somebody who lies about what I care about. That's just not how I want to work.
00:29:16
Speaker
Right. So but morning kick around is a reflection of of sort of my interests, which are to take the game that we love and and care about the game that we love and talk about scores sometimes and and results and tournaments, but also to also to kind of go, well, this connects to this thing over here. And or there's a big and again, you cannot be, if you're going to choose to engage with American soccer in particular, meaning football,
00:29:40
Speaker
the U.S. Men's National Team, Major League Soccer, NWSL, obviously the lower divisions, all of that, you are no longer just a soccer fan. You are... um a booster, you are now, uh, you are, you almost are getting a PhD in American soccer when you choose to engage because, you know, it's about how do we do it? And it's not just like that. We do it. Hey, we play soccer. No, no How do we play soccer? And how do these teams, but when do they play and where do they play and what stadiums do they play in? and And can we put a team over there and another team over there until American soccer is fully built out and you and I will not see that day, Jeremiah, those conversations won't stop. And
00:30:17
Speaker
And and that yeah that does, to me, that's fascinating. I imagine that there are pure sports fans who are like, this is bullshit. I don't want to listen to them talk about, you know, promotional relegation that doesn't exist right now. Or I don't want to listen to talk about, I don't know, any development of players, right? You cannot talk about soccer in America without somebody in the comments saying, well, the problem is pay pay to play, Jeremiah. The problem is pay to play. It's impossible to avoid those things. Right.
00:30:43
Speaker
Right. and And you just think of that. like i don't I don't think that equivalent thing is happening when we're talking about other sports, which is sort of no one of the things that makes soccer so fascinating is that it's it is both it is a it is immediately, undeniably a global sport that has so many examples of whatever the right way to do things is. And everyone has an idea of, of how you build this out. And that goes from you sports to how do you cover it and do all these other things.
00:31:11
Speaker
yeah It's a, it's been a fascinating, you know, i one of the things I always say is and people ask if I'm what I'm, You know, have I become a Mariners fan to give an example? Right. I get this question a lot from family back home. And I'll say, I'll be honest with you. I don't watch baseball anymore because I just am so consumed by soccer that I just don't have a lot of space for it.
00:31:33
Speaker
And like I grew up and I'm sure part of that is also that, i you know, I grew up an A's fan. And the A's have not been exactly a lot of fun to watch. But, you know, you were thinking that might make it easier to become a Mariners fan, right, in some ways. But it's just, no, I don't have space. I don't have mental space to become a fan of something else because it's soccer. Yeah, I wonder about that.
00:31:52
Speaker
I wonder about that because, you know, again, you and I are in a position as soccer, you know, soccer media people talking about this from that perspective, from being somebody who's paid to to talk about soccer, to write about soccer, to think about soccer. Yeah. um I don't know if I was just a fan.
00:32:08
Speaker
if I would engage with it the same way I do, or if I would leave space for other things. Now, it's not that I'm, it's not that I don't ever watch something else. I'm trying to, I'm a Broncos fan by birth.
00:32:20
Speaker
So I'm trying to figure out how to engage again with the Broncos because it we might be okay. We're not, maybe not going to a Superbowl, but we might be okay. And that, that makes them fun again. um It's easier when they're bad to ignore them, obviously.
00:32:32
Speaker
But I don't know that I care as as much as I used to. I used to be obsessive about the Broncos. That's not a thing anymore. And if I was a fan of soccer, would I be able to funnel down what I pay attention to, what I care about, or would it consume me the way it it seems to be very good at, which is, again, you're now, you can't just be a fan of a team. You've got to engage with what league they play in and the the rules around it. And again, all this stuff we talked about, promotional, the American soccer hobby kit is always right there for you.
00:33:04
Speaker
Yeah. And I don't know, and because obviously that's going to dictate sort of the ultimate growth of the game. Because we have such well-established cultural touchstones for sports in America.
00:33:17
Speaker
And ones that I love, right? The World Series, baseball in general, the NFL, college football. these are all We should be proud of those those things. They're there're amazing. 100,000 people going out to once what watch what was a bunch of amateurs play play a sport.
00:33:31
Speaker
You know, you could talk about the... whether that's right or wrong, but it was still amazing that we were doing it. And I don't want that to go away just so soccer can succeed. But if you are saying that soccer consumes you, who's going to want to engage with soccer if
Approaching the World Cup
00:33:45
Speaker
that's the case? If means they have to give up their season tickets to go watch Michigan or Ohio State or not or Tennessee or whatever.
00:33:51
Speaker
Yeah, I guess what we're asking is somehow soccer needs to be made, have to make space in everyone's heart. But what do you, i don't know, what do you think is the, if you were to prescribe, what what should we be doing as ah as media members? what How should we be gearing up for next year? Or should we?
00:34:08
Speaker
Should we just treat the World Cup as another big event that is on the calendar? And it's not our responsibility to sort of do anything to go outside of our normal behavior.
00:34:20
Speaker
Well, that's a good question. So look, um I am in a position of privilege being paid to talk about soccer, but it's not as though I think of my job as completely secure all the time or, or that ah I'm even satisfied as I get older and have kids going off to college and kids, you know, growing and, and, and things I need to pay for that. I'm completely satisfied, satisfied with the money that I make. Right. We're all in a, we're all in that hustle, right. To try to do better, retire early, all these things.
00:34:46
Speaker
And, and so I, I think there is up that pressure. It's the entrepreneurial pressure And I think because we all, for you and me, I don't know how it is for a lot of people, but for you and me, starting as bloggers and then becoming media professionals, you always have this sense of of you've got to make it.
00:35:04
Speaker
You've got to make it on your own. You have to make something. And so the World Cup comes around and that's that's once in a generation. I mean, it happened in 94. It's happening now. And you go, well, I got to maximize this.
00:35:15
Speaker
Right. Like I have to be, i have to go and and get as much as I can out of this. But if everybody thinks that way and there's still not enough to go around in terms of, of money and investment, I don't know what that means. Right.
00:35:29
Speaker
I think, you know, again, I feel that pressure. It's part of the reason I started kick around, though, that was that was a lot of things. Creative energy. i don't know if I was thinking about the World Cup necessarily, but what I what I think is true that is frustrating for us is that as far as soccer has come in this country, and it certainly has.
00:35:47
Speaker
There are still ways that that media fracturing, that the consolidation of control of a lot of outlets has limited the impact on our business.
00:35:58
Speaker
Right. And I think we all think, well, there's space for this. Or if somebody only started a company doing that, it could be big. But there are only so many people who have the ability to actually pull that off. And obviously, when we talk about, you know, money flowing from advertisers or corporate sponsors and that kind of stuff, I think a lot of those companies, you know, outside of the very big ones who already have soccer relationships, they're not thinking about it yet.
00:36:25
Speaker
and They're thinking about now. They're not thinking about 2026. And when they you know but when the when the fiscal year ends and we get to October or something, maybe it's like, oh, snap, there's a World Cup coming. We should be involved in that.
00:36:37
Speaker
And then I'm hoping, not just for my benefit, but for everybody and for American soccer's benefit, that there is an influx. I just hope it it gets dispersed a little bit. Because again, I think there's some consolidation that has happened. That's not great, Jeremiah. And and that's not to, I'm not trying to speak ill of of our colleagues at at various outlets, but there, I feel like there should be a little bit more out there. And I, and I feel like, again, you know, that lift of let's do a startup or let's, let's start something from scratch can feel a little big. And yeah, I hope that that's coming too.
00:37:11
Speaker
Yeah, I do too. I mean, I feel all those things and it's also part of what keeps me like in my lane sometimes I think also is that it's like it's easy to focus on. It's not easy, but it's it's more comfortable oftentimes to just focus on the sounders and and let all this other stuff be happening.
00:37:29
Speaker
and i don't know And I don't know from my selfish perspective how much there is a maximizing – ah my like I don't know. It'll be very interesting to see how
MLS Growth and Expansion Concerns
00:37:38
Speaker
we when we get closer. But on on those same tokens, I do think that um this is a moment for MLS especially where they've been building toward this for so long.
00:37:47
Speaker
And I do wonder if MLS is ready for the moment because i it sometimes feels like MLS is not... is not expanding its popularity in ways that are going to benefit from the World Cup. And i you know we look at the sort of the siloization that they chose to do with being on Apple TV, which I was a big fan of.
00:38:10
Speaker
But I think I've also been frustrated with how – with the strategy around that. Like it it sometimes feels like it's it was like, oh, we got here and that's the end of it. Yeah, I suppose that that's part of it. I don't i don't i don't know that there was a playbook, obviously. i mean, it's easy and in hindsight to say, well, they got this wrong and they got that wrong and they they did too much Waldorf Garden stuff and it it made them, you know, less...
00:38:35
Speaker
ah less throughout the culture are less available know, less part of the conversation. Yeah, less part of the regular, again, I don't know though from inside the bubble if that's possible in the way we think of it as being possible in a previous generation, Jeremiah. That's the thing that's really hard for me and think you know i I don't want to use it as a cop-out but I just don't know. I mean, you know,
00:38:59
Speaker
If we're thinking about, okay, well, what would MLS gain if they had thought about this strategy differently? Well, when you say conversation, what does that mean? Are we talking about... X, which, you know, for me as a wasteland, I don't want to engage with anymore, but I imagine still has power in certain ways in sports.
00:39:17
Speaker
Is it but mentions on ESPN, which is becoming less and less important as an outlet and as time passes? Is it, is it sports talk radio, which I think a lot of people would say is a dying medium, although I don't know that I agree with that. Is it podcast? Okay. Well, what podcast, what, where, who's podcast, right you know, it, it,
00:39:36
Speaker
I don't know exactly what that means, right? I don't think MLS does either. And in fact I don't think anybody does. I don't think anybody has a sense of what is, because again, we've moved so far away from a monoculture and a sports context that it's really hard to know what is it that you can do that that will build out your, you' know, build out awareness of your product in a way that makes economic sense. Because what MLS chose was an economic choice to get paid by Apple, right?
00:40:03
Speaker
And I think that's that's the tough part because I think in a lot of ways, like I'll look at Seattle to take this as an example. see There was a you know, pre- Apple deal, the Sounders were sort of in the culture in a way that felt ubiquitous. You saw a lot of jerseys around at the playground or wherever else you could go up to people and have a conversation about the Sounders. And I think that was maybe that certainly wasn't the norm in other MLS markets.
00:40:30
Speaker
But I think one of the things that we've seen in Seattle, especially, is that that's just not so much the case now. And i I've been surprised how many people I'll talk to and say, like, I used to watch every game and now I don't watch any games. And on some level you go, well, if you weren't willing to pay anything for those games, are you what is what was your fandom worth?
00:40:52
Speaker
But there is sort of this. And so it's like there is a monetary part of it that they are getting paid. And I think... I don't know. It's it's tough. it's ah It's a tough equation. But again, are we thinking about fandom in an old paradigm that doesn't that simply doesn't exist anymore?
00:41:08
Speaker
and And we want it to because that's the world we grow up in. We grew grow up in a world where, yeah, you you're in a town, there's a team, they're having success in the field, and everybody feels like they're a fan. Like I just watched, I just caught Major League the other day, one of my favorite movies of all time. And one of the major, no, the subplot of that movie is all these. Is that? Yeah.
00:41:26
Speaker
yeah It's those little things where everybody's suddenly an Indians fan. and getting I know we're not they're not an Indians anymore, but suddenly everybody was on board right because the the bandwagon. Everybody jumps on. and and now and is that Is that window closed?
00:41:39
Speaker
and i've i've For a long time, and I don't want to give anybody a pass for making bad decisions, and we haven't talked about MLS 3.0, and I don't think we're going to have time to do it, but this is interesting in this context.
00:41:50
Speaker
I don't want to give anybody a pass, but MLS has always been a victim of timing. right It's always been tough for MLS because so much of sports culture is based on history and tradition and passing down of things.
00:42:04
Speaker
And yes, there are exceptions to all of this stuff and in expansion cities that in various sports, sure. But for the most part, we care about what we care about because people older than us cared about it.
00:42:15
Speaker
So, and you mentioned that we're now at a place where people who were born into a world where MLS existed and they don't know a world where it didn't can have kids and pass down that fandom. That probably is going to be big for MLS, but it can't have the same impact as it would have in the sixties or seventies or eighties because there's just too much else going on.
00:42:34
Speaker
And because you buy just by being a relatively newcomer to the, uh, to the American sports scene, you are, you are going to be subculture. You just cannot get away. Like, how can you not be subculture when you didn't show up until after everybody had been doing the NFL for 60 years or their basketball team for 60 years or baseball for a hundred years?
00:42:54
Speaker
Right. And I just don't know. And then that's the thing. Like, did MLS make a bad choice or did they make the only choice that really was available to them in terms of the economics that they are fighting in this country? And again, in the connected soccer world, in a marketplace that is global.
00:43:11
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, and I think there's another thing I always remind myself of, and I think this soccer, especially American soccer, is constantly wrestling with this, is that if you look at what the NFL was at 30 years old, or you look at even baseball at 30 years old, or you look at certainly if you look at the NBA at 30 They were not what anything like what they are now.
00:43:33
Speaker
No. And they were not probably even what MLS is now in that it is a a big business that is not – you're talking about 30 years ago in the NBA or when the NBA was 30 years like old, they were barnstorming still.
00:43:47
Speaker
Yes, right. They did not have teams that owned their own facilities. They did not have – you know, those things didn't exist. And I think, you know, we we oftentimes I think can get lost in American soccer in comparing ourselves to much more established brands. And you you look, you know, sounder, you know, ah MLS fans will say, well, look at England and how they pass on these.
00:44:09
Speaker
They have all this history. And it's like, well, yeah, you're never going to get that history until you start building it. And that's kind of right. You have to start doing now. we we We don't want to be new and uncomfortable with newness. but we also want tradition in history. And again, like you you have to start. So there there has to be an inception point. There has to be something. And then I actually wrote about this on my newsletter, which is another thing I do occasionally. It's not regular at the moment.
00:44:32
Speaker
I missed a week, but I wrote about the, the MLS archive kits that came out. Right. And, yeah and sort of how they're meant to turn back to the nineties. Like the whole thing was about the nineties and how, how it's been a struggle. I think and and maybe 30 is the, the, the moment.
00:44:47
Speaker
for MLS to to kind of a to to fully embrace its history from the 90s and the early parts of the of the league because it was not pretty. And they weren't playing in in in the proper atmospheres and stadiums that made sense for soccer. And the players were making nothing and they were training on you know on dirt half the time. And you know everything was hardscrabble in minor league.
00:45:09
Speaker
Public parks. Yeah, it was not any way... it in any way this this glitzy, glamorous thing, but you have to embrace it. because you And again, the only reason it suffers is by comparison to other leagues that we want
Reflecting on MLS History
00:45:25
Speaker
to be.
00:45:25
Speaker
Because as you said, you know i was listening to a thing about Wilt Chamberlain scoring 100 points. He did that in Hershey, Pennsylvania. It was like a weird, like, like barnstorming Philadelphia Warriors game in Hershey that nobody was there for. Like that was basketball at that period in history.
00:45:41
Speaker
And here we are basketball. So big and glitzing glamorous. It wasn't then it couldn't have been then just like MLS and its early years. Couldn't have been. And even 30 years in it's still it's still ah ah It's still an uphill climb.
00:45:53
Speaker
Again, it's really hard, though, to thread the needle and say, well, you get they get a pass on this, but not on this other thing. They really made a mistake here, or they're not doing the right things with budgets or things like that. Yeah.
00:46:04
Speaker
Well, it is. it is' a We could probably go on for another couple of days talking about this. But was maybe this is the right maybe this is the start of a conversation.
00:46:14
Speaker
But Jason, thank you so much for for coming on. ah It's ah it' been something I've been wanting to do. I just sort of had an idea of, hey, let's talk about soccer media.
00:46:25
Speaker
And I think we accomplished that. Hopefully people found it interesting. We did something. Maybe people will like it. unlocked anything quite but we we started picking the lock a little you know what people love jeremiah when when we navel gaze consistently that's what they love yeah exactly that's that's why we come on niche podcasts like this one that's right because yes you have an accepting audience that understands what person if people who didn't know us were listening to this they like oh these guys are so they're so up their own you know what's uh you know it's absolutely though it's part of the life
00:46:57
Speaker
Well, ah before we get out of here, Plug, what would you like to what more would you where can people find you on a regular basis right now? Okay, so Sirius XMFC is my main gig.
00:47:09
Speaker
You can find me there, especially when the European season starts. I'll be on WTF with Eric Winalda from 4 to 7 Eastern. Adjust for your Pacific time zone as necessary. ah that's that's you know That takes care of itself. That's a big corporation who pays me to talk about soccer. Very happy to be there.
00:47:26
Speaker
But really, i want to I want to promote morning kick around. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 9.30 a.m. m Eastern. It's live. So I know that's an early wake-up call for anybody on the West Coast. But it does – there is obviously a replay you can watch.
00:47:38
Speaker
We have community building around that show. You have a podcast. That is a podcast as well. You can also listen podcast. usually consume it on podcast. There you go. You can ask absolutely do that. We break it up into into little segments. We've got various topics that we cover.
00:47:52
Speaker
We are very interested in the growth of American soccer, pretty much from the bottom of the pyramid. I mean, i i'm talking've we've been talking about ah NPSL teams that can go pro if they continue the momentum. You must be really excited about Ballard FC just got to the national final against Vermont Green.
00:48:09
Speaker
this is like a That's like an actual marketable, semi-marketable USL2 championship game. Yeah, it is. Absolutely. those are Those are two teams that are making, ah you know, the little waves that they can in the in the worlds in there which they play. And I, you know, there's always a cynicism that kicks and you're like, oh, yeah, we've been here before. But, you know, I want to support projects like Ballard and like Vermont Green because they have really, truly soccer loving people behind them. And they put in a lot of work.
00:48:36
Speaker
an effort to make those things, ah you know, make the things go. And I would say that yeah one of the questions that we love talking about is, do we need these teams to go pro? Should that be their goal? What is, what is their future? And really, what does their community want? Because I think that's always been a question we haven't really been great at answering in American soccer is what does a ah place like Vermont want out of its soccer team?
00:48:58
Speaker
Yeah, and I'll just share share share this anecdote because I thought it was neat. I was not at the Ballard game last night. i was happy I happened to be driving through the neighborhood where the stadium is right as the game was letting out. And it was just really cool to see this rant because it is in a neighborhood.
00:49:16
Speaker
And just seeing this flood of people come out of this neighborhood stadium and mob the streets and just be walking to their cars and doing whatever else. And it just felt this very organic soccer thing. And I thought it was like fascinating, the idea that there was going people at the burger joint that had no idea...
00:49:35
Speaker
That a relatively big soccer game had just been played 200 yards away from them. And that where are all these people coming from? why are they all wearing Ballard shirts? We're in Inner Bay, which is a next neighborhood over.
00:49:48
Speaker
But anyway, that's how that's how it happens. that's how That's how it happens. And I think it's a fascinating place that we are in right now in American soccer.
Conclusion and Farewells
00:49:57
Speaker
This is an exciting time. Whether or not it's going to be exactly what we expected, I don't know.
00:50:02
Speaker
But I'm glad that you were willing to come on the show and and talk about it, Jason. I appreciate the invite, Jeremiah, as always. Thank you very much. All right. Well, let's get out of here. I'm Jeremiah Shan. This is No Sariotis, part of the Sounder Heart Podcast Network.
00:50:16
Speaker
And we'll catch next time.
00:50:41
Speaker
I expect the LAFC who is motivated ah to prove themselves at home, to prove to their fans that that they're capable of winning in this league. And it's up to us to really ruin the party.
00:50:58
Speaker
i feel a lot better than Bob.