Snoozing Through the MLS Cup Final: Los Angeles 1 - Houston 0

Photo by Sean MacEntee

Major League Soccer did itself no favors putting its Cup Final on national television late on an East Coast Sunday night. If they were hoping to appeal to a West Coast crowd, maybe the plan worked. If they were hoping to capture the youth generation playing east of the Mississippi -- where fully two-thirds of the US population lives -- they were likely much less successful. It's reminiscent of the misstep Major League Baseball made a number of years ago, doing away with daytime World Series games, and moving the opening pitch of the Fall Classic to a time that caused games to end long after most children on the East Coast had gone off to bed -- and they lost a huge generation of fans to other sports, including soccer.

Making matters worse, the Cup featured on television opposite a Sunday night National Football League game, featuring a big game for two teams located in -- get  this -- the Eastern half of the Country. Oh, and the teams were both in the top 5 media markets in the US: New York (#1) and Philadelphia (#5). My guess is that the overnight East Coast rating for the game will be a steady 1.5 -- as in, maybe 1.5 people living on the US' East Coast watched the MLS Cup.

Meanwhile, the MLS could have had a fitting halftime show to rival the NFL's Super Bowl extravaganza if they'd had the foresight to invite Albert Hammond to entertain the Los Angeles crowd with his 1972 hit "It Never Rains in Southern California."  At least it would have been ironic given the weather for the Final. With fans bundled up in rain coats and sweaters, the scene on television didn't quite look like the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day.