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for indoor soccer
No joke, hybrid game may be a natural for cable
By Carl Bialik
Can indoor soccer ever find respect?
With elements of soccer, ice hockey, and basketball, indoor soccer may seem to the uninitiated like a sports joke, akin to the baseball-basketball hybrid that was the title game of the flick "Baseketball."
Never mind, too, that one after another professional indoor soccer league has folded in recent decades.
Now a new league, led by former president and COO of NHL Enterprises Steve Ryan, wants to take the sport to the next frontier: television.
It just might make it.
With ample financial backing and Ryan's fat Rolodex of sports media contacts, the Major Indoor Soccer League might soon land a cable contract.
"Indoor soccer translates pretty well onto TV. It's fast-paced and exciting," says Shawn Bradley, long-time indoor soccer fan and vice president and chief operating officer of the Bonham Group, a sports and entertainment marketing firm.
"I certainly think this is a programming opportunity for a smaller, niche broadcaster in the next couple of years," says Bradley.
Ryan certainly agrees. He viewed the MISL All-Star Game on Feb. 17 in Cleveland as a TV tryout for the fledgling league, and he deems the results a success.
More than 13,000 fans attended the game, which was broadcast on CNN/SI and Comcast's CN8 network.
No ratings numbers were available for the game, but Ryan says, "Comcast has fed back very favorable comments. They thought they did very well."
Ryan is now negotiating with "several media companies," as he describes them.
One of the companies in the mix is AOL Time Warner, which will launch a new sports cable network to replace CNN/SI and to show some NBA games.
"Hopefully we're going to be in a position to lay out a specific game plan by early summer, for next season and beyond."
Meanwhile, Ryan is pushing teams to establish local broadcast agreements. This season four teams had agreements with such cable companies as Fox Sports, Comcast, and AOL Time Warner.
"Television is vitally important to us," says Greg Bibb, director of public and media relations for MISL. "If you don't have television, you don't exist."
Bradley thinks the sport's nature is well-suited to the television medium.
"With the venue being smaller than a traditional soccer field, it allows indoor soccer to be captured well by cameras on television," he says.
Broadcast sports have taken a beating recently, with Fox announcing a $387 million writeoff in losses on its NFL contract and the NBA settling for a TV deal that will bring more games to cable and fewer to free TV.
Ryan thinks this is the perfect environment for a new league to break into the mix.
"The recent broadcast negotiations of the big four sports have really demonstrated the future direction of sports," he says. "There's a new thinking developing relative to sports.
"Cable's going to be integral to that. It allows you to really pinpoint your consumer or your fan."
Just who is the typical fan for indoor soccer?
It's hard to say from the sport's eclectic models.
The game combines the basic elements of soccer with basketball's multipoint scoring system – two points for close shots, three for long-distance kicks – and hockey's dasher boards and arena size.
All this makes for typical games that feature 24 points, nonstop action, and a lot of elements that can both appeal to a typical U.S. sports fan and rankle soccer purists.
Still, as indoor soccer is being played in more and more youth and adult leagues in this country, soccer lovers are coming to appreciate this new game.
And the MISL does not have to compete with the more staid, traditional Major League Soccer, as MISL is a winter sport and MLS plays its games in the summer.
Bradley, for one, can appreciate both sports.
"I'm not such a purist to say the indoor game is damaging to soccer game and shouldn’t be played," he says. "I'm for anything that advances the sport.
"Indoor soccer could serve as a hook to get casual or non-fans to be fans of soccer in general."
Ironically, Ryan says his league draws much of its fan base from baseball, a polar opposite in temperament to MISL's frenetic pace.
"We offer an explosive, high-scoring, fun, friendly form of family entertainment," Ryan says, by way of explanation for the league's family appeal. "We have designed a pricing strategy to make it affordable."
Complementing that strategy is the league's efforts to have its players establish relationships with their communities, by staying after games to sign autographs and by coaching youth soccer.
A professional indoor league called the MISL lasted from 1978-1992 but ultimately failed, and the current MISL grew out of the National Professional Soccer League, which existed for 17 years before failing in 2001.
But with millions of dollars already invested in the league, along with the development of alternative revenue sources like real-estate plays for indoor sports facilities and youth soccer camps, and Ryan's leadership, MISL expects to survive and grow.
The league played in nine cities this year, and a promotional packet describes an expansion plan that would double the league's size by 2005.
This would open up many more spots for soccer players coming out of college, more of whom have experience playing the indoor game.
Ryan expects the team growth to come as easily as fan growth. "There's a lot of competition for jobs in our league," he says. "We're the beneficiary of the U.S. college program and also the Canadian college pipeline.
"Of course internationally, with the huge popularity of soccer, many of the great players want to come and play in the U.S."
Just how good are the MISL players, whose pay averages under $20,000? Could the league's best beat the MLS's top players in an indoor arena?
"It's an interesting concept, and one I've thought about," Ryan says. "Given our skill level, international flavor and speed, it would be a very exciting game. I believe our players would prevail."
The gauntlet has been thrown down; now this exhibition, and more indoor soccer, may be coming soon to a small screen near you.
March 18, 2002 © 2002 Media Life
-Carl Bialik is a New York writer and a contributor to Media Life.
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