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Barnaby Monk

Barnaby Monk is a Reader contributor. See staff page for published articles.

Major League Soccer eyeing San Diego market

I disagree, David. International soccer does great biz here. We are a multicultural border region book-ended by two sellout, top-flight squads (Xolos and Galaxy). The reason basketball/hockey/football don't succeed here is because those games don't fit the demographic. San Diego loves baseball and soccer. Those games are played in our "season" and are family-friendly. Not winter (football, hockey), not indoor (basketball), and not overrun by loud-mouth drunks. San Diego's youth loves soccer. And every San Diegan I cross over the border with a dozen times a year to see the Xolos play loves soccer. The caravan of San Diego's Galaxy season-ticket holders rolling up to Carson 3, 4 times a month loves soccer. I'm at those tail gates, and there isn't one fan I've cracked a beer with who feels differently. San Diego, David, is a soccer town. It just doesn't know it. Roll out to O.B. or Balboa Stadium or up to the water tower in North Park or down to the Y in Mission Valley. Thousands of adult players and fans. Thousands! Go to a Flash (San Diego's excellent semi-pro team) game. Take a closer look, David. San Diego is an alienated (by football blowhards) soccer town just waiting for the mother ship to land. By the way, your opening-sentence dismissal of MLS as an inferior product to European/South American Futbol...c'mon, you're smarter than that. Of course it is. Relatively speaking, MLS is a newborn, but growing fast. This is the first World Cup that the majority of national team players are from the MLS, and if those unlucky bastards (they drew the opening "round of death") make it out of the first round, I think we're going to see something very special this summer...namely, a sea change in American attitude toward the game. I love sports, David, crazy love 'em, but none like soccer/futbol, so maybe I've got stars in my eyes, but I think it could work. I think Beckham's experiment in Miami will be a good litmus test for us. Same multicultural, outdoor, warm-weather creatures of habit...let's just see what happens there. Let me buy you a beer at a Padre game this summer and we can talk more about it...maybe figure out what to do with Headley ha ha.
— February 22, 2014 7:16 a.m.

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