Fast Cars And Big Brands May Be The Way Forward For Soccer In America

CHICAGO – The night before the MLS All-Star Game, I drove a car so fast I thought I lost my drivers license. No, really. I couldn’t find it when I got back to my hotel on the Near North Side of the city. Maybe it fell out of my pocket when I was barreling down a straightaway in an Audi R8. Maybe it disappeared during the subsequent helicopter ride from Joliet, Ill. to the city. Turns out I had not lost my license — I found it a few minutes later, perfectly heat-sealed to my credit card.

It’s fitting considering I flew to Chicago to step a bit outside my economic comfort zone for a few days to drive some expensive cars with soccer players. Audi held a promotional event for MLS players before the match, and I was there to see it all play out. So I took a ride south out of the city in an Audi Q5 as part of a day where casually taking a breathalyzer test turned out to be like the sixth most ridiculous thing to happen to me.

The Audi event was split in two: a timed obstacle course in an Audi RS3 and a lead-follow event on a road course in an Audi R8. We each got two tries at the obstacle course to get our bearings and test out the RS3’s acceleration and braking power. The important thing to do, we were told, is really push the car. Don’t worry about the tires or the brakes or the engine. Gun it, be aggressive, and stop hard inside the box at the finish.
I shaved a few seconds off my time on the second try and thought I was ready for what was coming next. I was not. We were split into teams of three for a relay race. The relay was simple: Dribble a soccer ball through some cones, then race to the car, put on your seatbelt, and go through the cone course. When the first car stops in the box, the next person will be allowed to dribble. They drew up teams, and I was paired with another media member and Montreal Impact midfielder Ignacio Piatto, a native of Argentina who as it turns out is good at both dribbling soccer balls and driving fast cars.

There were complications. One player was injured and couldn’t dribble. Another media member didn’t want to take part at all. Oh, and I haven’t played soccer since a local ice cream shop was my tee shirt sponsor in first grade. Strategically, I was put second on our relay team, with Piatto the anchor who would make up all the time I was sure to lose.

Listen, failure in this life is inevitable and I’m wise enough to know that sometimes you have to kick a soccer ball straight into oblivion and just get it over with. So I waited my turn and dribbled through some cones in narrow dress shoes, keeping my head down and barreling through when I missed one instead of going back to correct myself. None of the soccer players would be required to write a thinkpiece about LaVar Ball as part of the relay, so I figured Audi owed me a bit of a break here to even things out.

We didn’t win. No images of me hit the Getty wire, and no video of me or my very nice tie made it into any of the footage Audi will use to sell some automatic automobiles. And that’s completely fine. This event wasn’t held for me, anyway. What matters is the players raved about the cars, even as the event ran late and Chicago Fire defender Dax McCarthy missed a family dinner.

Turns out no one complains when they get to drive cars with 400+ horsepower.

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Most of the time I was in Chicago I listened to Pure Comedy, Father John Misty’s third studio album. It’s a perfect piece of art for life in 2017. The album’s title track is a dark satire of humanity itself, but many of Josh Tillman’s lyrics are critical satire of the brands with which we casually associate. Though far from the best song on the album, a verse from ‘The Memo‘ is what struck me a number of times throughout the week.

Gonna buy myself a sports team
And put ’em in a pit
I’m gonna wage the old crusade
Against consciousness
All I need’s a couple winners
To get every loser to fight in it
Keep the golden calf
Just need the bulls–t
And they won’t just sell themselves into slavery
They’ll get on their knees and pay you to believe

It’s hard not to think about the branding of it all when you’re surrounded by Audi polos and banners and hashtags. The cynicism can overtake you when it’s in your ears and eyes, but you can’t live with that worldview all the time. There are people behind the brands. Nice, smart people who know the score just as much as you do.

The value of these kind of events is clear for a company like Audi. It’s great exposure that will look great on film, especially when they arrange MLS players arriving via helicopter as wind from propellers literally blow a soccer ball into the net of a makeshift field set up as a branded landing pad.

And for the players themselves, well, this isn’t exactly an ordinary event for them, either. When they finally landed and were checked for sobriety themselves, they started talking about past All-Star events they’d attended. Former MLS player Brian Dunseth was asked by a current player what All-Star week was like when he was active. Was this kind of thing normal for MLS? He laughed and described signings at local big box stores for a bit of extra cash before a sparsely-attended match. The track at Autobahn Country Club is a long way away from those days of MLS.
In the R8 lead-follow, I hopped in the car with Chicago Fire midfielder John Goossens. We didn’t talk much. A professional driver was leading us around the track and he was trying not to get us killed in a very expensive sportscar. Meanwhile, I was trying to absorb everything I could of his laps: Where he was braking, what the lead car was letting us do and when to open things up. You know, how to make sure I didn’t finish the week with a very expensive credit card statement.

I did not tell Goossens, already sidelined by injury, that I do not have a great history with cars. It’s not my fault, I swear. I avoided obliterating a deer and got rear-ended seconds later by someone texting and driving behind me. I got sideswiped by a bus that was making a right-hand turn from the left lane while I was stopped at a red light. Most recently, I had my new car for 10 days when someone backed into it in a parking lot while I was at work. It’s the second time a car I own has gotten hit while I wasn’t in it. I love cars, but we live in an imperfect world. You can’t throw a bunch of lumber in a tornado and get a home. Entropy rules all.

What I did let slip is that I’ve never been good at racing video games, which is completely true. Outside of Mario Kart, or maybe NASCAR Heat — specifically Rockingham Speedway in that game — I never quite grasped the concept of slowing down to maintain good speed through turns. And so my laps would test the traction on the R8’s rear wheels, and I’m happy to report that it did just fine.

The Audi R8 can go from 0-60 in 3.2 seconds and has a top speed of 200 miles per hour. I got it up to 122 on the straightaway on our last lap around. Goossens, knowing by then that I would not maim him in any lasting physical way, was genuinely thrilled we went that fast. And so was I. When I was searching frantically for my license, it was that moment that would have made standing in line at the DMV worth it.

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Pushing the pedal to the floor on that car and feeling it open up was worth the trip to Joliet alone. But after removing the racing helmet and head sock and trying in vain to fix my hair, someone on a golf cart rolled up and asked if I wanted to take a helicopter back to Chicago. No matter how wildly wealthy writing will almost certainly make me in this life, let it be known that I will never be the one to turn down a helicopter ride.

So into the co-pilots seat I went, buckling up and grabbing a headset to chat with the pilot as we flew over rural Illinois back to the third largest city in America. While trying to avoid kicking the pedals or moving the stick between my legs that could kill us all, at one point I looked up through the propellers to see an airplane flying high overhead. Suddenly the world seemed so much more complicated than it had a few hours earlier. I couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it all.

On the third track of Pure Comedy, Tillman describes a world where a revolution restarts society. “It got too hot, so we overthrew the system,” he sings. The song talk about how much simpler things are in the post-apocalyptic future when nightlife and protests are “pretty scarce.” But it comes back to advertising for Tillman once again in the song’s second verse.

From time to time we all get a bit restless
With no one advertising to us constantly

It sounds whimsical and longing, before the final verse describes the lack of convenience life has after the end days. Thankfully, he says, “there are visionaries among us developing some products to aid us in our struggle to survive.” The line is a winking acknowledgement that even in a world frozen over and begun anew, brands are inevitable. As is the advertising that comes with them.

If you want to be Father John Misty-level cynical about MLS, there’s ample room for that. The league’s All-Star Game mostly does the job for you. The best players of the 22-team league quite literally in midseason form play against a European squad merely warming up. This year, a Real Madrid team beat MLS without Cristiano Ronaldo ever stepping foot in the state of Illinois.

The Meringues have won consecutive Champions League titles for a reason — they’re the best team on the planet. Not even at top form yet, the difference between the teams was so evident. The pace with which Real Madrid pursued the ball was remarkable. Their passing was superior, though playing with the same group of players in more than a few practices does help on that end. And credit the MLS All-Stars, who drew level in the 87th minute on some chaos in front. Dom Dwyer, recent Gold Cup hero of sorts for the USMNT, got the equalizer.

But in penalties, it was clear which team was better once more. Dwyer’s PK, low and to the right, wasn’t deep enough and was stopped easily by Luca, Real’s 19-year-old keeper. He was subbed on at the half for Keylor Navas, Real’s indomitable shot stopper. After Karim Benzema scored for Madrid, Giovani dos Santos’s attempt for the All-Stars rang off the crossbar and out.

Gareth Bale — who would be the best player on nearly every team that didn’t already have, you know, Ronaldo — didn’t miss. Just like that, Real Madrid went up 2-0 on kicks and won by the same two-goal margin. Despite scrapping and fighting from MLS, the European champions prevailed. There would be no big statement about the league’s competitiveness in the modern soccer world. Maybe next year.

MLS is still a far-flung location for the world’s best players. But how do you make a what has long been a “retirement league” for aging European stars into something that matters in America? Well, you get brands involved to signal that the sport is, in fact, significant. And MLS has certainly done that. Fans at Soldier Field got blinking wristbands from Target and samples of Diet Coke. They got to add juice to their phones at Target charging stations, their batteries drained taking pictures next to customized Audis they posted to social media.

Is it worth it for them to be bombarded by colorful shopping opportunities? Maybe not. But for the league, it’s exactly the kind of exposure it needs.

I saw plenty of media tweets cynically deriding the branded nature of it all, but MLS knows what it is and what it believes it must become — crisp graphic design and courting sponsorships at every turn. Adidas will pay more than $700 million to outfit the league over the next six years. And other companies are more than willing to help out. It’s not just about letting All-Stars drive fast cars — Audi’s sponsorship of a Player Index is an attempt to let the league make the statistical leap forward that many other American sports have already embraced.

It all looks great on paper and in press releases, but it’s clear that those involved in the Index and in organizing massive events like these truly think it will make a difference. And the fans who showed up care about their clubs. MLS is far from perfect, but it’s moving in a different direction than many professional sports organizations in America currently are. And it’s gaining attention, at least for now.

Days after the game, two lower-level soccer clubs filed a lawsuit against Major League Soccer with the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Kingston Stockade FC, part of the National Premier Soccer League (NPSL) and Miami FC of the North American Soccer League (NASL) want the US Soccer Federation to adopt FIFA mandates that would force promotion and relegation across every division of US Soccer.

The NPSL soon issued a statement of support for the lawsuit, as it should. Pro/rel would completely change the game for soccer in the United States, making it much more exciting for smaller markets and fans of the sport in far-flung locales. Soccer in America would become more like what happens in Europe and around the world, driving competition among markets for players, raising salaries, and attracting interest around the country. In the eyes of many, it would truly legitimize professional soccer in America. But until the courts decide to break up MLS’ cartel-like grip on the sport, the best hope for the game is MLS raising the visibility of the game using the structure they have.

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The suite level at Soldier Field is unlike many other large-scale venues in America. It hangs above the rest of the fans, even those in the upper deck. “New” Soldier Field is essentially a smushed spaceship towering over two sets of Doric columns on the shores of Lake Michigan. But the pure comedy of the stadium’s reconstruction is that it puts the fancy seats above the rest of the paying spectators, all of whom are shelling out much less for an arguably better view.

As the skies opened up and rain poured on most of the 61,428 in attendance unprotected by reflective glass, I thought back to the soccer match I attended under the perpetually sunny skies at Avaya Stadium. The scarf I bought at that Earthquakes game said “Forward As One” on it in black letters in front of the California state flag’s bear. In the years to come, it will be that scarf and that motto the San Jose Ultras raise to the sunny skies of the Santa Clara Valley.

The adidas-branded scarf I got at the All-Star Game had no slogans on it, just the Chicago skyline in blue and red relief. It was the blank MLS shield, rebranded in 2014, that mattered on that rainy Chicago evening.

MLS may not always be the way forward for soccer in America, but as the song goes, “I’d hate to say it, but each other’s all we’ve got.”