MLS Off the Ball Observations: Zlatan defeats VAR

MLS Week 5, aka The week of Zlatan, was a landmark weekend in MLS history, even off of the ball. In Los Angeles, we learned some new information about StubHub attendance figures, the Sounders learned that VAR never takes a week off, and David Beckham still has no site to put his stadium on.

We lead this space with a note to Don Garber and Anthony Precourt. Despite their best efforts, dozens of supporter groups around the league and world, a million plus fans and a reported shade under 9000 in-stadium fans are still fighting to #SaveTheCrew. Those 9000 paid attendees are more than Precourt deserves.

MLS would love nothing more than to trumpet huge attendance numbers. If Zlatan can only convince the fire marshall to let 27068 into the House of Zlatan. The Chargers aren’t removing those tarps anytime soon.

Related Story: New York Red Bulls: 3 things we learned from Orlando loss

On the field, but of a larger relevance, the Philadelphia Union made history with the youngest back line to ever start a game. Sometimes the best lessons learned are those realized while licking wounds.

In MLS television news, ESPN+ will debut on April 12. MLS Live replay options have been wonderful but, hopefully, once the customers are paying, the national broadcast games will be available for replay the day after airing.

TV ratings for LA “El Traffico” broadcast per Fox:

MLS was already seeing slight increases in television ratings. MLS on Fox already brings better ratings than Bundesliga matches. Now, MLS is experiencing one of life’s golden truths: Zlatan brings all he graces to new heights.

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Soccer requires a different approach to the NFL, NASCAR, UFC and MLB. Fox should use Fox Sports 2 for experiments. Only 8,000 people watch some of the best games because there is no advertising budget. Spending millions for on-air talent is great sometimes, but not knowing how to present useful information is a hinderance to a coherent broadcast.

Zlatan did more than just lift the Galaxy to a win. The LA Galaxy versus LAFC game reached the top in Nielsen social content ratings. LA Galaxy versus LAFC was number one with 1,987,000 social media mentions.

United States Soccer Federation is trying to find an edge and has continued investment in players’ health stats. With these deals mentioning figures in the billions, USSF comments on pay-for-play and lack of coaching infrastructure will ring even more hollow. The US has plenty of athletes. Health is paramount, granted, but coaching to teach the game at a higher level than the status quo is also important.

For the third game, the Seattle Sounders had a player shown a red. Like Clint Dempsey last week, VAR caught Kelvin Leerdam throwing a Chamin-soft slap, however it touched the head area. Straightforward rule book red card if ever there were one.

Staying in the Pacific Northwest, Kendall Watson had his red card rescinded by the MLS Discipline Committee. Vancouver Whitecaps fans feel vindicated in their rage towards Howard Webb.

Despite a big ruckus showing nice for the cameras last month, David Beckham and his Miami backers are still shopping around for a stadium site. The pressure is on and eyeballs are now straying towards suburban lands after many downtown ultimatums.

Next: MLS: Top 5 goals of Week 5

At last count from the ownership group, they were now down to their final “five or so” options. Sounds like they might have none.