MLS: Carlos Vela popularity should be encouragement
Carlos Vela was named the third-most-popular player in Los Angeles by the Los Angeles Times on Friday, His profile should be an encouragement for MLS and the growth of the league.
There are few sports in the world growing faster than soccer in America. It is already the second-most played sport among children behind basketball, has exploded into the sporting vernacular over the past decade, and is set to overtake Baseball as the third-largest sport in the country.
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Unlike in the other major American sports, the American league is not the pinnacle of the sport. Where the NBA, NFL and MLB are the highest-standard leagues of their respective sports in the world, Major League Soccer barely cracks the top 20.
That leads many fans away from American soccer, per see. They still play and adore the sport, but their fandom is geared towards the Premier League, Bundesliga or other European leagues. Meanwhile, the Latino population still tends to focus on Liga MX in Mexico or South American leagues, not MLS.
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Nevertheless, despite fans often turning their attention away from the domestic American league, the league is growing, in quality, competitiveness, commercial success, and general awareness and popularity. MLS is not small-time anymore.
The latest example of this came in Los Angeles. Los Angeles FC are one of the major success stories of the recent growth of the league. They began play in 2018, built a state-of-the-art soccer-specific stadium that is renowned as one of the most modern and well-designed stadiums in the world, and went on to produce the best regular season in MLS history in just their second year of existence.
Their star player is Carlos Vela. A Mexican hero, despite limited exploits for the national team, Vela arrived in LA as the team’s first-ever Designated Player. He is the face of the franchise, and he has more than lived up to such billing. And after two years of outrageous performances, including 34-goals in a historic MVP season in 2019, Vela is now making waves in the American sports world more generally.
According to a Los Angeles Times survey published on Friday, Vela is the third-most-popular athlete in Los Angeles. LeBron James dominated the vote with a 46% share, while Vela ranked third with 8.3% behind Cody Bellinger with 10.7%. Mike Trout was the only other athlete to have more than a 5% share of the vote.
More tellingly, however, was the breakdown of demographics. LeBron was the most popular athlete in 49 of the 51 different demographics. The other two belonged to Vela, who was the most popular LA athlete among Spanish speakers and people that had not completed high school.
Vela is among the elite sportspeople of Los Angeles. And nationally, he, Josef Martinez, Alejandro Pozuelo, Javier Hernandez and many others are some of the biggest and most recognisable sports stars in the country.
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David Beckham was the first megastar in MLS. But now, the league is increasingly littered with huge names that command massive attention. MLS is growing, and Vela’s popularity is yet more proof.