Major League Soccer has seen exponential growth in metric after metric over the last decade. From attendance to worldwide exposure to credibility in each market.
On Saturday, MLS Commissioner Don Garber visited Rio Tinto Stadium for Real Salt Lake’s season-opening tilt with Toronto FC and spoke glowingly of RSL’s role in that transformation from a league seeking stability to the flourishing league that we see today.
Speaking with RSL broadcast analyst and member of the inaugural team that took the field in 2005 Brian Dunseth, Garber harkened back to the early conversations about bringing MLS to Salt Lake City – still the league’s smallest market – and how the Wasatch Front has proven time and time again to be a market that can serve as a blueprint to other aspiring MLS markets around the country.
“It’s been fantastic and will always be very close to our hearts at the league,” Garber said in the interview, which aired during pregame of Saturday’s 0-0 draw on KMYU. “We were told then and it’s proven to be true that this is a market that really understands the game and has had people that will support it. What’s going on here in this market is spectacular. We never thought that would happen when we were looking at it in ’03 and ’04.”
Rio Tinto Stadium is typically at or near capacity for every RSL match and TV ratings for the club have been among the highest local ratings in the league on a consistent basis. Where RSL has regularly been among the league’s top clubs on the business side, the progressive nature of the structure of the organization on the soccer side is beginning to draw attention from around the league.
Already one of the top academy systems in the country – as evidenced by the five alums from the RSL Academy who represent the U.S. at the CONCACAF U-20 Championships over the last two weeks – RSL is on the brink of further growth in the field of player development with the construction of a state-of-the-art training facility in Herriman, Utah. The $50-million facility will serve as the training home for RSL, the USL’s Real Monarchs and the club’s youth academy setup, which previously made its home in Casa Grande, Arizona.
Garber sees that investment by Owner Dell Loy Hansen not as an anomaly but as a prototype for other clubs to follow.
“It’s a definite model. The investment that ownership has made is massive,” Garber said. “If we can do that in all of our markets, the national teams will get better and we’ll continue to build the soccer nation in our two countries where we have clubs. It requires courage. Courage and a real belief. And that exists here.”
