Best foot forward: MLS arrives with burst of optimism

Driving the choked Southern California freeways recently, Joe Roth listened to the talking heads of ESPN radio as, once again, they denigrated his favorite sport.

Roth, a former soccer player and longtime amateur coach, heard the tired litany of criticisms from guys who wouldn't know a sweeper from a striker.

This is the way it remains with much of the establishment media in this country. Rather than learn about the game, it makes jokes about rioting fans and nil-nil results. Guys in my business love to bash soccer, then wonder why soccer lovers in this country seem so defensive.

Roth, the majority owner of Seattle's new franchise in Major League Soccer, had heard all the silliness before, but on this particular day, as he listened to the jokes from the jocks of ESPN, he felt his anger rising.

He sent what he called "a nasty e-mail" to the president of ESPN, George Bodenheimer, saying, "What are you guys doing? You put soccer on your network, but all your guys — and they're all these crotchety, over-50-year-old male commentators, who can't connect to the game — keep knocking the game.

"You're making fools of yourselves. It's the most popular sport in the world and, in time, it will be here as well."

Roth didn't get a response from his e-mail, but he did watch with great pleasure the other night as the bicycle kick from New England's Taylor Twellman was SportsCenter's No. 1 play of the day.

"The game is incrementally growing," Roth said after Tuesday's news conference. "You can feel the incremental growth. You can see this game walking steadily uphill even without the help of guys who just want to put it down."

From the breathtaking top of the Columbia Center, on a day so bright and blue almost anything seemed possible, the newest MLS franchise was announced.

While the Sonics keep telling us why they can't make it work in Seattle, while NBA commissioner David Stern continues to spew half-truths to the rest of the country about the state of pro basketball in this city, a new team came Tuesday afternoon brimming with optimism.

This is a healthy league that has grown cautiously. The MLS's product is getting better, and its fan base is getting larger. This season the average attendance was 16,000 and its average ticket price was less than $20.

Soccer on this continent is working, and there should be a place in Seattle for this country's best soccer league.

In 1997, when we were voting for a new football stadium, the ballot came with the promise that big-league soccer would come here. It took 10 long years to make good on the promise, but the timing feels perfect.

This franchise will start on solid footing. It has the marketing muscle and smarts of Tod Leiweke and the Seahawks behind it. It will have a first-class facility at Qwest Field, which will seat 24,500 for soccer.

General manager and minority owner Adrian Hanauer won another USL championship this season with the Sounders. And Roth, who has been in the movie business for 35 years, is the perfect person to run this team.

Roth said he wants the fans connected to the game, and to that end, he is intrigued by the "Barcelona concept," which was first suggested to him by actor, game-show host and minority owner Drew Carey.

At Barcelona, an advisory panel of team supporters votes every four years on whether the general manager should keep his job.

Imagine where the Sonics might be if such a panel had been able to vote off Wally Walker. How shaky would Mariners GM Bill Bavasi's future be with such a panel?

But seriously, the MLS coming to Seattle is good news for a city that could use a little.

Back in the days when the original Sounders sold out the Kingdome for an exhibition game with Pele and the New York Cosmos, the old North American Soccer League killed itself by trying to get too big too fast.

The 12-year-old MLS has been much more patient. San Jose is coming into the league next season. In 2009, Seattle will be the league's 15th franchise.

More quality players are coming into the league, like Chicago's Cuauhtemoc Blanco and, of course, David Beckham in Los Angeles. The best young player in the country, Jozy Altidore, plays for New York's Red Bulls.

"Owning this team is like betting on a movie," Roth said. "You sort of wake up one morning and feel like it's the right time."

And what will this new team be called?

The temptation for the MLS will be to distance itself from Seattle's soccer past. But the league should embrace that history, instead of contriving a name like Real Seattle, or Bayern Seattle, or Seattle United.

A team with a future as bright as the sunlight glittering off Elliott Bay was announced to Seattle on Tuesday. And it should be called the Sounders.

Steve Kelley: 206-464-2176 or skelley@seattletimes.com