VICE Sports Q&A: MLS Commissioner Don Garber

Editor's note: Welcome to our new VICE Sports Q and A, where we'll talk to authors, directors and other interesting people about interesting sports things. Think of it as a podcast, only with words on a screen instead of noises in your earbuds.

During MLS Commissioner Don Garber's interview on Fox during the MLS semifinals, a man, whom Garber later identified as "some guy," held up a sign with a picture of a rasta-fied Garber with the caption "Funk You Garber."

You can make an argument that Garber, who has led MLS since 1999, is the face of American soccer. He is now the second-longest tenured North American sports commissioner, behind only the NHL's Gary Bettman. Before our interview, Garber recounted how former NBA commissioner David Stern used to come up to him at events, put his arm around him, and say, "Just stick with me, kid, and I'll show you the ropes." Since then, Garber has shepherded the league from bootleg startup to a globally-televised multi-billion dollar organization.

With the MLS Cup between the Columbus Crew and Portland Timbers scheduled for 4 p.m. ET Sunday, Garber invited me to his office overlooking Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan to talk about MLS's 20th anniversary season, some key challenges facing the league going forward, and what the future might hold.

The transcript below has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.

VICE Sports: So you came over from NFL International…

Don Garber: I came over from the NFL. So I was over at the NFL for 16 years in different capacities, a couple years in International.

VICE Sports: When you were with the International group, how much were you responsible for kind of growing the sport?

Don Garber: Early on, when I was a marketing guy for the NFL, I was responsible for marketing the game to young people through events and programs like Punt, Pass, and Kick and NFL Flag football and all these programs to try and grow the game, and particularly grow participation among young people, so I have an acclivity for building a fanbase, or building a scale in a market. And then when I took over International in 1996, my entire remit was to grow a fanbase. It was to try and spread the gospel of American football in a market of "football," where they viewed the ball as round not oblong-shaped.

It was very difficult. It was fighting against established sports cultures, and not as many people play the game obviously and it wasn't at that time exposed on television as much as it is today. And I could remember taking a bunch of long flights to Japan or China or to Brazil or Mexico and thinking to myself, boy, this is going to be a long, hard ride.

But what it taught me is growing a fanbase starts with deeply embedding roots in a community. You have to have boots on the ground, stadiums, players that live in the community, a brand that matters, and you've got to get out there and get people to believe. That was our first charge here in MLS, to come into this country right after the World Cup where there hadn't been a pro league for many, many years, and try to convince people who had some interest in the game that they could build their affinity for a sport through their local affiliation with a club. Believe in a player, believe in a club, become a supporter. Start engaging with the game in your backyard as opposed to having to watch it on television on Saturday or Sunday mornings. We've been doing that ever since.

The plan hasn't changed much. It started with 10 teams and the soccer stadium was not part of the original business plan. Obviously that's a big part of our focus today. We now have 15, we'll soon have close to 20. We didn't think we'd end up with 20 teams 20 years into this, and here we are soon to have 22, soon to be 24. We never thought we'd have teams in Canada and we are thriving in that market. We never thought we'd have players that are world class stars like Villa, Lampard, Pirlo, Kaka, Giovinco, or some of the best American players. The thought that the best American player today, arguably, is Michael Bradley, is playing in our league, is not something that existed when MLS started, when Claudio Reyna was probably the best player at that time and he was playing over in Manchester. Is that right? Find out where he was in '96 because I don't want to get that wrong. [Ed note: Reyna was at Leverkusen in '96.]

VICE Sports: Pretty much everywhere you look with MLS is good news and growth. One of the areas that isn't so great is the TV ratings. Is that something you're concerned about?

Don Garber: We're still an emerging sports league in the major league landscape in the U.S. and Canada. Our business, our league, is still young, just entering our 21st year. Our television ratings really represent today the size of our fanbase. Our focus is to continue to grow and continue to develop the supporter culture and the fan culture for MLS and we're confident we'll continue to show the growth that we've had now. I think our attendance has gone up something like 40 percent over the last 10 years. As we create more patterns with our new broadcast partners on Fox, Univision, ESPN, and in Canada on TSN and RDS, we'll start seeing further growth of television ratings. The good news is we have long-term deals with all of our partners. It's not something we're focused on every weekend. It's not something they're focused on every weekend. We want to have great quality productions and we want to have great schedule. And if we continue to market right, we continue to build interest in our local markets, that's going to translate into a growing television audience.

VICE Sports: It sounds like you guys are expanding television-wise in international markets a lot, too. There was the news recently about expanding to sub-Saharan Africa.

Don Garber: We're really pleased with the launch of the new international television strategy. Our games are live on Sky every Sunday night. We have games on Eurosport, we just finalized a deal in China and sub-Sahara, in Brazil, our games are on throughout Latin America. It's pretty remarkable that when you think two years ago we didn't have any international television distribution to speak of, and today we're on some of the best partners around the world and we're seeing a real growth of our international fanbase as a result of that. You combine good partners and a good schedule with some of the great players that are coming into the league that the international audience knows about, it's going to help drive interest. So it's no secret that Orlando City with Kaka is our most popular team in Brazil. It's no secret that the LA Galaxy and NYCFC are the most popular teams in England because of Lampard and Gerrard.

VICE Sports: This upcoming summer, there's the Euros and the Copa Centenario. Do you have any scheduling plans?

Don Garber: Yeah, it's going to be a very, very busy summer, clearly. Some of that will benefit [MLS]. We'll have lead-ins with the Euro on ESPN, we'll have great opportunities with Fox and Univision with their broadcast of Copa Centenario. We're looking at taking a scheduled break during Centenario. We haven't finalized the specifics of that, but it could be as much as a two week break during the tournament. I'm a big believer in the sport growing in this country and we're helping to drive that growth. We're one of the boats on this rising tide and that will benefit us in the long term.

VICE Sports: I want to talk for a bit about the role MLS has in youth development. I think it's pretty clear that it's important for American soccer in a lot of different ways. You and Jurgen Klinsmann seem to have disagreed on how that should be done at the youth level. What do you think is the best way to grow youth talent and what's the MLS's role in that?

Don Garber: So, my disagreement with Jurgen in the past has not been about youth development. It's about our players and what their best development is. That's very different than the U.S. Development Academy and all the club system stuff, which he is the technical director of, and many of our clubs are playing in that development academy. I just want to be clear on that.

But I'll very specifically talk about youth development. We're spending more on youth development today than we were spending on our overall player budget five years ago. It is a massive focus for our league. Yesterday you had Matt Miazga who grew up in the shadows of Red Bull Arena, arguably one of the most exciting U.S. National Team prospects, and if not for the Red Bull Academy, he may not be playing at the level he is and he certainly would likely not be playing in the United States. We're going to continue to invest deeply in developing the best possible young players in our country with laser focus, and doing it both because I think it will help the growth of the sport in our country. But it's also a good business model because it's better to develop than it is, necessarily, to buy.

The U.S. system has had some challenges. Our youth national teams have not been performing well internationally. So all of us in the sport, whether at the league, the federation, or the U.S. youth soccer movement need to kind of get together and say, "Hey guys, let's figure out what's happening here." Either the rest of the world is getting better faster than we are, or we're not doing something right. I've spoken with Sunil Gulati, I've spoken with Jurgen, and spoken with other folks at the Federation, including our own staff, to get focused on getting better. We just hired a guy, Fred Lipka, who used to work for the FFF on youth development. He's a full-time employee for us now.

VICE Sports: MLS recently announced an experiment with instant replay. How did that go?

Don Garber: Our relationship with the USL provides us with a number of benefits, one of which is we've been testing some instant replay concepts. I'm a big believer in it. I wholeheartedly believe that technology can help our game get better, both how we prepare for games, but certainly in game. Instant replay is something that I believe in. It's still in its early phases. We're not even past beta mode. But I hope that sometime soon we'll have instant replay in our games and I'm going to work hard to make sure we achieve that.

VICE Sports: Are there any specific areas of the game where you're looking to implement instant replay?

Don Garber: It's too early to talk about that.

I drove home with a friend of mine from the game last night who was sitting in the stands with a Red Bull season ticket holder and the first thing he did was start yelling at me about the official. Now, [referee Baldomero] Toledo had a good game last night. It was tough, he let the guys play, but I don't think there was a person in the stands who wasn't up in arms about the official. So part of the challenge that we have with this sport here is it's pretty easy to be a armchair official when you're sitting at home or sitting in the stands. But these guys get it right more than they get it wrong, but unfortunately when they get it wrong it can affect the outcome of the game.

VICE Sports: You mentioned some of the difficulties the U.S. has had on the youth level. One of the big stories at the youth level recently has been the training fees controversy. The last news of that was FIFA told CrossFire to take it to their dispute resolution chamber. What do you see…?

Don Garber: This is one I can't talk about unfortunately. I know you want to, but it's tied up in discussions that they're all having, so it's not something I can talk about.

VICE Sports: You recently said that MLS is still losing money. Is that to mean in the last fiscal year, or…?

Don Garber: Well, this year, MLS is losing money. Our owners are still in the investment mode. While there are a handful of teams that make money, the vast majority of them lose money, and part of that is because they're investing so much in the necessary components of growing this league. Youth development is not something that is a profitable venture today. Stadiums are not yet turning a profit. Training grounds and other infrastructure that's being invested in is not something that's turning a profit. Our revenues today, on an enterprise basis, don't cover our expenses. So it is a decision that they're making because they believe that we collectively can create an enterprise that at some point is profitable. But it just isn't that way today.

VICE Sports: Does that include SUM (Soccer United Marketing)?

Don Garber: It does. SUM is just the marketing arm of the league. Everything, every dollar in—league, club—doesn't cover our expenses.

VICE Sports: Do you have any cost projection on when that will even out?

Don Garber: No, because today, I mean, it could even out a week from Tuesday. Spend less money on players. So, today our owners are still looking at how can they invest more in the things that are necessary to ensure that we're successful. But we've got to be very, very careful about where we prioritize that expenditure, because if you spend too much you go out of business. So it is not different from any other startup that has an enterprise value that continues to grow but is operating at a cash loss. And we're focused on that every day, pushing ourselves and pushing our owners to put more and more investment behind the things that will ultimately allow this league to be what it wants to be, which is one of the top leagues in the world.

VICE Sports: At BlazerCon recently, there was one owner who said he'd like to see 40 clubs. Is there a picture of the league with 40 clubs? Two tiers?

Don Garber: No, no, no. We're very focused on expansion. We'll have 3 new teams coming into the league by the end of the decade, hopefully a fourth coming in. In the foreseeable future, we'll be a 24 team league. What happens three generations from now, who knows. That's probably what that owner was talking about. Lamar Hunt was an investor in the NFL when it was first founded in the 60s, right? So that was 50 years ago, so who knows what this league will look like 50 years from now.

VICE Sports: Who did you consider MLS's competitors 10 years ago and who do you consider their competitors now?

Don Garber: Well, I think when the league was founded, we were trying to establish our place in the pro sports landscape in North America, competing against and engaging with the existing major leagues. I think today, the competition is much more so from the international football community who is working hard in the U.S. and Canada to build a fanbase and build a business for themselves, and in many ways we're both trying to achieve the same thing: a deep affinity with our clubs. We're not just competing against local teams that are looking to establish themselves here, but international leagues that are broadcasting their games and running exhibitions and the like. That being said, the great beauty about North America is that it's an open market and they're free to do everything that they wish to. We have great relations with the other leagues and those clubs that are coming here to do their business, and our view has been to partner with them rather than view them as competition. But at the end of the day, we hope that a person living in Kansas City or LA or New York or Columbus will be a fan of their local MLS team first and perhaps their international club second. I think if you were to ask the global leagues they would agree with that approach, though I'm not sure the international clubs would feel the same way.