[BCWWF]

Some basics, I didn't care much for soccer here in the past, but once you look at MLS a little closer it's a pretty intriguing league. I mean by the basis of it being 16 years old, it is so far behind the established leagues in Europe and South America. But there is so much potential and it's intriguing to watch this league grow.

As you know, right now there are 15 teams. Philadelphia is joining the league next season and Vancouver and Portland are joining in 2011. It's likely that the league gets up to 20, or maybe 19, within a few years of that. Montreal, St. Louis and Miami seem to be the best bets for a team.

The element of MLS that has helped it boom in the last couple years is the soccer specific stadium. When the league started all of the teams were playing in carnivorous gridiron stadiums, and the 15K fans in 70K venues didn't provide for a good atmosphere or a major leauge feel for the league. Now, there are soccer specific stadiums in (order from oldest): Columbus, Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago, Toronto, Denver and Salt Lake City. An amazing new stadium will open in New York next season, and Philadelphia will have one as well. Kansas City is building one and Washington D.C., San Jose and Houston are still playing politics.

The league took a big step at the start of the 2007 season. The most obvious change was the rule allowing Beckham, Juan Pablo Angel and Cuatemoc Blanco join the league. That season also introduced the SuperLiga competition against the top Mexican teams and finally introduced the youth academies. Toronto FC also debuted that year.

The coming of Toronto FC set a cornerstone for what future teams should look like. From the start, they sold out every game and had arguably the most dedicated fans in the league. This is the first season that they are expected to be pretty good, so it will be interesting to see what happens.

Seattle Sounders FC just debuted last week to a sold out crowd of 32,000. They had to cap season tickets as 22,000 so people would still be able to get single game tickets. From the start they have developed traditions and have been fully embraced by the city, including a march to the stadium and a membership system like Barcelona where you can vote on the general manager. It's like the league is finally starting to treat the fans like soccer fans and not a minor league sport.

The league has its faults. The teams are still very much in the sporting background in many markets, and some of the older teams lost their hype and now struggle to draw fans (Colorado, New England, Dallas). For the most part though, the gameplay isn't as terrible as people assume it is. Of course it's not the Premiership, but it's not supposed to be.

There's also a fair amount of quality international players in the league. Besides the aforementioned Beckham, Blanco and Angel, we now have Freddie Ljungberg, Darren Huckerby, Brian McBride, Casey Keller, Guillermo Barros Scholletto, Carl Robinson, Albert Celades and a host of quality Central American players. There's also been an influx of talented South American talent, including Pablo Vitti and Fredy Montero, which only increases the quality of play and gives MLS some standing if these guys develop into players saught after in Europe (which they already were).

The whole Pacific Northwest thing that drew you in is kind of the talk right now, obviously. With Seattle's tremendous success having only played one game, people are excited about Portland and Vancouver. The three teams all had surprisingly strong rivalries dating back to the NASL days but continuing on through today in the USL First Division (the league right under MLS). Portland should have a renovated soccer specific stadium ready to go upon arrival and Vancouver is expected to renovate BC Place for soccer as well. The thought is that these teams will be embraced as well if not more than Seattle.