MLS is a pretty unique league in both north America and the world. For one MLS was born from a requirement FIFA had for the US in order to host the 1994 fifa world cup. Nike helped create some of the teams names. Legally it’s also pretty interesting in that the league actually owns all the teams and players which sets it apart from other American leagues. They survived an anti trust lawsuit related to their business structure and are now looking to bring on 30+ teams which is interesting considering at one point there were only 10 teams with only 3 “owners’ (really called investors/operators).

From a sponsorship point of view it’s also pretty interesting. Usually American leagues are sponsored by just 1 athletic brand and thats the case with MLS too but before 2005 MLS used to actually be sponsored by more than 3 different athletic brands (Adidas, Nike, puma, kappa, umbro, athletica, and mitre). They also helped popularize having sponsors on the team jerseys (its normal in world soccer but unheard of in American sports leagues. We now see sponsors on NBA jerseys, WNBA and NFL practice jerseys.) I like to think MLS helped bring that trend stateside.

It’s also interesting to see how MLS changed overtime to adapt to fans tastes. For example the first MLS teams had traditional nick names like Kansas city Wiz (yes wiz) Dallas burn, etc and featured colorful cartoonish logos. Now MLS opts to name its teams with more traditional soccer names like Toronto football club, sporting Kansas city (switching from Kansas city wiz) and FC Dallas (switching from Dallas burn) and features more traditional soccer shield type logos.

The owns are diverse too. For example red bull owns a team in New Jersey and named it red bull New York and New York Yankees got together with Manchester city to form a team called New York city football club.

MLS is an interesting sports league to discuss the rise fall and rise again and you should definitely look into it.