Can a Rivalry 3,000 Miles Away Make Me a Fan of Major League Soccer?

Back in 1975, the seeds were sewn into the fabric of the Pacific Northwest sports scene a rivalry that would one day have the potential to turn one fan on the opposite coast into an avid supporter of Major League Soccer.  I am that fan.  The rivalry is that of Seattle Sounders FC vs. Portland Timbers.

Forty years ago, soccer was experiencing its first American boom period on the heels of the North American Soccer League (NASL).  Famous players from all around the world wanted to be involved in the USA's foray into the world's game.  Pele from Brazil, Franz Beckenbauer from Germany, and Johan Cruyff from Holland were just a few of the big names who helped make the league a trendy, popular entity in the late 1970s.

Seattle vs. Portland was a regional feud that bred a generation of soccer enthusiasts.  Even after the country's collective interest in the sport stalled and the NASL folded in the '80s, the Pacific Northwest's passion was a driving force in the emergence of smaller leagues that gave a professional home to quality players unable to put their skills to use abroad.  Eventually retaining their names from the NASL days, the Sounders and Timbers kept playing for the majority of nearly three decades without much of an audience.  Though small in number until both squads were revitalized as MLS franchises in the last several years, the fan bases kept the spirit of the rivalry thriving.  Today, each team's supporter groups are among the most passionate in Major League Soccer.

So, what does that have to do with me?

I've been searching for a reason to invest time and energy into MLS since the league opened play in 1996.  For the last four years, that search has expanded into the realm of claiming a favorite team.  It has been an all-around fruitless endeavor, unfortunately.  I love soccer, but as Peter Keating recently wrote in his ESPN: The Magazine article, I am amongst the "broad coalition [that] comes together en masse pretty much only once every four years."  As much as I want to support American soccer by committing to watch our top domestic soccer league, I've managed just to tune in for the World Cup before going back to my usual sports viewing routine.  I, as Keating writes, "can appreciate a well-defined, dramatic (soccer) spectacle without attaching [myself] to the season-long rhythms of its underlying sport." 

However, after reading an outstanding book, Sounders FC: AUTHENTIC MASTERPIECE: The Inside Story Of The Best Franchise Launch In American Sports History, that may be changing.  I might have found my team to root for and, with it, the hook that holds my attention to MLS.  Sure, the team is almost 3,000 miles from where I live, but the amount of respect that I gained for Sounders FC after learning of their story trumps any geographic distance.  

To quickly recap, Seattle's MLS team was a decade in the making.  The city is one of America's soccer hotbeds, which helped the NFL's Seahawks get their current stadium built.  In need of public money, officials targeted the Emerald City's soccer community back in the late 1990s, pitching to them that, if they helped pass the vote to get the stadium funded, the Seahawks would eventually share a home with an MLS team.  The vote passed.  From there, a series of fortunate events took place.  A young businessman with a passion for soccer bought and managed the minor league Sounders.  A movie executive decided he wanted to buy a major league franchise.  Drew Carey, a huge soccer fan, heard about it and wanted in.  Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft and owner of the Seahawks, joined the party.  The soccer hungry Seattleites wanted their MLS team and the four aforementioned personalities meshed perfectly to make it happen.  The Sounders proceeded to buck conventional wisdom by shunning their "expansion team" label, hiring the ideal coach and finding the right mix of talent.  Consequently, the team has been a contender from day 1.  Since debuting in 2009, the Sounders have set MLS single game attendance records (think World Cup Final caliber crowds) and season average attendance records (45,000 per game).  Seattle very quickly developed a well run soccer organization with an extremely passionate, ever-growing fan base. 

I enjoy a good story.  Bottom line.  Sounders FC has a tremendous story that resonates with me.  The local economy in Seattle openly gives a lot of credit to the success of the MLS team.  Downtown bars and restaurants, particularly, are able to keep thriving outside of the football months thanks to soccer.  I think that's fascinating.  The entire sport of soccer in the United States has an underdog mentality and Seattle provides the classic characterization.  The Sounders share a building (and a management staff) with the city's NFL franchise, yet the world football squad refuses to play little brother to the American football Super Bowl Champion.  And they are prospering.

Getting back to the Seattle-Portland rivalry, there's nothing like a dramatic feud to help you invest in a product.  During the Portland rally that MLS Commissioner Don Garber hosted to announce that the Timbers were being called up to the big leagues, fans began to loudly boo when Garber cited the success of the Sounders as an example of the Pacific Northwest's soccer greatness.  That was, of course, a tame example of the animosity.  One Timbers fan was dragged by the neck and kicked by Sounder supporters in 2009...after a pre-season game.  I'll try not to hold that against them as I consider joining the "Rave Green" fan base.  Yes, there's serious heat between Sounders FC and the Timbers. Think Carolina-Duke, Lakers-Celtics, Giants-Eagles, or - to use a more soccer specific example - Barca vs. Real Madrid.  Though only a few years old in MLS years, it is already considered to be one of the league's premier rivalries.

As it turns out,  I have a brother-in-law in a similar situation as me.  He wants to pay greater attention to Major League Soccer.  He just needs an excuse.  Can you venture a guess as to where he resides?  A few hours from Portland.  He owns a Timbers scarf (which we bought him when he moved to Oregon) and a Timbers jersey.  Game on.  During a recent visit, he and I heavily discussed MLS and made plans for future trips to Seattle vs. Portland games.

Passion begins with a spark.  It must then be cultivated.  Tonight, I watch the Seattle Sounders FC host the Portland Timbers on ESPN.  Can it cultivate my passion for soccer sparked every four years by the World Cup?

I'm about to find out...