More Than a Trophy at Stake as Struggling Franchises Meet in MLS Cup Final

TORONTO -- Every championship game promises glory. Every championship game promises the opportunity to make history, to fulfill ambition and to command attention and respect the following year. But how many promise survival?

We're not talking about survival in a Mayan ceremonial ballgame kind of way. But we do mean it somewhat literally.

Survival, or something close to it, is about what's at stake as FC Dallas and the Colorado Rapids meet here Sunday night in the MLS Cup Final (8:30 p.m. ET, ESPN).

There have a lot of people assuming this week that those who keep track of MLS revenue, sponsorships, TV ratings and other off-the-field metrics are disappointed that Sunday's title game lacks marquee names and star power. If they are, that's shortsighted.

A brief bump resulting from a final featuring David Beckham or Thierry Henry would be ephemeral. Having franchises with deep roots, relevance and support in their respective communities is what guarantees long-term growth and profitability.

"There isn't a commissioner anywhere that doesn't sort of wring their hands when you have historic, legendary, impactful matchups, because that will drive ratings and helps break through," MLS commissioner Don Garber said during a conference call in response to a question from FanHouse.

"However, we now have a lot of people buying season tickets in Denver, Dallas, Columbus (the 2008 champion) and Salt Lake (2009). And they're building fan bases and they're building relevance in their community. They (Dallas and Colorado) deserve to be in the championship game."

Denver and Dallas are two cities where deep roots, relevance and support have been as elusive as a league championship. The Rapids have advanced to the MLS Cup Final just once -- back in 1997. That same year, Dallas (then saddled with the ridiculous nickname 'Burn') won its only major trophy to date, the U.S. Open Cup.

Since then, while teams like D.C. United and the Los Angeles Galaxy built perennial contenders and expansion franchises in Seattle, Toronto and even Philadelphia struck a chord with local fans, the Rapids and FC Dallas floundered and flailed. Frustrations on the field were eclipsed by frustrations off of it.

The Rapids changed their uniforms from green-and-white to black-and-royal blue to maroon-and-sky blue, perhaps trying to find the combination that would unlock a bit of interest in Denver. Stan Kroenke, who already owned the Colorado Avalanche and the Denver Nuggets, acquired the soccer team in 2004 and opened Dick's Sporting Goods Park in 2007.
But the wins didn't come, and neither did the fans. Average attendance has failed to break 14,000 in each of the past three years. Colorado also failed to make the playoffs in all three.

A similar tale unfolded in Dallas. There was new ownership (the Hunt family), a rebrand and a move to a new suburban stadium, with nothing to show for it. This season, during which the club enjoyed an MLS-record 19-game unbeaten streak, it averaged a pathetic 10,815 fans per game.

The club is so invisible in its home town that last week, after clinching its first berth in the MLS Cup Final, it wrote an open letter to local TV stations and newspapers begging for coverage.

The Rapids and FCD do not register, either at home or on the American soccer landscape.

"When I came back to the league (from Germany), I was getting emails from everybody -- friends , enemies, everybody -- saying 'Have fun at the worst team in the league,'" Dallas defender Heath Pearce said.

After Sunday night, one of them will register. One will never be slighted that way again. That's what they're playing for. There's no medal for relevance -- but there is the promise of a brighter future.

"For the organization, it's lovely publicity. It starts to give the team and the club a better standing in the MLS," Colorado coach Gary Smith said here. "The past has been somewhat barren with success, and probably with quality of play. That has been improved ... I hope all in all, as we all move forward, the community, the fans and our supporters in Denver are going to come up in the hordes to push us on as the seasons unfold in the future."

Dallas coach Schellas Hyndman echoed those sentiments.

"It would be tremendous for Dallas, for FC Dallas to come home with an MLS Cup," the long-time Southern Methodist coach said. "It would be tremendous for the 240,000 youth players that are playing in the city, in the metroplex. It brings complete pride to your community and I think it also opens an opportunity for people to say, 'One day I hope to be part of that FC Dallas team."

In other words, win and you're in.

Both Dallas and Denver feature teams in the four major North American sports leagues, and have popular college athletic programs nearby as well. Both FCD and the Rapids play in suburban stadiums that have failed to attract fans looking for a more complete soccer experience.

Both organizations have been accused of being cheap, and of keeping struggling coaches and administrators aboard only because they didn't want to pay an extra salary. Both have done a poor job marketing to the young adult supporters who buy season tickets and create atmosphere.

The similarities are striking.

FanHouse had the opportunity here to speak to FCD owner Clark Hunt about the franchise's struggle for relevance and attention. It's likely that his club's experiences are pretty close to what the Rapids have faced in Denver.

"Dallas is a great sports market, but it's also a very crowded sports market. So you need to have some success to be recognized. I think the Texas Rangers are a great example this year," he said, while citing FCD's lack of on-field success and the economic recession as the principal reasons for the poor attendance.

Hunt defended the Frisco location of Pizza Hut Park, which he said sits 25 miles north of downtown Dallas. He claimed his family had never second-guessed the location and argued that there's "a very big fan base within 20 minutes of the stadium," including "a hotbed of youth soccer" and "a very big Latino base."

But he acknowledged that the club still had a lot of work to do. Customer service is important, and marketing to the right fans is critical.

"We definitely have paid attention to what we've seen league-wide with the growth of the fanbases in that young adult audience and our marketing this year, starting this year, was very focused on that demographic," he told FanHouse.

"We wanted to make it very much an authentic soccer experience, and we've got a pub atmosphere in one end of the stadium where we invite those types of fans to come to the game earily, enjoy the atmosphere and watch the game.

"At the same time, we're not going to turn our back on the family audience, becaue they will come a number of times per year. But they're probably not the type of audience that buys season tickets. For a season ticket audience, it's really the young adult audience we're focused on."

Perhaps it's just taken Sunday's participants longer to learn. They had to find the right coaches, hire the right administrators and figure out exactly who is buying MLS tickets and adding some atmosphere at the games.

Then they had to win.

"I think it's been tough over the years, not getting the support of the community," Rapids captain Pablo Mastroeni said at a Friday press conference in reponse to a question from FanHouse.

"In any city, everybody wants to be associated with a winner. For us, this is a good opportunity to do it."

Same goes for Dallas.

"If (winning the championship) doesn't draw some attention, I'd don't t know what will," Pearce told FanHouse at BMO Field. "For us the focus is this game, and hopefully during the offseason we'll be able to change some things to start bringing some more people to the stadium and creating some atomspehre. And that starts with a culture of winning.

"Winning's going to be the first step to people coming saying, 'Hey, we want to go FC Dallas. They're playing entertaining soccer. They're winning. Let's go out there.' I think that's the first step to it."

That's a lot of pressure, and that's why this MLS Cup Final may be the most important in MLS history. There is no Beckham, no Donovan, no Henry. There's no Seattle passion, no defending champ from Salt Lake City, no tradition-rich club like D.C. United or the Chicago Fire. Just two franchises desperate for an opportunity to matter. That's what is at stake Sunday night in Toronto.

And MLS will be stronger as a result.

"My father (MLS co-founder Lamar Hunt) was fond of saying that a league is as strong as its weakest team," Clark Hunt said. "And I think there's a lot of wisdom in that. That's one of the great things about this MLS Cup. You have a franchise that's never been in Dallas, and one that hasn't been in many years in Colorado. And it's going to help both franchises to have that kind fo success."