Cosmos Return - THE CONS

In part two of our look at the possible return of the Cosmos, we look at the cons. 

The new Cosmos won’t be anything like the old.  Let’s just admit it, the team won’t be as good.  Major League Soccer’s salary cap and foreign players rules make a true second coming of the Cosmos impossible.  Instead of Chinaglia, Pele, Beckenbauer and Carlos Alberto, you’d have the likes of Chris Rolfe, Mike Magee, Ricardo Clark and Jonathan Bornstein.  We at getstuckin.com would have no problem with that… in fact, we’d love it.   But for the casual fan previously uninterested in MLS  who will come for the Cosmos name, the let down will certainly be dramatic.   When you think Cosmos, you think STARS.  MLS rules do not allow for super teams like the old Cosmos. 

In fact, more often than not the successful teams in MLS have been the teams without the big star names.  The glamour days of the Cosmos, the 1970’s, cocaine and Studio 54 have been replaced in the American soccer world have been replaced by left sided fullbacks making $24,000 per year and off-season jobs in coffee shops.  These are glamour times, but MLS has grown despite its lack of glamour.   

So lots of casual fans may be disappointed by the new Cosmos.  Then there are today’s fans who hold the Cosmos responsible for sinking professional soccer in this country for a decade.  These fans believe that the Cosmos were an unsustainable temporary thrill. It was a failed business model, and ultimately, a failed Soccer model.  Like the housing bubble in our current economy, the 1970s Soccer bubble saw an unsustainable meteoric expansion which ended in a cosmic burst.  Whatever your opinion of MLS, it has featured a sustainable model that has outlasted the glitz of the Cosmos and old NASL.

Then there is the spotlight aspect. If the New York Cosmos made a return, right away soccer fans all over the city will be expecting winning right off the bat. MLS rules don’t allow for domination, and expansion rules make winning right off the bat extremely difficult.  While there have been success stories with expansion teams (see Seattle Sounders) a COSMOS team that fails to produce results might get negative publicity from the press, causing fans to conclude that, "this is not the same" and look at it as a joke.

There are pros and Cons to the Cosmos name, and while we just don’t know if they would make a return, we wanted to lay it all on the lines for fans of New York City.

Bottom line is though, we are ready to support a team in New York City, no matter the name!