The inaugural edition of BlazerCon—a convention mounted by the team behind the soccer-centric podcast and NBC Sports show Men in Blazers—prompted a whirlwind of social media chatter from the moment its existence was announced this past August. Who was this for? What aspects of soccer would it concern? What exactly was this?
On a brisk weekend in the waterfront industrial district of Greenpoint, Brooklyn, observers got their answers. The first-ever BlazerCon proved a friendly gathering of a few thousand, somewhere between industry mixer, fan mixer, and quasi-educational seminar.
What, exactly, was there to do? Most of the programming centered around onstage panels and speeches, featuring mostly league and team officials and commentators rather than, with a few exceptions, athletes themselves. This wasn’t really the type of convention where you’d line up for autographs and merch; if you wanted to, for instance, say hi to commentating legend Ray Hudson, you could pretty much just tap him on the shoulder.
The rest of the time, fans could grab a pint with each other in the convention’s beer hall and food court, check out a few sponsor booths (haircuts! dress shirts!), and, yes, play EA SPORTS FIFA 16.
After some welcoming events on Friday evening, the convention really began to unfurl Saturday morning. That’s when a full day and night’s programming kicked off examining the game, largely, through a business and fandom lens—soccer as it exists among the big leagues, and how it’s growing on North American shores.
There was, indeed, opportunity for self-reflection on the State of Soccer in North America. Most of the day’s events celebrated a pretty rosy picture, both for foreign teams and leagues making inroads on this continent, and for North American soccer itself. (Well, make that more like U.S. soccer, for the most part. Discussion of Canadian soccer, unfortunately for any of its fans present, largely came by way of praise for Toronto FC’s Sebastian Giovinco.)
And yes, despite early social media predictions, BlazerCon offered a lot more than all Barclays Premier League, all the time. Yes, that’s the main concern of both the “Men In Blazers” television show and podcast. But on Saturday—between presentations by, say, Everton FC manager Roberto Martinez or Bundesliga CEO Christian Seifert—five different events focused solely on soccer in the U.S.. That made for four hours and 20 minutes, or roughly 30 percent of the day’s on-stage programming.
Saturday started with a convention-opening Q&A with MLS Commissioner Don Garber—an “MLS State of the Union”—carrying on to the evening’s celebrity event, a panel featuring USWNT players Heather O’Reilly, Ali Krieger, and Becky Sauerbrunn.
Between those, three other panels allowed fans, owners, and personalities to opine and discuss the development of MLS and US Soccer. One early afternoon session, “MLS at 40,” featured moderator Alexi Lalas inviting three MLS owners—the Revs’ Jonathan Kraft, the Sounders’ Joe Roth, and Orlando City’s Phil Rawlins—to imagine the state of the league 20 years from now.
Later that afternoon, on the larger of two convention stages, Ferran Soriano, CEO of Manchester City and managing director of NYCFC, reviewed the New York club’s inaugural season. That spanned aspects from the not so great (the team’s record) to the more positive (the growth of the club's supporter community, and the size of its opportunity).
Another late-afternoon panel, “State of U.S. Soccer: National Teams, MLS, and the Growth of U.S. Soccer Interest” examined both MLS and the U.S. national team. Proof that this was a hot topic for the crowd? The panel—John Strong, Brad Friedel, and, again, Lalas—spoke to a standing-room only crowd, packed so closely in the convention’s “away stage” tent that latecomers couldn’t even squeeze in the doors.
But what about the crowd? Were they all just “Eurosnobs?” Not by a long shot. Sure, BPL scarves and jerseys figured heavily; the only individual team organization to set up its own booth was Everton. But no actual snobbery figured here—the mood was casual and convivial. And many fans—even besides the group of Third Rail supporters gathered particularly for Soriano’s address—sported MLS wear with pride.
Here are a few folks we ran into:
Douglas and Andrea White are Red Bulls fans who came from nearby New Jersey because they “watch the show religiously,” Douglas said.
“They’re hilarious,” added Andrea. “When we saw the MLS panels, it was extra incentive to come and hear about the state of our league.”
Leon Cruz came from Arlington, Virginia, and said his interest in MLS and his team of choice, NYCFC, grew out of following Men in Blazers, which ignited his previously more casual interest in soccer.
“It made me want to follow something domestically,” said Cruz, a former New Yorker. “[Choosing to follow NYCFC provided] the allure of being part of something just starting—before the signing of Villa and Lampard and stuff. I picked them from the start, and I’ll own the ups and downs of it.”
Brooklynite Ben Clark said he nursed a Portland Timbers fandom from early youth. “My best friend since I was five years old lives out there,” he explained, “so it’s our thing.”
Clark had actually won a free ticket to the convention, but not for a lack of avid fandom or pure luck. In fact, he said, he had won a contest to write an original song, and would perform it later that evening during a live Men in Blazers taping.
“It’s called ‘Yesterday’s Game,’ and I wrote it after Mexico beat the U.S. 3-2 [at the recent CONCACAF Cup],” he said. “The idea was, if Springsteen wrote a song about American soccer, what would it sound like?”
Later in the afternoon, a crowd gathered tightly around Red Bulls captain Dax McCarty to watch him win another game—yep, EA SPORTS FIFA 16.
If anything, BlazerCon’s Saturday events proved a real hunger exists among mainstream soccer fans for U.S. soccer-centered content, both men’s and women’s teams. And while longtime North American soccer fans already have many places to connect online and in real life (like, say, actual games), BlazerCon just added another to the roster.
