The interest level in the sport is there, but only some of the interest in the big Euro teams and USMNT transfers to MLS.

MLS already has better average attendance than the NHL. That's pretty good for a league that isn't close to being one of the five best in the world, and for that matter is only second-best in North America. The baseball analogy would be, what if MLB was AA level and U.S. baseball fans could watch the real top leagues on TV every week. How many people would buy tickets to MLB in that scenario? Not nearly as many as are going to MLS games. MLS has done extremely well marketing the product they have; now they need to upgrade the product.

To do that, the owners have to increase spending enough to acquire a higher talent level leaguewide than Mexico's Liga MX. That's the next step up -- the level of play in Liga MX and similar leagues like the top leagues in Portugal and the Netherlands. That's the current "aspirational level" for MLS, the third tier among top national leagues. (Top tier is Spain, England, Germany, Italy; second tier is France, Russia, Turkey. Second tier is many years and many billions of dollars away for MLS, IMO.)