What Seattle Sounders Owner Thinks A Strike Would Mean

When we last visited the state of labor talks last month in Major League Soccer, both sides had extended the deadline yet again.

Now with little more than a week until the new strike deadline of March 25 (the scheduled opening date for the MLS season), the verbal volleys are escalating.

Yes, factor in that both sides in a labor negotiation often say some incendiary things in the final days before their kumbaya moment of agreement. But these remarks by Seattle majority owner Joe Roth to the Seattle Times that a strike could "kill the league" are eye-catching coming from the owner of a franchise Portland hopes to emulate when it begins MLS play next year in a PGE Park revamped for soccer.

Roth told the paper

"From an entertainment standpoint, we haven't made enough of an imprint in the national psyche," Roth said. "We're all jaundiced because we're in Seattle, where it's a big deal. But I don't think there will be a national outcry, like with the NFL, if somehow we weren't out there for a year ... I just don't think that we can afford, in terms of the public eye, to take a year off."