From Jonathan Tannenwald at the Inquirer:

Two-and-a-half years after NBC originally planned to bring its English Premier League Fan Fest to Philadelphia, it’s finally happening this fall.

The event will take place on Saturday, Oct. 15, and Sunday, Oct. 16, at Dilworth Park outside City Hall, the same place where the event was to be held in April 2020 — until the coronavirus pandemic struck.

…

Admission to the festival will be free, but tickets will be required because alcohol will be served within the perimeter. Tickets will become available via NBC Sports’ website after an announcement during Saturday’s Arsenal-Fulham game (12:30 p.m., NBC10, Universo, Peacock).

This is kind of like College Gameday for the Premier League on a smaller scale. It’s a big, celebratory environment where soccer fans can come down and hang out, shoot the shit, watch the game, blah blah. On the surface it’s pretty cool, just a nice event for people to gather and share their enjoyment for the sport, but I’m gonna be a douchebag and do some gatekeeping here.

The main issue with Premier League Fan Fest, and the Premier League in general, is that it attracts Euro Snobs who love the foreign game but actively shit all over Major League Soccer because it’s “not as good as the Premier League.” No shit, Sherlock. MLS is less than 30 years old. Manchester United and Liverpool are global brands and have been in existence since the late 1800s. This would be like starting a basketball league in England in 1996 and saying “well it’s not as good as the NBA.” Of course it’s not, but you hope it keeps improving.

At the risk of this sounding like a strawman argument, I’ll note that the majority of soccer fans in this region support the Union, the United States men and women, and perhaps another small domestic club, then they might also adopt a foreign club, like a Chelsea or a Manchester City, and watch Premier League on the weekends. That’s perfect. Those are people who love the game and want to consume as much as possible, so they do it across a variety of leagues and platforms. They support foreign and local at the same time.

Where it goes sideways is when you get these so called “fans” who will wear their fancy new Arsenal jersey to Misconduct Tavern at 7 a.m. but can’t be bothered to give half a fuck about the Union, which doesn’t help us grow anything. They’re growing the Arsenal fan base, not American soccer. Plus, most of these people have never even been to London and probably couldn’t point to London on a map. If you wanna jump on the Gunners bandwagon, knock yourself out, but we don’t grow the game domestically if we don’t also support the Union, Major League Soccer, Christian Pulisic, Brenden Aaronson, and other individual exports.

Honest to God, I want you to go down to Premier League Fan Fest and have a great time. Wear your Manchester City kit and get a picture with Robbie Mustoe. Say hi to Rebecca Lowe. Maybe they can get Joel Embiid to show up, which would be rad. Just please add the Union and MLS and NWSL to the support list because we’re never gonna grow this thing if we have so called “fans” shitting all over the local team and the domestic game. There are enough “four for four” fans here who don’t like the sport, and that’s perfectly fine, but soccer fans who hate MLS are held to different standards. We need you to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

Thanks, and have a great weekend.