Who's next in the NASL?

on an unrelated note, your avatar is amazing.

 

I think this may happen soon. Him and the Deacon where talking about the "soccer war" starting soon earlier.

 

Dang it. He said "war" not "revolution". Hate when I get it wrong making fun of somebody. I blame Ted. I get dumber every time I come across one of his rants. I know I shouldn't read it, but its like passing a knarly accident scene and not checking it out.

 

Canada may offer solutions. Hamilton already is set for a synergy model with the TiCAts and THF.
In Calgary there has been nothing officially announced but the Flames LLP now own the CFL Stamps, as well as WHL, and NLL franchises and looking for a new stadium and arena complex for the future having a CFL and NASL tenant in place for the stadium and NHL, WHL, and NLL for the arena would make sense

JMO of course

 

Besides Philadelphia - which, I would add parenthetically, is kind of a desirable market - how many times has an owner actually come out of the woodwork to start a team because of a Twitter campaign?

The guys who saved the Wizards worked to find an owner for an existing team. The people who give themselves military-themed names and think they are the ones responsible for some of the teams that currently exist overstate their own importance.

As it pertains specifically to San Francisco, outside of Peterson mentioning their market (as he does to a lot of people, apparently) and tweeting skyline photos, there doesn't really seem to be this groundswell - just like the whole pro/rel thing, where the proles overstate the true depth of their "following."

The other point would be this: tweeting doesn't do it. If you're going to go do it, do it. What passes for effort these days is tweeting and throwing up a blogspot site.

 

In both those cases, I think the existence of motivated/organized fans helped to solidify the interest of parties who were already interested in investing in the league more than identifying and bringing in new names to the conversation.

The backbone of OnGoal is some venture capitalists who had worked on a stadium plan with commercial development with the NSCAA and Lamar Hunt prior to Hunt putting the team up for sale. Their initial interest in buying the team came because they were already sold on the larger development. Having to pick up the cost of the team and stadium was just part of doing business to get the larger project done. Then they had to go and get hooked on soccer. But they were already interested. That said, I'm not entirely sure where the big money (the two Cerner guys) came in. It's possible that HASF had something to do with that, I'm not sure, and I don't feel like asking some friends who could answer that for me.

 

Indy did it. But that wasn't limited to facebook posting and twitter. We went out to bars and had events and created an actual community that was able to be measured in numbers etc. I remember we searched for owners as well but that didn't do much. Honestly it takes actually getting into a community and the luck of having an owner interested in the endeavor.

 

And please let us not discount that.

Because all the other shit doesn't matter without that.

 

A solid grassroots effort may help a prospective owner make the decision to invest in the smaller markets, but as said above, those prospective owners aren't in the investment decision making process "because" of the grassroots effort.

In a market such as SF, the presence or absence of a supporter group or twitter/facebook/blog following is going to make a "zilch" impact on the decision to enter that market.

 

but I don't want our work discounted either. The team gives us credit. But we are realistic and don't say it was 100% us. we sure did help convince though

 

No only once for two years, strangely enough the last time someone in SF tried their luck with a D2 soccer team at the same stadium NASL is looking at now, which then promptly failed. But what does that have to do with anything?

 

I don't know if that counts because the league they were in folded and then the club had to try its luck as a smaller-profile semipro team.

 

Different franchise, same name. But if you want to count the legacy Quakes then sure, there were two gaps. But as Genius pointed out the legacy Quakes ended with the demise of their league along with every other team in said league.

 

True words from both guys. Here in OKC, I've been following efforts to place a D2/D3 team for about the last seven years. No serious local owner emerged until last summer. That's why nothing took root until then. Unfortunately, money makes the world go round.

 

Detroit City FC would be a good option. I know everybody will say bad things about Detroit but the city loves sports and people from cities around Detroit and Windsor (Canada). The team has a strong fan base, sells out every game but needs a owner that will provide the money to try and find a location in Downtown Detroit for a stadium. Overall Detroit is a good market for the NASL to expand to

 

Eh I've thought about Detroit but with a fan base that already has four major professional teams to root for its hard for a minor league team to make a dent. Detroit City FC pulls in great support for the league they're in, not sure if it'd translate to a bigger league however. I feel the spot in Michigan that an NASL team would thrive would be Grand Rapids. They have a fairly big metropolitan area and the minor league baseball team is supported fairly well so the "major" league stigma doesn't seem to stick there. Just my two cents

 

I never thought about Grand Rapids that would be a good place. How about Ann Arbor? that a good place to have a team.

 

Ann Arbor is a tough one to decipher. Population is close to 350.000 (that includes the whole county) and its close to Detroit and the Flint/Saginaw area. But you have to think GR is over a million people in the metropolitan area. So theoretically it could support a team I suppose but in Michigan I'd have to think the only two viable cities would be GR and Detroit

 

yeah i cant think of any more cities in Michigan that could support a team. So yeah GR and Detroit are the only two options.

 

Speak for yourself.

And I'll point out - again - that without a semi-desirable big market and an investor, they'd still be rattling on, like the people trying to rally support for all the other cities still on the outside.

I just think some folks tend to overestimate their weight in the equation. I know it makes for a nice story and all, but come on.

 

As do many others, which is why their attendance and revenues are so much better than MLS' and they have no trouble getting mini-fridges.

Oh, wait....