It looks like it's a weird situation in Fresno, since it doesn't look like the Grizzlies own the ballfield, either (the city does), but they do manage it, so they're able to screw over another company trying to use a facility they got the taxpayers to build. What screwed up situations we get ourselves into in this country.
I mean it’s not that screwed up. The Grizzlies are the reason the park was built and the primary tenant. It stands to reason they’d be the ones managing it to maximize their customers game day experience. What’s more amazing is that a soccer team thought shoehorning themselves into a baseball stadium they had no control over was a good idea in the first place. And with no backup plan too. Even Reno and NYCFC with the lack of financial issue seems a bad long term solution. Soccer and baseball are just too different to be sharing a venue.
DC United and the Nats demonstrated this really well for a long period of time. Kansas City (Wizards) did too. The same can be said for NFL/MLB shared venues back in the day. That's why the Raiders and A's have both attempted to leave so many times.
That headline is more alarmist than the article makes it out to be. They don't seem to be in danger of folding (at least those facts are not in evidence), and the story seems to hinge on the supposed "by the third year" USL rule. (And if you know USL, you know about rules enforcement.) Yeah, they need a stadium solution. The economics are a challenge. The same is true for lots of folks. Necessity is the mother of invention. (Remember when the Fuego played for years in that same park? Good times.)
SPR, RIP. Did you see the news that Swope Park Rangers will be rebranded "Sporting KC II" next season? I guess the dream of heading back to (right sized) Swope Park is officially buried. If they stay in the "Cavernous Confines" of CMP next season for the entertainment of the average 443 patrons who take in a match, I say let the public in for free and make money on pepsi, popcorn, and beer! (I understand that many of the 443 in the stands are season ticket holders of SKC who get in for free anyway.) https://www.sportingkc.com/post/201...mpionship-team-become-sporting-kansas-city-ii And by the way, it takes SPR 6 months to win 3 matches, and after I officially give up caring, they go and win 3 matches in little more than 2 weeks.
The problem may be more that the current owner no longer views operating a D2 soccer team as a "necessity".
Again, facts not in evidence. They need a stadium solution. That has been the case from the jump, and is the same for all of these tenants-in-non-optimal-stadia. If they want to continue (which is implied and assumed, the initial investment makes these franchises slightly less disposable than in the 90s), the economic reality demands they make a move. That's all obvious. Couching it in allusions to the idea that their short-term existence is in question is simplistic, feeds the narrative of instability in the game and, again, is based on facts not (yet) in evidence.
It's too bad grassroots clubs like AFC Ann Arbor can't go from, say, the Great Lakes Premier League to the NPSL to a pro league as they grow and if their organization warrants it. The system just keeps ambitious clubs down, man.
Too bad they had to sell their soles to the MLS/USL Cartel to do it ... and pay the crazy expansion fees. Why would they be leaving the NPSL for USL L2 when NPSL is starting that year round league? .../s
Revs to launch Revolution II in USL League One in 2020. They are going to need seven more reserve teams, according to me.
Most of us around here are old for internet forum standards, but I'm not sure I'm old enough to have any actual memories of that band when it was still together. I do have a few memories from that time, but they were things like men landing on the moon, or a cross country trip my family took. That said, I got the joke.