Even owners who prefer NASL to USL have a personal breaking point. A number of solid teams, or a financial burden to support the struggling teams. Nobody will be unconditionally posting their bond next year before the deadline, meaning the chances of someone else bolting get pushed up. When the day of reckoning comes, there could be a set of dominoes coming down. Nobody wants to be caught unprepared, so every competent organization will have a back-up plan in place. The USL will be happy to quietly lay groundwork with anyone who calls.
Those are the two that really stand out to me. The "can they be saved?" and "maybe it won't happen" posts didn't even seem to stop after the formal announcements. But I don't even really care about rumours. You don't need rumours to figure out the obvious. You just need a brain and a lack of wishful thinking.
The frustrating and important thing - minor league soccer may be as strong as it's ever been in this country, and there's still the same uncertainty that's been there for decades now.
Yes, we no longer have to worry if professional soccer itself is going to go away anymore like in the old Nasl, APSL, or early MLS eras. Minor league soccer clubs are more plentiful and the most secure in history. We are living in the golden age. The nasl itself still has some strong parts and I would give them a fifty-fifty chane of survival. What you are seeing play out is the free market. The nasl finds itself being second choice for most soccer owners new and existing. It shows in the defections and lack of expansion teams. All isn't lost yet, but the next twelve months is crucial.
The problem began when the NASL decided that being a sanctioned (although through waivers) D2 wasn't enough for them, they started to make noise about wanting to be D1 and getting it NOW even though they didn't fully meet D2 requirements! I wouldn't have had a problem with the NASL's drive to D1 except it seemed they wanted to do it by somehow forceing the USSF's hand and NOT putting in the time and money into the league and its teams to actually create an MLS competitor.
For me, those first three are markedly different then the latter two. The Rowdies rumour really caught everyone by surprise and doesn't seem to -until you understand Edwards- make a lot of sense, so scoffing at it was probably a natural reaction. Ottawa in my min was already set to leave the NASL to the CPL when that was ready to launch. My biggest issue with Ottawa leaving is it raises more questions about the CPL and what's happening there behind the scenes. Ottawa's move to the USL does not yet add up to me, but it's not fan boy denial, like I said I had already assumed they were leaving in 2018. What I see from this move now is, that either the CPL investors are not all on board with the plan, or Eugene Melnyk (NHL owner in the city who tried to get MLS to Ottawa years back) is the Ottawa CPL group of choice and OFFC is being forced out/not invited to the table. This is merely speculation of course, but I really do think there is something more to the Ottawa story here.
To be fair, I do not think MLS fully met D2 requirements*, at least they did not at the time they came out, They did not have to meet them since they were D1 and the only issue they really had was 1 ownership group with 2 teams and I believe that is over by now. * Actually USSF did say that it had to be single ownership per team or single owner/entity for all teams, that was the rule for D1, perhaps it did also apply to D2, so MLS did meet the requirements.
The standards aren't super strict on this, and it is more about management than ownership. Two teams can be owned by the same person, but they have to be managed independently from each other.
They didn't need waivers this year but have in the past, but yeah, the D1 now noise as you say was a mistake.
“This is, I think, the beginning of a turning point” – Brian Andrés Helmick of San Francisco Deltas shares thoughts on the NASL http://www.thisiscosmoscountry.com/...francisco-deltas-shares-thoughts-on-the-nasl/ “And I’m excited to work through this period of change. Excited for our league to work collaboratively with the USSF, with the MLS, with the USL and I hope that somebody, many years from now, studying the NASL and the history and how it went through certain ups and downs as it was kind of reaching stability and its potential will hopefully look back at this time period and say, ‘Wow, this was a real turning point for the league.’” “This is I think the beginning of a turning point.” Internally, it appears operational changes have begun within the league since their recent Summit, something that the CEO says is pointing to tangible results.
This thread should have been merged into the news thread long ago, now we have two threads discussing the same topic.
If this is true then I have a little more hope for the league but I'll have to see before I believe it.
Not that I am comparing NASL with Nazis, they are more like Mussolinis Italy, grand plans but totally inept about how implement them.
The problem is they had a good commissioner, plus the potential to work with MLS, but instead drank the NeoCosmos kool-aid which led to the commissioner stepping down and being replaced with a guy whose career reads like a who's who of failed sports leagues. If David Downs wins out over the delusional idiots on Long Island, NASL is probably in a much better place right now.
I'm sure we shouldn't read much into this, but the NASL website has removed the MNU logo from it's banner at NASL.com, added the Deltas, but has not removed the Rowdies or the Fury.
Yeah, if it was just the Fury there might be something to read into, but keeping both I am guessing is more of an administrative thing than anything.
It has now removed the Rowdies and kept OFFC. Although, I still think its just an administrative thing.
With the Jacksonville and Edmonton rumors previously proven false Carolina's Curt Johnson stated their commitment to NASL on last weeks Inverted Triangle podcast so that puts to rest the Carolina rumor as well it seems.
Any word on the Cosmos location for next year? That and RayOKC seem to be the remaining issues of uncertainty for the 2017 season.
No word on Cosmos stadium for 2017, hearing the deal is done and will be announced in the next few days possibly.
Basically every year. It is the lower Divisions after all, franchises folding, switching leagues is a yearly ritual, things are getting better for sure.