I’m sure if NASL is asking for no more poaching from MLS/USL that USSF is going to turn around and tell them no NPSL teams.
Again, this comes back to the major miscalculation on Peterson's part that MLS would stop expanding at 20 teams, leaving enough viable cities left to make a decent Div2 league. At 28 or 32 teams, there simply aren't enough cities left for NASL to make a viable league with which to challenge MLS.
But I am told there could be (and are) HUNDREDS OF CLUBS in this country and they ALL deserve the same opportunities as those in (insert very small nation here). And I was actually told by a knowledgeable soccer executive that whoever does get left out of the MLS expansion derby can start their own D1 league. It was crazy when this person said it; it’s crazier now. It will be crazier still when MLS’ head start is 25 or 30 years.
Well there are hundreds of clubs, all 3 pro league + the 3 biggest amateur leagues total 329, so hundreds. However they don't all deserve the same opportunities because the bulk are amateur.
....so Peterson was as bright as your average teenage BS poster? ....and he was making 500K a year I believe. ....and some wonder why NASL has been a joke since day one.
One.....how recent was this statement. Two....please introduce me as I have many opportunities this individual would be very interested in. Bridges in Brooklyn, waterfront property on Three Mile Island, osterich farms in the desert.....of course you would recieve a finders fee.
Who is "poaching" teams? Teams that have left NASL to join USL have done so on their own. USL offering a better league at present is not "poaching", if anything it's NASL's failure laid bare.
Hey, it worked out well for the World Hockey Association and the American Basketball League in similar situations...
The bulk are also bullshit because you are apparently counting the UPSL. There are (or were, we have lost a couple here and there) 228. 22 Division I, 38 Division II, 0 Division III, and 168 between the PDL and NPSL. The UPSL is....well, just f*** them, they’re a joke. The actual talking point is that we could support hundreds of professional clubs, which is, of course, nonsense. At least one bright boy claims that because the NCAA has hundreds of schools, it’s totally proof that you can make such a setup work. (Ignoring completely the business models and emotional attachments of college sports.)
The NPSL has claimed USL has approached some of their teams with enticements to switch to the PDL. As far as lower-level teams moving up to MLS, yeah, that’s not really “poaching.” What went on in the discussions between USL and Tampa Bay, Ottawa and NCFC, we don’t know.
ABA, not ABL, and, no, they weren’t similar situations, as we have gone over many times. The NHL and NBA were seriously underserving the marketplace and had not come close to tapping the true domestic market for players. Those situations were ripe for a competitor, especially as the going rate for players (Derek Sanderson notwithstanding) was far more reasonable and there was no free agency in those sports. MLS is not doing that. There are not 12 markets that would be viable D1 markets after MLS is “done” expanding. MLS is not seriously underserving the marketplace. And while the talent pool is a global one, honestly, practically and logistically it is not reasonable to assume a quasi-competitor would be able to go get players people would be interested in seeing.
Sigh. I don'd need to know. I'll take yout word. As you might well surmise I have heard so much idiocy, from bright people, with regards to the game here over the decades. It's still frustrates now, and I am sure folks can see the exasperation in many of my posts. When I do on about general lack knowledge, the disconnect beyween young ones and the reality of the game here....this is the stuff I think about. So many, who should know better....who know so little. Sigh.
I just don’t think a competing D1 is realistic. (Never mind the folks who want us to do absolutely everything “like the rest of the world,” but then demand a setup that is different from anywhere else.) I do not expect the “alternative pyramid” will come about. I do not believe the clubs and investors spurned by MLS in this and future expansion rounds will pull a Lamar Hunt and start their own league to compete. I just don’t think it’s viable.
This is largely what I'm alluding to whenever I crash a pro/rel circle-jerk with the question "If the pro/rel system is so superior, there are $billions in investment lying dormant and there are millions of neglected fans clamoring for a team, why don't these people just do it in competition with MLS?". The answer is simple: they'd absolutely be doing it, if it was this colossal no-brainer, but it isn't. Instead, we've got an obnoxiously vocal bunch of grandstanders among NASL's ownership, desperately trying to resuscitate the part of the horse from "The Godfather" that didn't make it into the bed.