The league spends a lot of time promoting itself and having the teams promote the league. I think their teams would be far healthier if the league focused on assisting raising the teams' image in their respective communities rather than the league.
Basically, if the Kickers aren't really connecting much with the public conciousness in Richmond, why wouldn't USL invest in figuring out how to improve that before worrying if the handful of people who are into the Kickers are aware of how important the Las Vegas/Phoenix game is or how many fire emojis this Tampa Bay goal is or whatever.
Forest Green Rovers have done it all the way to the Football League. They play in Nailsworth (population, 5k). AFC Fylde (amalgamation of two small teams) might be the next.
a. How do you know that's not happening? b. Where else in the world does that happen? If a team struggles financially in England or Germany they earn a points deduction. c. it's not a fairy tale of if nobody cares. Surely a healthy Wrexham would be more of an asset to the league than Dale Vince's vanity project.
Makes no difference what they 'claim', they were formed as Maidstone Invicta and were playing Kent village football, I saw them play village team Westerham Reds in a park in front of a handful of spectators, they didn't even have a 'home' park pitch to play on, they are now in the conference with a brand new stadium (still being developed) - it is a meteoric rise and like nearly every club in England the plan is to keep on rising - of course if it was easy they would all do a 'Bournemouth' but it is bloody competitive so it aint 'easy' - exciting though innit.
Just as an aside--I think at least some MLS teams are definitely seeking to explicitly forge an identity. The current DC United ownership has done some good things--they finally got a stadium built, and the Rooney signing worked out WAY better than almost any of us expected. But they've also made it pretty clear that they'd prefer to be rid of the traditional supporters groups and be allowed to market the team as they see fit. There's been a bit of a detente, but nobody in the established supporter's groups is under any illusion that we're wanted at Audi Field.
This does assume we snap our fingers and have pro/rel tomorrow which is not what most of us are saying. Any move to pro/rel would of course require a transition period where clubs giving clubs in the lower division a chance to develop a plan. Also You would need to allow clubs to refuse the promotion at least at the start. The embarrassment of having a team refuse promotion is still better then a team imploding because they can't make it financially. It would would also act as a safety valve, if more teams are declining promotion than accepting it then well it's obviously not working. Now even with time to plan it's unlikely that OCSC is going to build a D1 level stadium in Orange County, the land is pretty expensive, so the answer is they play in Carson. New York Red Bulls play in New Jersey, Philly Union play in Chester, Chicago Fire play in Bridgeview and so on. Is it ideal? no it's not, but it's workable.
If they go into Administration. I care. Surely a club that performs on the field of play is more of an asset to the league than a craply run club that doesn't?
I don't know the specifics of the DC situation but in general I'd say wanting to transition away from supporters groups is still an identity. Although admittedly that side of soccer culture has never really appealed to me, and looking at the Twitter for my local USL club's biggest group actually discourages me from wanting to give it a chance.
That was my point, though--the team is VERY MUCH trying to control their identity and wrest it away from the established supporters groups. Supporter/ultra culture doesn't mean much to me, either. I'm still technically a member of Barra Brava (although I haven't paid my dues yet this year) but at this point that's pretty much about loyalty and a handful of personal ties. I'm very much a middle aged man who wants to sit on the quiet side and watch the players do their thing.
No-one in League Two then. There's as much resentment among lower division fans of teams buying their way into the league as there is among armchair warriors of the Man Citehs and Chelseas buying their titles. In saying that of course, MLS and USL teams have quite literally bought their way into their leagues. I sense some role reversal.
The difference being that in a pro/rel pyramid you actually have to perform on the field of play, whereas that's not the case for getting your cartel membership fee accepted.
I should not have assumed the rest of you knew the situation--long story short, last season, after pushing VERY hard to make the Screaming Eagles the sole team-approved SG and shoulder the Barra Brava and District Ultras out of the picture, the team ownership gave in to some backlash and bad publicity and gave in to some demands, allowing BB and DU to continue to function as entities. But all the SGs know that this was a grudging concession and there aren't a lot of warm feelings for the old SGs among the ownership group.
I'm sure one day you'll learn some more relevant term to MLS than "cartel". Still it's better than "ponzi" I guess.
United were 'buying' titles for years, its simply a case of 'old money' not liking 'new money', why shouldn't Man City play United at their own game and come out on top? The same 20 teams in the Premier League every year? Yawn! The same 'rich' clubs winning the league year after year? Yawn. The 80's when Liverpool completely dominated the 'average' top flight attendance was around TWENTY THOUSAND but look whats happened since Chelsea got back to where they belong! And now it seems to me Man City have really put the 'cat amongst the pigeons' (exciting innit). I think you will find its only the so called fans of the traditional 'big spenders' that harp on about a 'non existant' past golden age hmmmm I wonder why?
The Galaxy has been trying to merge the SGs for years. Even got Zlatan to request it of them in person a few weeks ago. He was apparently quite taken aback when they told him "Sorry, no".