Birth of the original ASL
Posted on January 7, 2013 12:26 am
The founding of the original American Soccer League more than 90 years ago is one of the landmark events in American soccer history, even though the league lasted only 10 years. It gave American soccer a new attitude about how it should be organized. Within its limited region, it helped to create a foundation of grassroots support for soccer. This attitude and this support remained low-profile for many decades after the league’s demise, but the original ASL was a significant precedent.
The formation of the league had been rumored for a while before it was officially announced on May 7, 1921. The first inklings came in late November 1920, when it was reported that Thomas W. Cahill (above), the only secretary the U.S. Football Association had ever had, was planning to resign from that position. When Cahill confirmed this a week later, the Bethlehem Globe said Cahill “intended to devote his time to organizing a national league of professional soccer teams.” This would not be the first time that such an attempt had been made. Attempts in 1894 and 1909 had fallen flat.
The 1921 Spalding Guide (published in the summer of 1921 and edited by Cahill, of course), made it clear that the new league was Cahill’s baby, saying: “The American Soccer League was conceived and organized by Thomas W. Cahill….It has been Cahill’s dream to place soccer on a plane in this country comparable to its place in Scandinavian sporting life and eventually bring the sport to be recognized as the national game of the fall-to-spring months. After many years of direction of the National Challenge Cup competition, or national championships, he concluded that the only means of winning general public interest was through the medium of professional leagues playing regular schedules much as the major leagues of baseball operate.”
Both the 1894 and 1909 attempts, organized by baseball people, had been efforts to put major-league ballparks to use as soccer stadiums in the baseball off-season. They failed, but more modest leagues didn’t, and as the plans for the new pro league took shape in the spring of 1921, it became apparent that the league would be a combination of two of those more modest leagues, the National Association Foot Ball League of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and the Southern New England Soccer League of Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
When the lineup of teams was announced in May 1921, Bethlehem Steel, the most prominent team in American soccer at that time, was there, but by the time the league began play four months later, it was gone. Poor attendance over the years in Bethlehem had prompted the league to move most of the Bethlehem players to the Philadelphia team (after one season of similarly poor attendance in Philadelphia, the league abandoned the ruse and moved the players back to Bethlehem).
In that first season, the ASL included eight teams: J&P Coats from Rhode Island; Fall River United and Holyoke Falcos from Massachusetts; New York FC and Todd Shipyards from New York; Harrison FC and Jersey City Celtics from New Jersey, and Philadelphia FC from Pennsylvania. Jersey City dropped out after only a few games. Philadelphia, the transparently disguised Bethlehem Steel, easily won the first season’s title.
The Spalding Guide, in its preview of that first season, hoped that it would be only the start: “Unquestionably, if the American League venture meets with marked success, similar leagues would be operated within a year or two in the Middle West, where the sport already has a strong grip, and possibly also on the West Coast, where a high grade of soccer has been played for years under USFA supervision. Eventually, then, would come an annual national title series in which would clash the winners of several sectional big leagues, a series which, it is anticipated, will come in time to be as popular, or nearly so, as the world series of baseball.”
If there is one thing that has been a constant in American soccer for at least a century, it is unrestrained visions of how wonderful the future will be.
If soccer had caught on in that manner, it’s pretty clear those “similar [regional] leagues” would have eventually merged into one giant national league with playoffs. In other words, we’d have the NFL, only the “football” would mean something different.
The 1922 Spaulding Soccer Guide also includes a record of what occured at the National Commission meeting.
Thomas Cahill was asked to leave the room while a motion was carried and seconded to make Thomas Cahill a lifetime member of the USFA with full voting rights and to issue him with a check for $2,000.
Upon being advised of the Commissions action, Thomas Cahill thanked the Commission and stated the USFA had been the big thing of his life. He had organized it, guarded it in its infancy and had grown with it. It was indeed hard for him to relinquish the position of honorary secretary, harder
than could be imagined, but he felt the time had arrived when he must pay attention to his own personal and business affairs and the organization was now established,
and would carry on to greater success. He would always be at the call of the USFA. He intended to go out and open up new fields and make the National body bigger and more powerful than it was today. He looked back with pride on his service as Honorary Secretary.
Mr. Cahill was the recipient of long and enthusiastic applause at the conclusion of his address.
Terrific piece Roger.
“If there is one thing that has been a constant in American soccer for at least a century, it is unrestrained visions of how wonderful the future will be. ”
Remember when NASL was touting soccer as “The Sport of the ’80s”? Perhaps we have learned a bit of reserve.
90 years later his vision of a structure is still a good idea for this country–because of the immense geographic areas involved. Instead of promotion and relegation, have regional conferences whose champions would play each other.
MLS is moving that way. It also provides MLS a model for unlimited growth with reduced travel costs and reasonable schedules.
Similar to Europe, MLS could eventually be formed of 6-8 regional divisions playing normal league play for the division championship. In parallel, last year’s division champions would play each other in a super tournament for the MLS league cup.
Since MLS is one business organization they don’t have the problem professional football and baseball has with managing their schedules or divisions in light of the TV markets and inidividual ownership of the clubs.
If MLS has 500 matches a year or 5000 matches a year, it won’t matter much for TV rights as there will be only so much demand from the networks, but…league expansion allows the league to increase revenue by increasing the markets for ticket and shirt sales. There may also be a potential market for local cable TV rights. There are 275 cities in the US with populations over 100,000.
The question would be what to do about parity. I don’t see how you can keep parity over a larger league, i.e., 60+ teams. It tough enough with less than 20 teams. Market conditions and the available investors are going to probably create payroll gaps within divisions and across the leagues. But not necessarily if the community support is exceptionally strong. Consider the Green Bay Packers for instance.