The picture is of Churchhill Downs in Louisville, not Lexington...so that is a bit confusing. That said, there is room to expand the stadium at UK Lexington, particularly around the goal sides.
That's what I was thinking too...but I'm sure that Lexington was the target city. It's the only other city in the state that could conceivably host even D 3 footy. I doubt there will be an "Paducah FC" in the USL version of Division 3 anytime soon!
The first post was just a teaser about being in Kentucky, the second post features Lexington locations and there was a follow up retweet thanking the Legends and other Lexington institutions. Today they did indeed post from Knoxville, so add that to the watch list.
Roadtrip! Seriously, though, what is the soccer culture like in these cities? Is this an Oprah thing ("you get a team! you get a team!)? Digging a little deeper...I see that there are NPSL teams in Knoxville and Asheville, I wonder if those are the groups involved?
Doubtful any NPSL teams are involved... it only costs around 12k to get in NPSL... this cost of entry Into this new league will price out most of those teams...It's been mentioned multiple times that most of the potential owners have ties to MiLB, and every city visited so far has MiLB in some capacity so look at those teams for potential ownership groups. Lexington - Legends - A - William Shea Knoxville - Smokies - AA - Randy Boyd Asheville - Tourists - A - Mike Dewine Greenville - Drive - A - Craig Brown Columbia - Fireflies - A - Hardball Capital LLC (Jason Freier chairman/CEO) The Head of D3 on twitter also taggeded Greenville's ECHL team after that visit, they are owned by Fred Festa.
Certainly nearly all NPSL teams would be priced out without outside investment just because going pro is expensive with or without an expansion fee but it was rumored last year that the USL was waiving expansion fees for certain NPSL clubs if they joined the PDL or USL. It wouldn't surprise me if the USL would incentive the more successful NPSL teams (and PDL teams) in a similar way to make the switch to this new D3. There is definite value in some of the existing brands that have relevancy in their markets and existing fan bases so it behooves you to see if you can bring those teams up to a pro level either on their own or by matching them with prospective ownership groups interested in operating a pro team.
Columbia has a lot of EPL followers, club and high school soccer is popular. Gamecock city. Greenville has a small Latino community, mostly Colombians, they are next to Spartanburg which is fast growing city. Asheville is a fun place.
Asheville is a fun place, and a "hipster" hot spot right now. I read that the opening game was a sell out, which memorial stadium seats 5K, but I also read that they had "over 2K people" so I am not sure which is right. Regardless, 2K for an NPSL game is really not bad. But it was the opening game for a new team, so there is not a whole lot to go on right now.
“That’s where we’d like to be."@Tormenta_FC President @dvantass talks #USLD3.Read: https://t.co/c31A0UpVfx #ProSocc3r pic.twitter.com/Y7HIcjqc1T— USL League One (@USLLeagueOne) May 8, 2017 first PDL team openly expressing interest in this league specifically.
Yeah - I was wondering about that.... I suppose they could argue it's the same metro area as Savannah, but that seems like a stretch.
A team in hood river Oregon joined the NPSL in a town of 8k, technically 50k in a 30min drive but they failed. Bad organisation didn't help. I hope they got some wealthy backers and a passionate support.
Not officially. USSF's sanctioning stops at the 3rd division. As a result, NPSL and PDL are sanctioned via USASA. Since they are the "top" leagues in USASA, there is a tendency to apply the 4th division label to them, but they definitely aren't officially that.
PDL is generally considered a higher standard than NPSL also so I would nearly consider 5th div but again there is no sanctioning so its up to interpretation.
From interviews I've heard with the NPSL chairman it sounds like there is interest/exploration of creating a legitimate pro-D4, and I think that may happen eventually, but it's probably a ways off.
There are no USSF criteria for D4 so that seems tricky. There are criteria for all professional teams so I guess they could follow that but they would still have to apply for USSF sanctioning.
yeah, that's what it sounded like... NPSL would need to meet with USSF to determine D4 criteria and what-not.
The D3 rules are pretty minimal. It is hard to imagine a league would be professional and not meet them. 8 teams to start, play in the Open Cup, and 1,000 seat stadiums? Why not just go for D3? I guess the Financial Viability part of having an owner worth $10 million could be reduced but that opens the door for the kind of shady operators that used to be pretty common in lower level pro soccer. I'm not sure the USSF would want to go back to those days.
Because, for the most part, NPSL clubs don't even meet that standard. Most play on rec fields that might have a very small set of metal bleachers at midfield. Their owners generally don't come close to the $10 million requirement, etc, etc.
Right. But they say they want to be some new D4. That means professional. If you are moving up to professional status that has be higher than what they are now. D3 doesn't look like an insurmountable obstacle if you really want to be a pro league. If you want to stay the same but call yourself D4 then I don't think the USSF is going to go along.
I'm here at the Stadium watching the Miami United vs Boca Ratón game, these teams are packed with South Americans, the game is intense right now.
For those interested, a new thread has been created in the NASL subforum to discuss the rival D3 League Peter Wilt is creating: https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/nisa-new-nasl-allied-d3-league-mega-thread.2057673/ (PS this will be in the NASL forum because NISA appears to be allied with the NASL, trolling is not encouraged).