Depends on the money. Ask Pudge Heffelfinger. (Now that I know who he is, he applies to this conversation, too.)
What the hell are they complaining about? Last I checked the NPSL had about 20 more teams and 1/5 of the franchise fee.
That's different. Because reasons. But seriously, if a team wants to go from amateur to pro, then it involves leaving NPSL. That will happen because successful organizations are likely to consider future growth. There are people who will attend pro matches that won't attend for amateurs, and others who are attending who would pay more. And USL is the path to do so.
Yeah, if there were a policy or agreement to not approach the other league's teams, wouldn't that be a form of collusion?
Limitations on this sort of thing are most easily kept legal if they come from agreements between team owners and the leagues they belong to.
Few. Very, very few. It will be easier with a real regionalized third division, but even then it's not going to be common.
Nine or 10 in the last 20 years, depending on how you count Ottawa. 1997 - Nashville moved from the Premier League to the A-League - Austin moved from the Premier League to the D3 Pro League - Florida moved from the Premier League to the D3 Pro League - Arizona moved from the Premier League to the D3 Pro League - San Francisco Bay moved from the Premier League to the D3 Pro League 1998 - Cincinnati moved from the PDL to the A-League 2002 - Calgary moved from the PDL to the A-League 2012 - Dayton moved from the PDL to USL Pro 2013 - Ottawa moved from the PDL to the NASL (kinda) 2015 - Austin moved from the PDL to the USL Nashville was able to stay a pro team for a bit before selling its A-League rights to Virginia Beach and dropping back to the PDL Austin went away Florida went away Arizona dropped to the NPSL San Francisco Bay went away, then came back briefly as an amateur club Cincinnati played in the A-League for a bit, but was a mess Calgary's owner bailed early in the second season Dayton dropped back down to the PDL Ottawa is doing well Austin had a specious "hiatus," but is coming back. It has not gone well. It is a big jump. Now, we're in a slightly different landscape in the last few years, where teams like Chattanooga and Detroit have proven they can build solid amateur teams that, with bolstered investment, could potentially be successful. That said, Detroit had a million dollar budget and only made a profit because of their (home) playoff run, which was fueled by players they did not have to pay. And they are seeking more investment to potentially make the jump. But can you substantially grow your revenue, enough to offset all the standards-mandated staffing, player wages + payroll taxes + workers comp + increased travel? That's the question. Some might be able to. But the bulk cannot even remotely say they have the infrastructure to do that. It does not just happen.
Honestly, that's more than I expected, but about the results I would've guessed. But trying to do so should be the choice of the local teams. And success at the professional level can be a potential selling point for an amateur league; that there is more than one successful future path for an amateur club: most should remain amateur, but the NPSL should be happy to take those with professional aspirations too, and help them see what is required to succeed as a business at either level. The NPSL should show its members the stories of teams that left and what led to their success, demise, or return to the amateur ranks.
Oh, I am not advocating anyone taking that option away from anyone. Just saying it's really hard. You want to try? Knock yourself out. But the woods are littered with the bones of owners who thought they could move up in class, whether from amateur to pro or one pro level to the next. (At least one of those people whose bones will be in the woods is an NISA applicant.) Yeah, but here's the thing: For the most part, the NPSL is for people with no other ambitions. Or, if they have ambitions, they're wildly incongruent with reality. And I do not believe anyone in the NPSL has any idea how to help anyone succeed as a professional club. Their failure rate makes it hard to believe they have much of an idea how to help anyone succeed as an amateur club. And the thing is...there are no stories for the NPSL to show anyone. (Not of moving up, anyway.) They have amateur success stories, but it's hard to tell how much credit for those stories belongs to the league and how much belongs to the individual operators. I suggest it's far more the latter than the former.
I'm going to have a hard time believing the league deserves much credit at all when it has a hard time with such basic things as publishing lineups and scorers on its website. Or, for that matter, keeping results and standings up to date. Is it too much to ask to post the result of a game within 24 hours afterward?
Me too. I love a good laugh. If it's now going to be actionable to try and entice a company or entity to leave their current business relationship and instead enter into one with you, then there are a couple million sales people who are going to be out of work. Unless you're offering some kind of illegal incentive or inducement - bribes, hookers, blow - poaching other people's customers is what business is all about: "My product is better, our service is better, our technology is better and you should quit doing business with those clowns and come with us." Yeah boy, conspiracy. What rubbish.
Sports in the US is so freaking odd. When you live abroad it becomes so much more apparent. It is much easier to accept when growing up in the environment, but my goodness. The college system? Insane to inane on so many levels. The "travel team" money making scams. Eek. To many others to list. It's the mentality here that is so weird/interesting. Sport has been treated as some type of pure/honest endeavor, and as kids we are taught to buy in (it was different way back in the day but now...c'mon), and the way politicians/media/parents/networks (you name it) just blindly follow along is almost stupifying. Institutionalized, manipulative business to it's not fair yammering. It's sports it shouldn't be like that! Wah! If you can remove yourself from just accepting it because "this is how I grew up" so this is what it is, to really looking at from a blank state it is as non sensical as it gets. Sport blinds, makes people accept, and makes them just not agive a s**t about so many things, even if they would up in arms about those practices anywhere else. Weird. Yes, many of these characrteristics can be found in all business, but the special blend we see in our sport scene stands on it's own.
Sports everywhere are weird. The European academy system, where you basically have kids focus full-time on football at the expense of their education, leaving them bereft of options when they almost inevitably wash out, is pretty ********ing strange. Geoff Cameron is by far the most educated player at Stoke, and that's horrifying.
No argument there. College however.....for the rev kids bring in, and the way they are forced into a draft by the NBA and NFL. The corruption and complicity on and off campus and in networks is pretty damn staggering. The illusion of education for so many of these kids is sad to behold. The whole "travel team", milk parents scheme is shameless and I get more appalled every time I hear a new story. The way programs and coaches just suck folks in with dreams and threats. Might as well just play a shell game on a subway platform. Yes, there are kids college saves, but the whole underbelly is pretty slimy. No one wants to really know however. Almost organzied crimish. Big dogs, middle man, soldiers doing the dirty work, shake downs.....money, money, money. Europe is pretty outright. This is your profession.....don't make it, oh well. Happens in a lot of professions. Not saying it is right....but it is the fate of many an artist, musician, writer.....it's consistent and many view that way. Here we try to portray it as this wonderfull thing...and there are great stories, but if you don't think the mass majority isn't just swept aside and ignored then you are missing a lot. A seven year college degree in physical studies, hotel management, "insert made up BS major for athletes here" won't do you any good either.
Yeah, revenue-generating college athletics are really gross. There's no sound moral justification for their existence.
I get their existence. Again, my main issue is how folks try to frame the picture about what they are. They are a cut throat money making business. End. When that is accepted then you can at least change/alter the system in a way that works for everyone. Now? Just more BS spin and turning a blind eye. At least we don't hear the drivel we used to about how great this all is, how pure and wonderful, blah, blah, blah. Now it's just accepted and they don't fake the wholesone stuff, and as long as folks show up and TV ratings are strong we ain't changing anything.
I understand people having a connection to a college team. So make the team professional & separate from the university but they would still wear the college colors and things like that. Pumas was originally a UNAM amateur team and I'm sure it is not the only place in a world where a professional team arose out of a university team.
The halfway point suggestion I've heard is essentially make all college sports (or at least the revenue-generating ones) into a GA/P-40/HG model. The players show up, get room and board to play the sport for 4 years, and their "scholarship" goes into the bank for them to use once they leave the sport, either after college or as a pro. While playing their only responsibility is to be a player, not a student.
That's not true outside the UK. I'll post a link to an article about that very thing when I get in front of a computer.
i have to jump in on this one. With regard to college sports, you really have to try and draw a distinction between the two "revenue generating" sports and the other 30 or so NCAA sanctioned sports. There's very little graft and payola involved in crew, fencing or field hockey. Just ain't so. Basketball and football are uniquely corrupt and I don't really want a piece of that argument except to say that, to paraphrase Lord Acton when he gave birth to one of our most enduring idioms: "Absolute power corrupts absolutely" I would contend that even more than power, it's money that corrupts and enormous, unspeakable, utterly insane amounts of money corrupts absolutely. But mostly I'd rather talk about the so-not-good, double horrible bad "pay to play" US youth soccer system, and in that regard I have a question: Assuming that SOMEBODY has to pay for youth soccer, if it's not going to be the parents then who else you got in mind? Coaching costs money. Good coaching costs a LOT of money. And let me add that TRAVEL is expensive as well, and you seem to have an issue with that. But the problem is that if you have been adjudged to be one of the better players in your community and have joined a better team with better coaching, your team has to play SOMEONE, SOMEPLACE. There's no other way. Everyone agrees that good players need good coaching in order to develop (and there's a hell of a lot more really good coaching out there than most people on BS seem to be aware of). But good coaching costs money. The reason youth soccer training is free in Europe is that the clubs have money. Soccer clubs in the US do not, or at least not much. MLS is making insanely good strides towards building a free academy system,but it's not going to look like Arsenal's any time soon.(Partly because of the raw material but that's another argument I'm not going to have right now, or ever, really, because a) I'm right about it, b) I know what I'm talking about because I've seen it 1000 times first hand and anyway, and c) shut up) So absent a professional league to pay for five million children to play a sport, where the hell is the money supposed to come from? Uniforms, coaching, field rental, travel, meals, on and on; who's going to foot the bill? In any case, youth football and baseball is in many cases much MORE expensive for parents than youth soccer ever dreamed of being, and the NFL sure isn't kicking in dime one. Ditto Major League baseball. Yet despite this singular atrocity, the US continues to crank out football and baseball players by the truckload. Every year. Finely tuned athletes ready to get rich while simultaneously pissing on Old Glory: what could be better? So why is it that paying for elite youth soccer is such an outrage? I've never once heard a parent have a fit over the fact that the Baltimore Orioles aren't paying junior's Little League fees.
My sense is that on a per capita basis, the US is actually pretty bad at developing major leaguers. The Caribbean does better. And of course, us and Canada are the only nations that play gridiron football, so I don't see what the big deal is there, either. You lost me there.
Bill seems to think the size of one's paycheck may preclude one from speaking out about injustice. I know, I know, better time and place and blah blah ********ing blah. White Males simply don't want African-Americans protesting. Even non-violently. And God forbid they have to think unpleasant thoughts about their country when I'M TRYNNA WATCH FOOTBAWWWWW, Y'ALL! Citizens > symbols. But wrapping oneself in the flag - because we've all been trying to out-Patriot each other for the last 16 years - is just as ********ed up. Especially when you tacitly advocate some of your citizens being treated differently under the law or by law enforcement and then call yourself part of "The Greatest Country on Earth." ******** that bullshit.