Team Owner's Association/NuRock: USL1 super-thread

I don't recall anyone saying anything about Carolina being in trouble. I've just wondered about their attendance levels this season, but that doesn't mean they're in any financial trouble.

 

Vancouver, and Montreal payed their dues on time.

 

If they paid their dues I'd assume that they're playing in the USL then.

 

From everything that I've heard, it seems as if Cleveland will be back in USL1 next season with new owners.

 

Because they are still playing and involved in the play-offs, therefore still under contract. I also heard USL has extended the renewal deadline to Oct. 15th to give clubs more time.

Are the players under contract with the league or club? If it's the club then it all depends on their individual contracts.

 

Just to play devil's advocate here...

I understand why it would be bad for the sport to have multiple top-division leagues playing at once. I don't see why it matters if there are multiple minor leagues playing at once.

The PDL and NPSL have been coexisting for six or seven years now, and I don't see anyone saying that they have to merge or they'll kill American amateur soccer.

In other sports, there are currently nineteen affiliated, four off-season and eight independent minor league baseball leagues; a dozen or so minor basketball leagues; and five or six minor American football leagues (mostly arena-style).

Probably the best model for soccer would be ice hockey; there, there are eight minor professional leagues (more or less USL-1 and USL-2 level); one semi-pro league (Super-20); and dozens of junior hockey leagues for U-20 and below, with the Major Juniors being more or less PDL or NPSL level and the Minor Juniors closer to the other current USASA leagues.

In hockey, the minor leagues are independent, unlike baseball teams, but the individual teams contract with teams in higher and lower leagues to act as minor league affiliates.

Realistically, I suspect that if there is a breakaway league, it will either fold quickly or, if it succeeds, will eventually absorb the other current USL-1 teams, leaving the USL with a D-3 league and the PDL. But I don't see a few years of having two minor leagues as being as much of a disaster as some people do.

 

Duh. Well, I should've been able to figure that one out!

I was wondering the same thing. The USL isn't MLS, so the contracts pretty much have to be with the clubs, I'd think. But there may be something about the way things are structured that, with the clubs not officially being in any league or anything, the contracts, while they exist with the clubs, have some sort of 'not in good standing' status because the clubs aren't officially in a league.

Just a wild, largely uninformed guess.

 

Out of curiosity, of all these minor leagues that you point out, do the ones that are at the same 'level' cross boundaries? I'm pretty sure that the two AAA baseball leagues are pretty much West and East. What about all the others?

Not that necessarily matters that much. It just seems like, if we are to have two Division Two leagues, that it'd be good for them to be somewhat geographically contiguous, rather than pissy, philosophically contiguous.

That aside, my main concern is that soccer isn't at the level that it can support two leagues. From earlier discussions, it sounds like one of the reasons minor league baseball is thriving is because of assistance from the top. Don't know if the same is true with the other sports, but I do know that the new hockey team here in town is here because of a lot of assistance from the Dallas Stars. Most of us know that we're far from the point of MLS being able to assist lower division soccer in any way other than occasionally loaning idle players.

So, yeah, there's no reason philosophically that we can't have two Division Two leagues. But there's boatloads of reasons to think that it wouldn't be viable or healthy.

 

How can this be breaking news when it was already reported earlier in this thread?

Do you read before posting?

 

well it said Oct. 3 on the blog.

 

I mean, did you read the previous threads in this post, one of which referenced the same information you said was breaking news?

 

I found it but their was no link? and the poster stated he didn't know if it was true, but it will be breaking news if Inside Minnesota Soccer acquire the e-mails sent out to those teams.

BTW Breaking News:

http://thekartikreport.wordpress.com/2009/10/03/usl-situation-update/

 

You kill me

Breaking News is NEW information. Kartik is just rehashing our buddy Brian's info, with a paragraph of editorial comment. No news.

 

Well, actually, it turns out that jw07 is correct, and it didn't have anything to do with the playoffs. From that Inside Minnesota Soccer report:

So that only makes things more confusing.

If we look at it simplistically, there are now only three teams in the TOA league -- Minnesota, Carolina and Miami.

Despite the comments from Saputo and Vancouver, the USL is arguing (and it has a basis for this) that the USL1 now consists of Vancouver, Montreal, Austin, Portland, NY, Charleston, Rochester, Cleveland, Tampa Bay and Puerto Rico. (Though, since Tampa Bay doesn't have any players under contract, they couldn't be included in the USL's letters.)

But I'm sure that's not the case. This is clearly the USL's next move, and we'll have to see what everyone else does.

As the teams have pointed out, the USL doesn't own the players contracts, so unless there's some sort of requirement that the teams be in a league, there's nothing to void, and the USL is being stupid.

As far as I know there are several teams around that have players on contracts of some sort that aren't in leagues. Indios is one I can think of. And Sahuaros in Phoenix, if they're still around.

But I'm not privvy to the contracts, so maybe there's something there we're not aware of.

Odd that this all comes down on the weekend. If the USL had any leg to stand on, and were actually trying to make this a media war as well, you'd think they'd get it out there during the week.

 

No the minor leagues of baseball and Hockey that are at the same level do not have much geographic crossover at their respective levels. Which is what I was talking about earlier. If the TOA wants to break away that's fine. But it should be geographical, they should not overlap geographically with USL1.

 

Interestingly USL has removed the links to the 3 teams ( Miami, Carolina. Minnesota) websites on there website at:

http://www.uslsoccer.com/teams/index_E.html

 

Looks like USL wants to prove it has the biggest bladder in this pissing contest.

Good luck to the USL in saving something by burning it down.

 

Looks like USL considers them gone now then. Ball is in the 3 team's court now.

 

FYI,

Tim Holt gave me a "No comment" when I asked him about this topic today.

So, it's obvious that the USL doesn't want to wage a "media war". If they did, Tim would have given me more and accepted my invitation to be on the radio this morning to talk about the situation.

 

Tim Holt is very bright and thinking that his email sent to the 3 team’s players was disingenuous would be wrong. I am sure there is a legal clause in the Franchise Agreement that could be interpreted in a manner whereby he could claim nullification of the players contracts. Since an experienced franchise lawyer is now leading USL, you can bet this is heading to the courts. Less incriminating comments made prior to legal action the better, so hence his "no comment" retort.

 

Looks like the breakaway is coming, I think it's like this. Those teams like Vancouver and Montreal, Tampa paid the fees and are waiting what kind of league will form. If Miami, Minnesota and Carolina get with MLS to form MLS2, I think the rest of the teams will jump ship, but if MLS will not get involved I'm guessing the 3 teams are just going to fold.

 

And since MLS has shown no interest to date beyond what they've done in the past, I'd put my money on those teams folding. MLS to date has shown no interest in a tier 2 league.

 

Not surprisingly, the Rochester Thunder have been removed as well.