A minor league baseball team that has its own ballpark and plays 140 games is going to have vastly greater expenses for facilities, front office staff, marketing, travel, etc. compared to an NPSL team that rents a high school stadium for a 10-14 game schedule. The baseball team also has vastly greater opportunities for revenues, of course.
I feel it would make a lot of sense for USL to subsidize travel costs if it wants to grow the league. If you look at Forward Madison's schedule the costs and time commitments must be tremendous.
Name one city that has paid to build a soccer specific stadium for an NPSL team like Corpus Christi has done done for the Hooks and get back to me. edited because I left out the important bit.
They'd be subsidizing it with money generated from the Championship, while teams are falling out of the Championship because they can't make ends meet? Color me skeptical.
Nick Kendall agrees with me in his thoughtful blog on the unbiased http://nhkendall.com/tag/********-mls/
So it appears you were right about them being subsidized, you just had the wrong benefactor: 1095150240116690945 is not a valid tweet id
Oh I see, yes I think in many cases that's true, where I live now, Crawley, is a good example of that, its a 'new town' and a lot of people here have origins in London therefore there is a lot of support for Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs etc, its tough for Crawley Town to 'pull em in' - crowds are modest though attendances have grown threefold since they got promoted into pro league football. It can depend on 'other' things as well as longevity though - PSG were only formed in 1970 and get big crowds, helps when you are the only major club in Paris and you were formed by a merger though.
OH IT IS at night with the bridge in the background and all sorts of stuff going on it's pretty bad ass and recently painted he roof to match the iconic stripes! It really is a bad ass little stadium Erm, that's kind of the point and an illustration of the difference between the two. For reference, here's the latest I could find for Wakemed: https://www.wralsportsfan.com/railh...-year-lease-for-wakemed-soccer-park/15728816/
http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/26797380/pitcher-skips-mlb-draft-japan-deal ^ For the "American sports don't have any competition for players" crowd.
Way to take this entirely too literally. NPSL clubs would love to have access to their not-on-their-dime labor for as long as MiLB teams do, too.
Fun fact about promotion/relegation in Europe. It is so terrible for the clubs to relegate that leagues are increasing the number of clubs that relegate immediately instead of giving them the chance to remain via a play off win. Next season Eredivisie clubs ending on the two bottom spots relegate immediately and the two top teams of the second tier go up immediately. In other leagues even the three at the bottom go down immediately. These are changes from the situation for decades only the last club relegated. It is so terrible to relegate, that leagues even make more than one go down.
Well, in other countries the pyramid is being constricted. What are your thoughts on the recent-ish contraction of the Second division in neighboring Belgium?
That's right, write off a 16 year deal after 4 home games. Looking at Wikipedia it appears the deal is $1 million from the city over the first 5 years. That's probably less than they spent on the local soccer complex where Lansing United (NPSL) are based. Why is US soccer stadiums getting public subsidies worse than European stadiums getting public subsidies?
Well, the Belgian league isnot well managed and frankly a toy for dubious investors. The KBVB (Belgian FA) hasnot got a firm grip on the clubs finances (the federal structure of Belgium isnot helping either) and also implemented requirements for a licence in that league that were too high for several clubs (a stadium with minimum 4000 capacity etc) that it inevitably moved into the direction of shrinking the numbers. I think it's wrong to require a stadium to be of a certain minimum size. The only requirement that in my eyes is permittable is safety standards. Now the KBVB is squeezing clubs out of that league that could be fine contributors to the game. Not good.