This is interesting. According to Go Daddy, the domain was registered on November 23 by James Chernesky, who is the manager and part owner of Crystal Palace Baltimore. He also registered naslnet.com a day before. Since all this was done almost 2 weeks ago it isn't a confirmation of more happening in the background, but it does show further proof of how confident the NASL is. Right now there are two overarching things everyone is waiting for. 1. USSF gives confirmation that the NASL will (or won't) be sanctioned. This could come tomorrow, or it could be held back all the way until the USSF's regular meeting in February. 2. There is a decision made by either Puerto Rico, Portland, or Austin to jump ship. They're probably waiting for the USSF to say something, but their recent silence is rather strange. Correct me if I'm wrong, but these three haven't said anything in the past 2 weeks. I wonder if their agreement with the USL for next season is more than simply a verbal statement, in which case they may be stuck with some serious problems if the NASL pulls through with the USSF sanctioning. 3. An extra piece of news that I'm personally interested in is seeing what happened to FC New York. You'll know that the USL is a goner if they try to write off FCNY as an extended April Fool's joke.
[1. USSF gives confirmation that the NASL will (or won't) be sanctioned. This could come tomorrow, or it could be held back all the way until the USSF's regular meeting in February.] If the USSF does not sanction the new NASL ''THIS WEEKEND'', it will make it very hard for the teams to get sponsors. players and a TV contract
They're probably waiting for the USL to say something. The USL is threatening to sue teams that signed up for next year but don't play. If the USL announces that there will only be one pro division next year, these teams can stay or leave without fear of lawsuits, since presumably the league existing is a condition precedent for them having to stay in it. If they leave for NASL now, they go right into the lawsuit camp. Also, while I'm sure the NASL would love for Portland to come on board, we shouldn't assume that they also want Austin and Puerto Rico. Austin has already been discussed. Puerto Rico is a strong team, but it's a ridiculous bump in everyone's travel budget.
Does anyone know what the travel budget is for a USL1 / NASL level team? I'm interested to know what percentage of total expenditure it comes to. Unless teams are traveling everywhere else by bus, then it may not be that much extra - a plane ride is a plane ride to a certain extent. That's not to say that they'd want PR in anyway, but the additional cost of that one journey, as opposed to Vancouver to Tampa or Miami may not be that huge. Looks like a south east swing to me.
They might as well move the Miami, Carolina, Rochester and Tampa subforums under that one. And it would be nice to know if Montreal Fans prefer to be in the MLS "Candidate Cities" forums or under the NASL one.
The devil is in the details for this. We don't know what kind of agreement there was between the teams and the USL. If it was just verbal I don't think there is much that the USL can do. However, the fact that some but not all teams jumped ship might indicate that the teams that stayed behind made a more formal written agreement (and are therefore more liable to invoke a lawsuit).
I'm pretty sure that for all the eastern teams, which make up the bulk of the league, is cheaper to travel to PR than to travel to Portland or Vancouver.
Also, because of their large travel parties they are traveling on group rates not the regular rates that you normally see.
When I was buying tickets we used a clearing house to buy our airfare, but it wasn't a huge discount off regular airfare, and that was 10 years ago. If I remember right, group discounts start at 50 passengers.
Not quite right. I have a group of 11 that flew ATL to Chicago today and will fly ATL to Ft. Lauderdale & Phoenix next week. Got group discounts on all of the flights and I do this at least 50 times a year.
So you are buying over 500 tickets on the same airline? I forgot to mention, we couldn't use the same airlines for all flights because of the various markets. Might be different now, but the clearing house was our saving grace. I would assume NASL will make a call to New Haven Travel and get some pretty good deals.
Could be, plus a lot of the airlines are now aligned and they weren't 10 years ago. My memory was we flew on Delta, American, US Air. Southwest didn't work for us for some reason.
No we use different airlines but have a pretty good travel agent. I also fly groups of 5, 6 and 7 but don't get discounts with them. I think the magic number is 10 to be considered for a group rate. You are also dealing with the group desk at the airline rather than regular ticketing.
Do some of you seriously think NASL is a bad name because Mexico isn't a part of the league? Let's ignore the fact that a lot of people consider Mexico to be a Central American country, why does this matter at all? It's a 2nd division soccer league, not an international organization. Should KFC change it's name since it has restaurants in China? You can argue that the NASL name should be left alone for good or bad reasons or that they should just come up with a new original name; but to say that they shouldn't call it NASL because it doesn't include Mexico is just dumb.
Has anyone put that idea forward on this board? I might not have read it. (This is a big forum.) I think your KFC analogy is a BIG stretch. I think you're right in defending the name, though. Despite how people think of it, though, Mexico is NOT a Central American nation (and Central America is a part of North America even if it were). I doubt too many Mexicans will be pissed off. They've got their own (much higher quality) league, and we're not exactly going to be steeling their thunder. I suppose if you really wanted to defend the NASL, you might do so on the basis that North could modify American rather than the two terms being read as parts of a proper noun. That way it's the league that represents the northern 2/5 of America or the northernmost league in America.