As well as sticking with 2 conferences ... and 3 "new members" (Nashville and Fresno announced, Vegas the likely 3rd).
Cashman Field. Getting approval to use this AAA baseball stadium was the key to them getting approved for 2018. Vegasprosoccer.com is the official site
Except that it's not particularly rational. Removing RGV's "training wheels" would probably cost half a million/year. For most D2/D3 clubs, half a million is the difference between survival and going out of business. That half a million (give or take) is the whole reason for the MLS affiliation.
Yeah, I'm not saying it will happen ... but the possibility would ideally be there. If they are selling 5k/game ... what are they paying for? The stadium? The marketing? If they don't have player salaries and things like that ... how are they not killing it? At some point, maybe making less money but having autonomy in running your franchise might make sense. I don't know.
I think you might be under the wrong impression of the hybrid clubs. RGV/Reno have a full (or mostly full) roster of their own players with USL contracts. And I'm not sure of the nitty-gritty details with RGV but we only get max three SJ players per week and only one is really getting consistent minutes. The parent clubs have control of the technical side but that really hasn't had an affect on our autonomy. Our manager was a SJ assistant manager for years and one of the concerns was that he was going to focus too much on development. But they've allowed him to build the squad he wants and it is a cohesive unit with a very aggressive attacking style... not exactly what you'd expect from a development side. There has never been a feeling that it isn't "our" club. And there has yet to be a situation where SJ makes us shoot ourselves in the foot. I'm really happy with the affiliation, and that's from someone who hates the Quakes.
Maybe I did misunderstand ... I thought the MLS team covered player and technical staff ... which gave them the "rights" to the players under contract.
Most of the players on RGV and Reno have to be under contract to those teams. The MLS roster is still limited to 28 players so they can't sign the whole team. Of course, that is also true of all the MLS2 teams, the players are mostly under contract to the USL team, not to the MLS team. The MLS team can also designate 3 players on a USL roster as "USL Priority Players". Those are guys that the MLS team has found but they aren't ready to sign to the first team roster. They are still signed to USL contracts. They can be on any affiliated team but are mostly on the MLS2 teams where they are being coached by the MLS team staff. And there can be guys on ULS contracts that can eventually be signed as home-grown that the MLS team has the rights to. Those kinds of players can be on any USL affiliate. For Houston/RGV, the non-Dynamo players are picked by coaches employed by the Dynamo and paid under USL contracts. They have never said exactly how that works but it assumed that the Dynamo are compensating the Toros for those costs. I don't know exactly how things work in Reno. The San Jose President said this before the season: "The affiliation with Reno 1868 allows our club to have control over all aspects of the technical side of the club, which is critical for our overall player development strategy. We plan to put a very competitive team on the field next season and beyond for the Reno community." That sounds like SJ is controlling the roster.
Pretty much but from the outside nobody would think that considering the moves that have been made. We've seen three or four SJ players get minutes with us and a few of our guys got called up for a friendly. Other than that they've been hands-off. I'm sure it's a different story in the back rooms but from a supporter point of view Reno has been acting in a Reno-first strategy.
Some good stuff in here about USLD3 and NASL teams coming into USL: https://www.soccernation.com/usl-mid-season-updates-from-president-jake-edwards/
Little things like staff, payroll taxes, workman's comp, travel, electricity, everything it takes to staff an actual office, you know, small business stuff. Very, very few clubs are "killing it," even if you took player wages out of the equation.
I'm glad that affiliation is working out for Reno, because for some reason it was completely dysfunctional for Sacramento.
Lots of short notice and mid-week call ups of players who were getting good burn up here but would sit on the bench in San Jose, or not even be in the XVIII at game time (Tommy Thompson would be example #1 of that). Sending players down to SRFC that do not fit in well with the SRFC style of play (Adam Jahn, Kip Colvey, Mark Sherrod). There was little, if any, "development" going on; if there was, it was completely spontaneous on the part of the players. It often seemed as if SJE and SRFC were working at cross purposes. I would presume that has changed a bit since SJE switched their affiliation to 1868, and good on SJE for making the change, and good on 1868 for making it work for themselves.
----- If all the expansion teams get up and running and a few more come over from NASL, i could see USL2 being 40 teams in 4 divisions of 10 (I put it to paper for fun) Now whether FC Edmonton goes to Canadian Premier League and whether Puerto Rico goes out or joins a Carib League, hard to say)
USL has until October 1 to figure out what to do about their waiver requests. https://www.si.com/soccer/2017/09/1...g-division-2-future-league-usa-club-landscape
What would they do for 2018? Take the year off? Hope they can get another waiver? If they get a waiver for another year and NASL doesn't how is that going to look.
Depends on what the waivers are for. And USLs waivers appear to be for teams that are excess of the D2 minimum requirements. NASLs waivers are for not meeting minimum requirements. Not exactly apples and oranges.
My take was that there are a few USL teams that do not meet every requirement, such as the Charlotte example in the article. The fact that the USSF is requiring USL to submit a plan for what is to happen with each instance of a requirement not met shows that USL already has D2 in the bag for next year. All USL has to say is that if each reason for a waiver is not met by next September 1, those teams will be dropped to the new D3 league. Basically, I'd imagine that every current USL team will be playing in 2018, unless another issue forces them out. This will likely be the last season that USSF allows USL teams any waivers...and it should be the last season any team needs one. Considering USL will be going into year two of two with waivers and NASL would be going into year 6 or 7 with waivers, it should look fine to most impartial, non-tinfoil-hat-wearing observers.
I think the USSF is OK if teams and leagues have plans to meet the standards. If the USL teams that need waivers can show plans that will bring them up to the standard, then they are going to be granted. The Austin Aztex were operating under a waiver back in 2015. They couldn't show a plan that would bring them into compliance so they went on hiatus. That system works fine for individual teams. The NASL was apparently unable to show a plan that would bring the league up to the standards. The USSF doesn't want leagues going forward at a certain level if they can't possibly meet the standards. There was no plan presented that would definitely bring the league into compliance. That was the problem.
Doubt it. The USSF is certainly being more proactive this year compared to last year, but I have a hard time believing that they would have that quick a turnaround. My guess is that they will hear the appeal today, but deliberate for a few weeks on it. I believe the USSF has another meeting set up for next month, and suspect that would be the latest you would hear something. The response will probably leak out the same way it did last time.