You say that, but many, myself included, wouldn't have thought the Blues would last as long as they have. They're kind of like a bad case of herpes that USL just can't seem to get rid of. As long as they have money to burn they seemingly can just continue on. I mean they could end up back at Titan Stadium or some other D2 requirement meeting venue pretty easily to continue limping on assuming ownership continues to swallow their losses.
It's kind of like jumping off the building. It's not the fall that will kill you, it's that sudden stop at the bottom. Whether or not they could survive such a move, I doubt very seriously they could compete at that level. They've shown an unwillingness to devote resources to actually acting like a professional club. And whether or not someone plays in a stadium defined one way or another way, the point of the exercise is to do what MLS realized more than a decade ago: the survival of the league depends on its teams being financially viable, and that can almost never be done without a stadium solution that allows revenue to be captured and kept in sufficient amounts to fund the enterprise. The lower levels realized it not long ago, but it's imperative now, whether USSF or USL or anybody else mandates it. The market demands it now. The financial realities are that you can't play at Cal-Irvine or Scottsdale Stadium indefinitely.
Agreed particularly at the D2 level long term. Not if you're serious about building a team and the sport. Question is how serious the league will be about making sure their owners are on that page. Obviously if the votes were unanimous and the concept that they're all moving up was unambiguous then even the Blues owners agreed to it, but will the league hold them to that. I mean the market realities for some time have dictated that if a team like the Blues are going to succeed they've needed to do more than they are even now before any D2 move. But that hasn't stopped them so far because the league has let them get away with it. The market realities don't seem to phase this ownership group for whatever god-forsaken reason. Maybe they just don't like money? Also brings up another point as I'm thinking about it, the seeming revelation that ALL of USL will be moving to D2 mean they'll be leaving a pretty big vacuum at D3. A level that rightly has currently less financial commitment, but also less structural requirements and filled a small but important part of the pyramid for markets that might not have had the resources/venues/etc... to justify D1 or D2.
I assume you're referring to the OC Blues. This is really what I'm wondering about them: We know the USL owners voted unanimously to pursue DII. Why would all the USL owners do that? There are actually possible two reasons. First, they might want to bring their team to DII. Second, they might want to increase the value of their team, and then sell it to somebody who wants to bring it to DII. Most of the USL owners seem to fall into the first category. But some owners are, I suspect, definitely in the second category. The move to DII is going to increase the value of their teams, and as long as they sell before they actually need to meet the DII standards, they stand to make some real money. This may be the case with Harrisburg, which is already apparently shopping the team. But I wonder if it might also be the case with the OC Blues. There's another MLS team coming to town. They're going to need a USL team (or affiliate). Whether as an effective takeover, or as an actual buy-out, the OC Blues are the obvious target. As long as the Blues hang around long enough to be bought, the owners stand to make a good profit.
Not the weirdest theory I've ever heard. I've got nothing to do this weekend. Maybe I'll drive up for their game on Saturday night and snoop around. At the very least watching their whole set up in person ought to be entertaining in and of itself.
Well think of Kenn as the Christopher Hitchens of minor league soccer, he is usually right and willl be a dick when he tells you he is right.