This would be a smart play. It would be even more motivation to yank the yellow back out of the Fire's color scheme.
FWIW, the fan vote isn’t binding, they’re just using it to form their decision. ...which will hopefully be that the voting public is a bunch of mutton heads and Municipal was the right name all along.
Seriouz Zoccer League guyz. This is a real press release. NISA side NJ Teamsters FC are now... NJ Teamsterz FC. They did this to attract generation Z.New year, same old American soccer. Happy 2021, everyone! pic.twitter.com/GGUVxVePgN— Pablo Iglesias Maurer (@MLSist) January 1, 2021
(Not saying that NISA wouldn’t have taken them, just that this is showing why they didn’t - or more accurately, couldn’t)
So the team is featured on NISA's website, but they "chose" to join NISA Nation, which has over a couple months to launch during a pandemic period, if at all. NISA operating two leagues at the same time. This is a trainwreck waiting to happen.
You might think they should've focus on improving their professional league first before getting through all this NISA Nation mumbo-jumbo.
Some amateur teams want to play a full season and are doing so under the NISA banner. I'm not sure why they couldn't do this as part of UPSL, which has the same Fall and Spring format. I guess we'll see what happens.
-------------------- Yeh, in the big picture UPSL should fit right under USL-1 in the pyramid as it plays a "full" season rather than the "short" season of USL-2 (and I guess NPSL)
Given that NISA has set up relationships with several regional leagues with the idea of their champions going to the Independent Cup and the commitment to compensating these leagues if clubs leave to join NISA Nation, my guess is that either UPSL was uninterested or was otherwise unfit for purpose. One aspect of UPSL that I could see being problematic for NISA's needs is that the conferences are completely decentralized and have different standards of professionalism. There was an interview with the owner of Irving FC on one of the Protagonist podcasts where he talks about getting frustrated by the inconsistency of standards in the UPSL and moving to the NPSL as a result. If NISA's intention for NISA Nation is to provide an incubator for these clubs to get ready to jump into the pro pyramid, that might not align well with UPSL's priorities (which, understandably, probably does not include professional club development). But more likely, UPSL (like USL) is owned by private equity company and seems mostly interested in building their own pyramid(s) (the conferences are free to organize themselves into whatever way they want to: horizontally and vertically). They seem more interested in competing with the regional leagues than collaborating, so they may not have wanted to work with NISA in the first place.
The BIG news coming out of NISA today. Jeff Rueter is reporting that the New York Cosmos are on hiatus due to the pandemic. Rumors of Stumptown likely not returning.
Realistically, no gate-revenue leagues should return until teams can have full capacity crowds. It makes no sense to just burn money with no one watching. This goes for USL, as well.
And, yet, should NISA announce that they're canceling their spring season because too many teams won't play due to not being able to have crowds, we'll see the inevitable "loL tHiS LeAgUE iS a jOke, tHeY HaVEn'T eVEn GoTtEn tHrOuGH a wHoLE SeaSOn wItHoUt TeaMs qUiTTinG"