---------- Too many competing leagues. I know there are massive egos involved, but for the good of the game, its time to move on from this constant upheaval of teams coming and going ,competing leagues, lawyers and lawsuits. Time for USSF to get a backbone, sanction 1 league per level with standards on par for the level. If someone wants to come in and create a new level (like USL3) great, but not multiple at the same level.
Yeh, went to many of those games in that original NASL. But I will take MLS and even USL any day of the week over NASL-1. Beautiful SSS have been built, more TV than I can ever watch, teams competing in the CCL and USOC (many teams taking both these cups serious), more American and Canadian players than ever and the support the National Teams. And the MLS now also has some special foreign players as well. NASL-1 had some great players and some great teams. Funny how MLS learned many of its lessons from the failure of NASL-1 NASL-2 is on its deathbed, maybe it should have learned a few things from MLS or even USL !
Why not multiple leagues at any level? There is the level of play and then there is the business model to finance the play.why restrict either?
Minor league soccer is really hard. There's a reason why the list of defunct clubs from NASL, USL, USISL, A-League, etc is very long. Why make it harder with geographically overlapping leagues? Travel costs are a huge component of expenses. There's no good reason to make them larger than they need to be. In theory I'd have no problem with multiple leagues on one level if they had their own geographic area, but leagues are way too imperialistic to abide by that.
Again....so much was self inflicted. Bad decision making. Poor, delusional understanding. My goodness what a mess. NASL...doing and acting like soccer in the 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's and early 2000's but expecting different results because....ya know....it's us!
No doubt MLS is more stable and in much better financial shape. Even though the game has changed, I can't help but think where soccer would have been today had the original Nasl never folded. Or for that matter , had the USA been awarded the 1986 World Cup over Mexico. I'm thinking it could have been among the worlds top leagues outside of Europe. The skills of those great old nasl players are still unmatched in my opinion....nostalgia notwithstanding.
86 would have been great, but with the way NASL 1.0 was set up I'm not certain about the outcome. Was way to fly by night, and I'm not sure the momentum would have carried over in a way that would have built a real tangible league for the long run. Big events create interest and momentum, but hard work, time, money, physical foundation and commitment makes a product last. We talk a lot about standards in this thread. Well, there were none back then, and I could see an extra spike but a similiar nosedive happening more clearly than a foundational boom across the board. NASL was simply a jumbled mess in so, so many ways. You just don't build with a system like that. It's all up for speculation of course, but I never had delusuions about NASL 1.0. The cracks and problems were incredibly clear to see....if you wanted to. When the fade started it was obvious and quick. There was no stopping it. Even if 86 was awarded I just don't think the country was close to ready yet. It barely was in 96 with the prep time and a WC to boot. It took another 10 years of will, money and commitment to get it moving. "What if" is a nice game, but as has been shown here statsically numerous times before, NASL 1.0 was so much less than so many now think it was. A few glorious, short lived spikes here and there, but a ramshackle mess for the most part.
This declaration by Rocco Commisso basically confirms that if NASL is de-sanctioned as D3 it will immediately go bust. Plus the guy has no desire to continue investing into D3 Cosmos. Nothing new but it's nice to have it all written out so clearly.
There are some interesting tidbits in Rocco's filing. I found Point 29 to be most interesting. It says that at least six groups had committed to the NASL but were doing it on the contingency that it would be a D2 league. Who is he talking about? Point 19 mentions Atlanta, Detroit and New Orleans. Those three were specifically mentioned as being finalized to go for 2018. A little quick math tells me that 8-1+2+3=12. So the NASL could afford to lose one team and still have the necessary teams in the required number of time zones, provided that one of those was the team in New Orleans. Since NASL meets all of the other requirements, that would make the league fully compliant. So the question would be: if USSF had given the league 30 days - as it did for USL - would the three clubs mentioned in Point 19 be holding press conferences? Combined with the extension granted to USL, the one and done declaration for the NASL seems a little suspicious, at least to Rocco. Why not grant both leagues equal time?
So is the strategy to shame the USSF in keeping division sanctioning otherwise they are the people who killed the league?
Six teams have declared for NASL! I declare to be the new starting quaterback for the NY Jets! As I pointed out elsewhere when Rocco said this before. What do they mean by they declare? Incredibly broad and vague. Have they deposited checks? When do they say they want to start....the near future, eventually? Someday over the rainbow? Are all of the current clubs in for next year....or is NASL just looking for sanctioning before we find out they are not, and those declarations will have issues and take just a wee bit more time? Interesting? Without facts on what declare means, and the future of other clubs the whole thing sounds rather "suspicious". Unless you just want to believe. Time for the ruby slippers. I'll wait for the facts of what declare means, who put their money down, and what team's are in of the current crop next year. No different than that farce Deloitte report that was trumpeted everywhere as fact and proof, and is pretty much ignored and laughed at now. If evil USSF truly is screwing over solid bids for the sake of it then they will deserve the lawsuits and ridicule coming to them (I'll be first in line), and the damages NASL would surely be entitled to and be able to sue for..... if they were that stupid. USSF lawyers haven't proven to be stupid at all over they years, so I'll wait and see.
That was always gonna be the last gambit no matter what when push came to shove. Gotta go out like martyrs and heroes who stood up to the evil man.
Why would those three teams have not held press conferences, you know, before the ruling so that everyone knew they were committed to NASL? THAT is what is suspicious. If they did so privately (and more importantly, with them handing over fees to NASL) and satisfied every requirement necessary to be a D2 league and USSF still turned them down, then yeah, they have a pretty simple lawsuit to win here. I cannot imagine that USSF would open themselves to such a easy-to-lose lawsuit, though. The difference between the NASL and USL extensions is simple. NASL did not meet the basic requirements for a league. The USL did. USL has some teams that do not meet specific standards, but even if those teams were dropped from USL, the league would still meet the basic requirements. Big difference there. As such, giving USL 30 days to let the USSF know how those teams were going to meet the specific standards makes sense. If the NASL couldn't meet the basic requirements of being a D2 league by the deadline, why exactly should they be given an extension?
You are amazingly optimistic about those teams being you know,real. I mean what the hell is going to say? Even if those teams do come to pass they're at best coming in 2019 not 2018 which puts the league at still 8 teams (and that's with SF somehow not folding and Edmonton not leaving CPL). The USSF had stated back in January that they would prefer one D2 and you can't honestly tell me that NASL is the most healthiest and viable D2 in the United States right now.
http://firstteampod.com/nasl-v-ussf-lawsuit-gets-a-hearing-date/ The federal judge in the case has set a schedule to consider the preliminary injunction. That's the one that would preserve the status quo (NASL keep their division 2 sanctioning) until the overall lawsuit is settled. October 16: The USSF shall file its opposition, if any. October 23: The NASL shall file its reply, if any. October 31: The Court will hold a hearing, if needed, on whether or not to issue the injunction. The NASL had asked for the hearing before October 20. The USSF had asked for it sometime in December.
Sorry to digress but Rocco and the expansion committee are freaking bonkers if they believe putting a team in Atlanta in 2018 is progress to meeting requirements. It would be the dumbest sports league expansion decision ever.
At the time CUSA was not. I should just have stickied my responses to this so I could paste it every time this comes up. In short. At the time, league considered dead, no investors at all could be had...it simply was not. There was no choice. They were the first owners to step up after contraction. There were no others. They were the first step forward to where MLS is today. If Atlanta is one of the places where they can find an owner willing to give it a shot then so be it. CUSA had a much greater chance of success than a new Atlanta NASL team IMO.