You're right that a lot of pro/rel believers are active supporters of their local club. But for the record, Ted joined Twitter over a decade ago.
Ted created his account in March 2009. But he didn’t start actively tweeting until a year later, so I rounded? It’s not like Ted started out reasonable and slowly becoming radicalized over time, he came out of the gates running, particularly after the reception he got here. Which is kinda my point. By not ostracizing Ted from the start, they made it easy to discredit the entire movement.
Interesting how people drone on about someone who hasn’t posted on this thread - or I believe BS - for many years. Seems far more relevant to point out that an anti pro/rel zealot who is even afforded a crappy blog on BS isn’t exactly a paragon of virtue.
That's a bit like a poster on a Brexit forum complaining that we're talking too much about Nigel Farage. While I hate to give him this much credence, the fact is that #ProRelforUSA is a movement and Ted Westervelt is as prominent a part of that as they come. Dan can be obnoxious if you butt heads with him. He doesn't portray himself as an activist though, nor does his behavior come close to what Ted has got up to over the years. The fact that a soccer official with USSF ambitions and another prominent member of the #ProRelforUSA movement (in fact, I believe he's something of a founder) is exposing him as a liar, is very relevant to this thread.
Can I just point out that territorial rights within a league are much less meaningful in a system that allows multiple leagues to be sanctioned at each level?
#ProRelforUSA is hardly the start and finish of a rational discussion of pro/rel. By choosing to focus on this Ted character, you are merely attempting to denigrate the argument for pro/rel in the US. As such it seems at least equally relevant to point out that one of the anti pro/rel zealots doesn’t exactly cover himself in glory either here or on Twitter. Personally I’d rather focus on a pro/rel discussion rather than a particular individual, but I’m sure going to point out the hypocrisy of those who don’t also want to acknowledge the behavior of someone on the anti- side.
Ted was on twitter put there wasn’t “pro/rel Twitter”. Very few people were talking about it back then. That’s what I mean by it not being a thing. I also think it generally takes people awhile to ostracize someone they may share a common belief with. Confirmation bias sets in and you just ignore the nutty shit because they share the same goal. But then there’s always a tipping point. In Ted’s case there’s a movement within the pro/rel “movement” to block/ostracize etc.
It's more like a liberal democrat constantly invoking Alex Jones and Glenn Beck.while arguing with a moderate republican. And it's a pretty straight forward hashtag.... #ProRelForUSA I think there are many who use it who may not even know who Ted is, let alone his reputation.
Not if only one league is sanctioned D1. And only one league is sanctioned D2. My club could not join a league with D3 sanction (unless we magically created one) even though we had a new co-owner waiting in the wings for it, so it forced us to try to jump over the baseball Roughnecks USL franchise to NASL. And if we'd done that, my team would have lost out, not because of the club we were/are trying to build, but because the league we joined lost it's USSF D2 sanction. And the USL franchise we had to jump over which finished in last place in USL Pro was promoted to USSF D2 status the following season.... this is year 7, we've never had a losing season in the NPSL, and we currently stand at the top of the table... D'oh!
Why does MLS or any US closed league need territorial rights in the first place? Surely that’s the antithesis of competition?
Bomb under Belgian Jupiler League. Belgian top clubs gathered today in Eindhoven with Dutch clubs about the BeNeLiga. Could it be the first cross border merger league? If it comes alive that is. https://www.vi.nl/nieuws/discussie-beneliga-nieuw-leven-ingeblazen "Achter de schermen is oriënterend gesproken over een Belgisch-Nederlandse voetbalcompetitie. Dinsdag is in het Philips Stadion een vergadering geweest met tien clubs en de Nederlandse en Belgische voetbalbond. Bij het overleg waren vertegenwoordigers aanwezig van Ajax, PSV, Feyenoord, AZ, Vitesse, FC Utrecht, Club Brugge, Standard Luik, Anderlecht en RC Genk. AA Gent was verhinderd. Voor het eerst waren ook de bonden aanwezig nadat een aantal clubs eerder al om tafel had gezeten voor verkennende gesprekken." Behind the scenes, an exploratory discussion was held about a Belgian-Dutch football competition. On Tuesday a meeting was held in the Philips Stadium with ten clubs and the Dutch and Belgian football associations. Representatives from Ajax, PSV, Feyenoord, AZ, Vitesse, FC Utrecht, Club Brugge, Standard Luik, Anderlecht and RC Genk were present at the meeting. AA Gent was prevented. The unions were also present for the first time after a number of clubs had already sat down for exploratory talks.
...the deliberate act of making controversial comments on various internet forums with the intent to provoke an emotional knee jerk reaction from unsuspecting readers to engage in a fight or argument.
https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/nasl-waive-goodbye.2071677/ "The New York Cosmos are parasites, living off the name and the work of others. They probably always were. In the 70’s, they were a rounding error in the Warner Brothers cocaine budget. It was Studio 54 first, Cosmos second, league third, and American soccer nowhere." "What, exactly, are we trying to revive? Teams that folded after an average of two years? Crummy owners? Artificial turf? American soccer without Americans? American soccer reduced to a stupid, trendy fad?"
Think more of an Atlantic league with a New York and Washington DC and Celtic and Rangers plus Benfica, Sporting and Porto. That would be an amazing league plus a headache(?) for mls.
It only applies to the league in question. Any competing league would and could not be constrained. It's a bit like when Everton didn't qualify for the Fairs (UEFA/Europa League) Cup because UEFA did not allow two teams from the same city and Liverpool had already qualified.
Which was completely asinine of UEFA and quickly scrapped. You’re going to need a better rebuttal than that.