As I've been thinking about the expansion of MLS and the rather abundant amount of investors that have popped up few only 2 more spots I've come to a conclusion. In the next decade, another league will rise up to (attempt to) challenge MLS as the dominant league in this country. Perhaps it will be USL, maybe another entity completely. Before you call me an idiot, hear me out. Then you can call me an idiot. All 3 of the big sports in this country had a rival league rise up at some point in their history. The ABA and AFL being the most recent of the two rival leagues. Both of the leagues were started because the NFL and NBA had rejected bids to expand at the moment and so a group of owners took their money and started their own league. They were laughed at initially, but eventually they could no longer be ignored and the rest is history. If I was a billionaire who wanted a soccer team in this country (and with most of the 18 expansion slots taken within 2 years) I would waltz into Portland, invest in the timbers and the beavers (minor league baseball team) build a decent AAA stadium for the beavers (quick research puts the cost of a 15k seat baseball stadium at 30mil) and convert PGE over the a soccer/football form with upgraded concessions, restrooms, and boxes. As a side note I would like to say that I, personally, would build a giant cashcow of fields around the baseball stadium similar to the one that colorado has at dick's only it would be for both baseball and soccer. Minor League baseball will still work well on the edge of the city limits, and I'm going to need to make some green at somepoint. Cost for stadium(s) - 60 mil. Decidedly less than a brand new SSS would cost. Then I would need to get MLS to pay attention to me. That is very easy to do, I would watch the MLS draft on ESPN and call every single first round pick that isn't a GenAd player and I would offer them all 15k more than what MLS has offered. Some of them don't accept because they would rather play in the top flight, but I bet that I could get 8 or 9 first and second rounders who rather actually make a living. Message Sent. Then I would spend modestly, do the whole south american scouting thing and bring in some reasonablly priced foreign players, lure some solid MLS vets away with raises and end up with a salary just under 3 mil. Admittedly, the above plan could only truely succeed with more than one team pushing the league. However, Montreal and Vancouver have proved that they arn't spending shy, and I'm confident that the triangle (railhawks), puerto rico, vancouver, montreal, and austin all have great potential as soccer towns. Maybe the new league will crash and burn in a few years as it falls victim to the trappings of the NASL, maybe it never even truely gets off the ground. But mark my words, within a decade another league will rise up to try and challenge MLS as the top soccer league in this country, and it will push the sport for the better.
More recent examples of rival football leagues are the XFL and the USFL, neither of which could be called successful. A rival soccer league in the US would only hurt soccer in the states. It has in the past, in the 1930s and the 1960s.
I don't know about that Martin Nash and Patric Leduk both play for team Canada and they are in the USL.
That only shows what us canuck soccer fans have known for some time. The CSA has its head up its you know what! MLS is premier North American Soccer and will be. USL-1 is an very good entertaining league but clearly a number 2. "In the next decade, another league will rise up to (attempt to) challenge MLS as the dominant league in this country." Highly unlikely. As much as a lot of cities and potential owners say they want a pro soccer franchise they are just kicking the tires (Philly, St. Lo, Van, Mtl, Portland are the exceptions). "Perhaps it will be USL, maybe another entity completely. " Doubtful. What is more likely is the USL-1 becomes the MLS development league. Having players who need playing time but aren't quite at the MLS level yet can be solved by the loaning of players to the USL-1 teams. "Before you call me an idiot, hear me out. Then you can call me an idiot." You are not an idiot, you've just had an "ID Ten T" error (ID10T)
When Crystal Palace USA were being launched, they said that the franchise would essentially be considered an extension of the academy system and used to bring players through the system and give young English players a change of scenery. They also said that their budget would allow them to compete for MLS quality players. Maybe not the top draft picks but certainly second or third round picks. It has been said that lower division soccer is the main target of many foreign clubs and investors because it allows them to form a "football club" and gives them control of players, which MLS does not. As such, any rival league is going to come from investors opposed to the single entity system who realise the USL cannot fulfil their aims. It will be rich foreign clubs looking to exploit a burgeoning youth participation sports, buying up or professionalising the top youth soccer programs and building a professional club structure on top of that. Taking Portland as an example, you would go in, locate the best soccer programs and bring them in house. Found a professional franchise and have control of all the best players in the area from childhood upwards.
Put aside the fact that US Soccer would essentially brand the league as an "outlaw", which would be an impediment it would have to overcome, there is something of a progression to how a rival league forms, and you are correct it is always started with a nucleus of owners who couldn't get in the league. In MLS, it may be tougher to get an expansion team, but it still isn't all that hard to get a team if you have sacks of money lying around. Houston could be had right now, perhaps Columbus too, or you could throw in with St. Louis. That's still plenty of options, and as the league grows and the expected obligations of the owners increase, it seems likely others would cash in too. So, teams are for sale. It's not pleasant for the fans, but statistically every US league has had more franchise re-locations too -- my guess is you will see some more at MLS within the next 10 to 20 years, especially after the leases on the now new stadiums expire.
Why would it be branded an outlaw league? The USSF can sanction any league it likes. A professional league's stature is essentially governed by the quality of players it attracts. I'm pretty sure that MLS' exclusivity to be the only D-I league in the US has actually expired. Who's to say that a Division-II league with a lot of money behind it and an actual possibility of going to Europe on your own terms wouldn't be more attractive to players than MLS? Really, what does D-II mean other than the USSF won't put you forward for the Champions Cup and that you have to go into the US Open Cup a round or two earlier? If the crowds are good and you call yourself a major league, people will get the idea in the end. MLS is expansion-friendly, people are going to get a franchise if they have the will and the cash. However, what if it's the very structure of the league you don't like?
The MLS will never have a rival league in the America. The USL is not strong enough to support major teams. America is not England, promotion and relegation is not the structure fitted for this country. Also, soccer in America already had its "one rival league." One year: 1967-NPSL and NASL. And how did that turn out-they merged. The MLS is walking on a firmer foundation than in the late 1960's. Rival leagues are a thing of the past. A top sprot in America is more likely fade to nothing before a rival league will come.
I'm actually a little surprised that people are dismissing this so out of hand. Here's the current reality that we know: MLS is a single entity looking to be in the major cities that has the finances and wherewithal to get 20,000 seat stadiums built. The USL is a franchised league where owners have full control over their teams, is looking at the second-tier cities and has the wherewithal to get 10-15,000 seat stadiums built for some of the teams. Clubs from England and elsewhere are looking at getting into the USL because they don't want to join the MLS business model. How things go from here depend a lot on how successful the 'foreign' USL clubs are. The California Victory was a clear failure. Not in the stands, obviously, but the ownership structure was flimsy. Who knows how things will go with Crystal Palace and whoever else comes aboard. But there is certainly the potential for the USL teams to get big enough to rival MLS teams. We shouldn't expect them to match MLS across the board. We'd expect the best USL players from these 'foreign' teams to get taken by their parent clubs. I would expect this to limit exactly how good the USL teams become. But if the foreign clubs got together and decided to make a run at MLS, there's nothing to stop them. Just being declared 'Division 2' by the USSF means nothing. If the people running USL-1 decided to go at MLS head to head, started beating the MLS teams regularly in the Open Cup, started agitating to be let into the CONCACAF Champions League, and started advertising themselves (after beating enough MLS teams enough times) as better than MLS, what's going to stop them? A USSF declaration? They are officially part of the USSF pro divisions, and therefore have a say on the board. They could successfully petition to get into things. It's not entirely out of the question, should the foreign ownership experiment work, that the USL could become a legitimate rival league. The way things stand now, MLS is managing to keep ahead of the USL. But there are seeds there that could grow into something more intense. It will be interesting to see what will happen. Me, I'd much prefer the USL to accept its place in the pyramid, and establish itself as a solid Division 2.
Seeing as there is no pro/rel in this country, MLS is div 1 and USL is div 2 in name only. If there was a massive influx of money in USL then there would be nothing to stop the two from switching places. The USSF could make any new league a "rival" league, and disallow any players from earning callups to the nats. In that case I would simply go for the base of MLS talent, players in the Bryan Namoff/Chris Klein area that are solid role players but are never gonna get callups and are underpaid by mls.
I think the only way the US could have two "leagues" would be for MLS to break into two conferences and just call them leagues. I am not at all sure there are enough interested money types in this country to even try a rival league to MLS, be they outlaw or not. If it were up to me, I'd direct those interested parties to the USL, and try to shore up what's already there; you almost need MLS-level money to make even the USL go right. No reason to re-invent the wheel.
Bad example of players, considering both Namoff and Klein have both received national team call ups. Plus players are going to be hesitant to risk getting a potential call up some day?
Sorry, I'm confused. FIFA mandate? So long as a rival league was sanctioned by the USSF, the players could play for the national team.
In addition to this............. USSF and FIFA can always change their mind about which league they consider to be the "top flight". Prior to MLS....... a rival league to USL (formerly the A league) The USL was the top flight league in the US. A Rival league is not out of the question but it seems it would be a rough road making it so.................
To be perfectly honest, the last thing that you need with a limited player pool is more competition for players. A well-funded rival would drive up costs for your bog-standard college players. While it would give more opportunities for players, it will just increase the number of average players playing and will help these average players earn more. Therefore, MLS and the rival league would have to loosen up their foreign player rules which then defeats the object of MLS in the first place; to be a league that develops American players. Yeah, the more I think about it, the better it would be if there was no rival league. This isn't hockey or baseball, where international competition is not integral to the sport. However, I'm not convinced that anybody can stop a rival league from developing, especially if the appetite is there from TV companies in the next few years because, let's face it, that's what drives every major sport. Boxing matches are made because HBO or Showtime want them to be made and NFL made the big money from TV rights.
This is where your post goes awry. If there are enough investors and stadium, MLS will gladly go up to 24 teams or even higher.
There's always been that potential. And yet, after 20+ years of the USL's history, none have ever come close. Not even the Rhinos, who can't even afford to completely finish their stadium.
Oh, I don't think it's likely at all. I was mostly pointing out that there's nothing in the USSF laws that really prevent the USL from becoming a de facto division 1 league. Now, while I still think it's unlikely, there is a change that's happened lately that makes it more likely than it used to be. Until recently, there was only one team (that I can recall) that had any ties to other teams around the world -- the (extinct) Carolina Dynamo, which had a connection with Nottingham Forest. But Marcos has started successfully selling his league to English (and other) teams as a development opportunity. I believe I also said that for the USL to end up competing with MLS, the parent teams would need to decide that they wanted to take their affiliated teams to the top level in the US. Which, in some cases, might reverse the relationship between the two teams, making the US team the stronger team, and the non-US team the development team. So I do think there are many barriers to the USL competing directly with MLS. But little things like USSF designations certainly isn't one of them.
The more foreign you make your league the less likely average Americans will pay any attention. I know that I would never support a team that was just a farm team for some foreign club. I have a feeling most Americans would agree with me.