Future of the New York Cosmos

What a Cosmos future without the NASL could look like

http://www.thisiscosmoscountry.com/...ture-without-the-nasl-could-look-like-part-1/

 

Yep, got to think they wouldn't be accepted into USL, but because of territorial rights of MLS clubs, not because USL is afraid of Cosmos' money like the article suggests.

I don't think NASL will crash, anyway.

PS: I loved the part in the article where Red Bull might sell NYRB because they might need cash to "promote their European sides to greater heights!"

 

Yeah, IMO that article is nicely written, but pure fantasy. No non-league team is getting a stadium in this day and age. If the NASL folds (looking less likely right now) and MLS doesn't want them (which they don't want the team and don't need the name), they go the same way as the old Cosmos.

 

http://fiftyfive.one/2016/10/hofstra-ruled-nasl-exploring-options-soccer-bowl-final-site/

 

This won't actually be an issue.

FC EDMONTON TAKE ON MIAMI FC IN THE 2016 SNOW BOWL AT CLARKE FIELD.

 

A quick and what option?

I love the idea of them being a barnstorming team. And by that, I mean I chuckle every time someone even mentions it.

 

The whole article is pointless speculation; as if after spending millions to restart the club the owners would turn away from the NASL.

THE issue for the Cosmos is building a stadium, we all know how difficult that this is in metro NYC. I'm surprised the team hasn't threatened to formally withdraw from the Elmont site in a last gasp effort to nudge the state in to action. The state has stalled them far too long for the hint to be anything other than obvious.

What's next is moving on to another site and starting that process sooner; it's needed.

 

It is not so much that the Cosmos would turn away from the NASL, but rather that there is a chance (though it seems more stable now) that there would be no NASL for the Cosmos. But yes, this whole conversation is speculation.

 

A. Considering the state of the NASL at this point nobody will approve a 25K stadium. B. If there is any truth to the MCU park rumors, the Cosmos need to leave the suburbs and move to Coney Island, nobody is going to travel to the middle of nowhere to see them there. There is a reason Islanders are playing in Brooklyn now, and RBNY struggled with their attendance.

 

Just join the MLS already

 

Yeah, it really is just not that easy. MLS has to approve it, they need a funding source and owners, they need a stadium plan, and the other two MLS teams in the area have to appove. MLS just added NYCFC, the odds of adding a third team so soon are incredibly unlikely. And in the end the real question is why MLS would want them? A team that could not make it in spite of spending wildly in America's largest city, why would MLS want to have them jump up? Just for the Cosmos name?

 

It's not "the MLS."

 

I fear the Cosmos are just about done, having heard the rumors that they lost millions in the last four years there would be no way they could stick around, unless they're sold to someone whom has a more realistic vision of how to grow the club. If they could keep the B team and play in the PDL and also keep the academy going, that would be a win in my book. We still get to see good soccer, probably not as good, but better than loosing them altogether. The academy would supply the team with players and keep community engaged. As Cosmos supporters all we can do is cross our fingers and wait. There's always Brooklyn Italians and Rough Riders.

 

Join the NPSL as a team, might work since that league is stable. But I don't think the current ownership would be willing to do that. Personally, I feel like we are just waiting for the final announcement that the Cosmos are done (barring an intervention). It like those stages of grief where we are trying to negotiate a better outcome that is out of our control.

 

Cosmos B are already in the NPSL, would just need a simple name change - just like Atlanta did.

 

It's really is a nasty feeling. It was great to have a game to look forward to every week. Personally I will try and follow BK Italians, and if it's in Mitchell Field I'll se the Rough Riders. There's also College, St Francis' doing well .... this blows.

 

After the folding of the original NASL, the original Cosmos attempted to play as an independent team. That attempt lasted all of three games before the Cosmos folded, too. What reason is there to expect that it would work any better this time?

 

Price of oil went from $100+ to $40/50. Hidden owners pulled out.

 

Yea about that....

 

Hopefully they'll find a buyer with a better plan for the future. I'm not sure how lucrative 2nd division footie is in a market like NY though, but if there is a group that's truly serious about a real plan with possible MLS expansion in mind, then maybe something might happen in a few years. Biggest mistake was not pushing for MLS expansion, but it's possible that Sela simply did not have the money to do what MLS wanted them to do. In the end, their plan was very dubious. Had they spent their money on competing within their means and marketing properly/trying to build a fanbase, they might have been sustainable. I don't know how much NASL pushed them into this idea. What's ironic is that the primary movers in the creation of NASL were already on their way out when the league was formed so the ideology of the league served their purposes given that they had no long-term plans to remain with the league and it was merely a stepping stone to set up a jump to MLS.

Now that USL has proven sufficient towards this along with MLS' assistance with loan deals/etc, more teams seem to be moving their resources there. I think that it's sad how this entire situation was managed and it sullies the legacy of the original NASL, as I maintain that that league's demise had more to do with the era that it was created and the inability at the time to push for things like sss and the like, while this one had every advantage to survive long-term had they not been infected with this desire to compete with MLS. Like I said, I'm of the opinion that the Cosmos/NASL share the blame for this as their ideologies each infected one another. Current MLS teams like Montreal set this league up in a manner that suited them at the time, but they always knew that they were leaving. It would have been wise for those teams left behind to take a step back and understand that they would ultimately have to find a way to attract membership from less ambitious teams in order to survive.

I had hoped against hope that their plan to build a stadium might get approved if only to determine if the Cosmos' owners were being truthful about their plan to remain in NASL long-term or if it was merely a ploy to try to reengage MLS from a stronger position and try to negotiate a better buy-in. Building a stadium in NY might have been a strong bargaining chip, but it was always a long-shot given that a city that already had limited space for stadiums and had thus far shown MLS the cold shoulder was even less likely to do so for a team that would be considered "minor league" by general sports fans. Still, I hold out hope that a truly ambitious ownership with the right mentality and a love for the Cosmos legacy might emerge to try to save the team and make a real effort to buy into MLS. That depends on how quickly MLS intends to expand. They seem to be moving up their time-line lately but it still is unlikely that they'll be moving to 26 teams until sometime during the next decade. If the Borrough Boys and fans of the Cosmos come together, perhaps they can either persuade a moderately wealthy NY investor to take on the team like how Adrian Hanauer was a bit of a caretaker for the Sounders brand for so long. I would have hoped that Sela would have sold the team before shutting it down, but they really ran the brand into the ground pursuing a very unrealistic plan. It was fun for the core fans while it lasted, but it wasn't sustainable and it showed no eye towards any future planning outside of a miracle run at a stadium for a D2 team and a USOC title which could segway into a CCL run. All very shaky things upon which to base the future of a franchise on.

 

I don't think that this is a realistic or even wise option this time around anyway. Unlike then, there is currently a league in which they could have potentially played if they had an eye towards continuing, and had they not burned their bridges with MLS. For all intents an purposes, the sport as a whole was not in the same place that it's in today which makes it perhaps more difficult and unreasonable to attempt it today since there is a large selection of opportunities for fans to watch the sport both locally and abroad in actual leagues. Back then the Cosmos could be seen as filling a void, which would definitely not be the case today.

Their only real options would be to join a league, but obviously not under the ownership that they had. In addition, they had owners back then with much more financial capabilities than Sela apparently has (we never really did get a real feel for who their actual backers were.) For all that oil prices are drying up, that doesn't seem to be hurting the Quataris or the Russian oligarchs. Anyone based out of a country that used the oil boom to set up soveriegn wealth funds and diversified their investments should be okay. Bottom line, they had a bad plan which made little sense, and they probably just needed to go seeing as how their ideas on making the Cosmos work were failed from the beginning.

There was value in the Cosmos brand for those nostalgic enough to want it, but it also required that they make a deal with MLS to fully leverage it. Anything less merely ended up doing more to kill whatever cache the brand had left rather than aid it. Going alone now... the brand isn't even in the state that it was back when they originally were forced to fold, there sport is much more robust in the modern era which means that there is more competition domestically and abroad so noone will be as focused on having them back.

I think that the Cosmos supporters have been pretty proactive in standing up for the people who are the real victims in this; the unpaid staff and workers who had kept this team running for what might be months without compensation. Their GoFundMe campain to pay the staff is commendable and shows that they truly cared for the club more than it's owners did. They cared for the well-being of the brand more than it's owners did. What's sad is that they came in, brought it back to life only to leave it all in a worse state than it was before. It would have been better to leave it dead than to attempt to come back in the manner that they did. Not that I agree with the idea of leaving the brand dead if there was a smart plan to bring them back, but given that it's clear that this was not the case, it's sad to see that they were the ones to make the attempt.

It's also sad that NY can't seem to find local ownership groups that have ambitions for the local scene that go beyond ridiculous flights of ambition or self-promotion. Not that I have anything against NYCFC or Red Bull, at least they're properly running their teams, but it seems that there might not actually be a NY version of Adrian Hanauer who wants to begin with a manageable growth plan. If this is the case then perhaps this GoFundMe campaign might morph into a crowdfunding campaign to possible purchase the brand and the team from Sela and run it as a 2nd or 3rd division fan-owned team with a plan for a public offering prior to a potential MLS bid. It would be a unique idea unseen in the US outside of the Green Bay Packers. Granted, MLS is run by a former NFL exec, a league that deems such ownership set-ups illegal despite the fact that their sport is the only one in North America with such a set-up. I would be interested if this is not the next stage for Borrough Boys and other interested fans of the Cosmos or if they're just going to go by the wayside and look to support other teams in other leagues or perhaps NYCFC.

That all depends on how many fans remain in NYC for the Cosmos and how much Sela would demand for the brand. Considering that they've tanked the brand worse than when it was lying dormant it shouldn't even be worth the cost that they paid for it but I wouldn't put it past them to just sit on the brand until their rights to the name expire and who knows when that is. If they do nothing with the brand then it should run out more quickly since entities that don't protect their brand can lose it, but they'll probably continue to sell t-shirts and jerseys for a few years in order to recoup their losses.

http://www.empireofsoccer.com/cosmos-supporters-demand-team-sale-wages-paid-56092/
http://www.empireofsoccer.com/cosmos-fans-launch-gofundme-campaign-for-teams-unpaid-staff-56103/

 

My thoughts are all with NY Cosmos fans, my team - Pisa - folded twice in the past. I know how it feels and I really do not wish that to anybody.

 

Grazie mille amico