Jesus they're the soccer equivalent of chess pawns. Just being thrown out as a means to an end (staving off league collapse) while none of them have a chance in hell of surviving beyond a year, if that! NPSL to NASL end masse, this is going to end well. Presuming any of them even make it to the pitch. I mean weren't half these teams NISA hopefuls a few weeks back?
Here is the actual article for the crowd here to attack... https://www.soctakes.com/2017/10/16/multiple-teams-sign-lois-2018-nasl-season/ Atlanta had also signed a letter of intent, but had done it beforehand and is one of the groups mentioned in the lawsuit filing. As for them not taking the field next year, one of them is Detroit City. The only question is about their primary investor, but you can safely assume they'll take the pitch next year...and will survive the year as well. As for the others, they're all current NPSL clubs. I would guess that a few of them start in Spring 2018, including Detroit, a couple of others in the Fall 2018 and New Orleans in 2019. It's a BIG leap from NPSL to NASL in terms of....everything. I get a feeling that @Peter Wilt is somehow involved in this with his Club 9. I hope so....he'll let these clubs know what they're getting into. This assumes there is an injunction handed down (won't speculate on that since I'm not a lawyer). As much as anything, this is designed to play to the judge as well as a possible investor in San Francisco who the league has been talking to in an attempt to save the Deltas. It's actually smart PR from the NASL to "release" this the same day we find out about Edmonton and San Francisco. Taking a page out of the USL book.
I'm starting to think that the court case is more about the name NASL than anything else. There is more, but an independent D2, NASL or NISA in name will probably play. The composition of the teams will please and disappoint with success and failures both on and off the field, as always. It's wasn't possible 20 years ago to see all that has happened with the various D2 leagues. Did anyone think Sacramento, Cincinnati, Indy, and Louisville would be as successful as they are? Kind of amazing, right? Which current NASL teams survive is TBD; will Rocco play only if it's NASL? Will EDM play one last year? PR take a year off after the hurricane? NC stay or go to USL? We'll know soon but I think there will be some league for the teams to play in.
NASL has resorted back to the original leagues expansion strategy. Add as many teams in the offseason and see what sticks. I also find it funny NASL fans are excited about this after they bitched about MLS, USL, & PDL poaching teams.
Whether leadership likes it or not, if NASL really want to survive long-run they need to hit the pause button and take a year or two to regroup. This is just looking far too desperate. Seems to be the MO for Boca Raton teams, no?
So are the Rowdies... I see the club is owned by Heizer Unlimited but I have no idea what that is. Interestingly, on their web site one of the sponsors is a Brazilian restaurant which is here in Orlando.
These are clubs that were looking to step up a level, not one league trying to poach teams from another league at the same level. That's the reason I had no problem with Minnesota going to MLS, it's a step up. The only club in this bunch that I'm really excited about is Detroit City. They're one of the two or three jewels among the teams in either PDL or NPSL. I'm more looking forward to seeing New Orleans join in 2019 than any of the others mentioned.
I think you're placing too much faith in Club 9. Nothing we've seen so far would lead me to believe Wilt is letting these poor suckers know what they're actually getting into. Nor that any of the NPSL ones really have the financial resources to survive more than a year. There are a bunch of Deltas in that group for sure.
You may not have had a issue, but you know there was a ton of people complaining about it. I just find it funny that those same people are excited with NASL taking NPSL teams.
Edwards is a nutter, but has money. Heizer is just nuts. And they're not talking about "stepping up a level." This would be a two level jump and one most NPSL teams simply could not make. I am reasonably sure Boston and Arizona cannot and absolutely sure Boca Raton cannot.
It may be that the ongoing talks with the USSF makes accommodations that allows the NASL to operate for a few more years. I wouldn't bet to heavily on all those clubs joining the league too soon. If the goal now is to get to 12 by 2020 the slower prudent approach to vetting new teams the NASL employed all this year shouldn't change. I just think this whole sanctioning mess comes from a lack of communication. Would Rocco be suing the USSF if D2 was maintained? I don't think so. This could have and should have been avoided. And no more nutters, thank you!
Fair enough. Speaking from the experience of a fan whose club was in talks with the rival league for months before making the move, I don't like the intra-level tampering. But it's part of life when you have competing leagues, as it is anywhere you have competition.
I don't know how big Heizer's checkbook is. If you've signed a LOI to join a league, I would hope that you would understand the requirements to join that league. It's possible he has more money than we think....that was certainly the case with Bill Edwards. You seem sure that he doesn't and I'll take your word for it. The second part I totally agree with. There aren't very many teams in either the PDL or NPSL that could make this move in terms of both infrastructure and money. Obviously Detroit is one of them on the infrastructure side, but even they needed a big money person to step in (I assume that's what happened, we just don't know who it is). I also know New Orleans checks off all the boxes, but very little about the rest of the groups that were listed. As to @athletics68 's point, it doesn't really matter whether it's Club 9 or not, it just matters that someone gives them the lowdown on how much it REALLY costs. But even having gobs of money doesn't guarantee success, as we've seen in San Francisco. That's why I don't worry about Detroit or New Orleans, they've been looking into this for a while and go in with their eyes wide open.
I don't worry about Detroit (if they can find the investor they seek), but New Orleans? They have done what, exactly? Eyes can be wide open. They can also be bigger than one's stomach. I find it funny that you believe just having an idea that this is hard means you don't have to be concerned about their chances. What, has every other failed club's management had blinders on? The woods are littered with the bones of people who (thought they) did due diligence, were told how it would be, did it anyway and failed (sometimes spectacularly). The jump. From amateur. To pro. Is huge. And has not. Been successfully. Pulled off. In any sustainable way.
So reality would be you MIGHT have two replacements for the two lost teams (EDM and SF) provided they survive. The rest are literal shit being thrown at the wall...
Also the San Diego group just dropped their name... 1904 FC Don't know whether to laugh at how stupid it is or applaud their cleverness...
We have no idea what it is yet. We don't know anything about financials, stadium plans or any of that stuff. The reality is that you're ASSUMING a lot of things based on your feelings about the NASL. And there you go again with a shot at Detroit..."provided they survive". What do you have against Detroit City? I happen to think they're one of the great stories in lower level American soccer...sorry that you don't. Bottom line, all we have are LOIs. But we do know that when Rocco said in his legal brief about other teams filing LOIs that they couldn't reveal, these teams (Boca Raton, Virginia Beach, Hartford, Boston and Arizona) were who he was talking about, with Detroit and New Orleans already named in the suit along with Atlanta.
No I'm assuming things based on the groups applying, who are all coming out of NPSL. These groups NEVER have a clue about the financial hit they're about to take by "moving up" to D2/3. And they invariably fail as Kenn pointed out. And given the dire situation for NASL... ie: they need warm bodies to stave off complete collapse, I've no faith they've done any kind of real vetting on these groups like they should. It should be telling that several of these groups are ones that were just going to dip their toes into higher level ownership with D3 NISA in a year or more only to be rushed into a hopeful D2 NASL? If that doesn't concern you, your NASL rose colored glasses are pretty damn fogged up.
New Orleans has been fairly successful as a lower level club and wants to move up. So does Detroit. So do the others that filed LOIs. So does Chattanooga for that matter. Should they? I don't know, time will tell. But because other clubs have tried and failed doesn't mean they should just forget about their ambitions and stay in the NPSL forever. If the owners want to do this it's their money. Am I concerned for them? Sure. What's the first thing you learn when you start a business? Everything costs twice as much as you think it will. But doing your homework means that you're not as surprised when the bigger-than-expected bills come due. I can't speak for those other clubs that tried and failed. Just like there's no "right way" to do things, there's no single answer as to why a club fails. Was it ownership hubris? Was it incompetent management? Was it a lack of money? Was it a lack of understanding of the market? Or is it unforseen circumstances - like what happened in Austin and may happen again in Puerto Rico?
I answered a bit of this above already... Yes I'm concerned, because if it fails then we're back here again in a year or two. Or the league dissolves altogether. The vetting is much stricter than before...but you knew that already. Again, these clubs have already explored moving up. Detroit looked into both levels, so did New Orleans. The others have explored moving up as well, but I don't know how much they looked into D2.
This is Peter Wilt's vision for an independent pyramid using pro/rel... http://midfieldpress.com/2017/10/18/vision-and-plan-to-use-prorel-to-get-us-soccer-on-track/
The vetting WAS getting stricter... but that was before it became apparent they were going to lose D2 status if they didn't expand immediately. Standards have apparently gone out the window based on who they've selected to join... And yes some were exploring moving up... but that means jack. Teams explore moving up all the time. Historically, they either don't. Or they do and die in the attempt. If as you say we'll just be back here in a year or two when they all fail... then what's the point of staving off failure. Just die already.
My concern for these NPSL teams is that if they are moving up with their current ownership groups, most are destined to fail because they simply do not have the money to incur the losses that will come along with increased travel and player expenses. This has been the problem for lower-level teams moving up for decades now. If they do have new investors coming on board, my fear is that a lot of them will be foreign, wooed by the seemingly booming US soccer culture and NASL-contracted headhunters. They bring an infusion of cash, but when they see that minor league soccer in the US is really hard, they may bail (see Rayo OKC and the pre-Rocco Cosmos, among many others). Foreign investment in minor league soccer has a long history of poor results. Now, if a team is well-funded by devoted American investors, then some of these teams might very well work out in a hypothetical post-2017 NASL My guess is that of the 8 new teams mentioned above, probably at most three survive past year three, if that long. That's not even discussing SD and OC, which are wait-and-see for numerous reasons.