If he actually got these teams to sign up for this then I can almost guarantee you're going to see a whole lot of B team and youth players making up the rosters of those team when they do play. There's no way they're jeopardizing their main players for a glorified friendly tournament.
I already posted in another tread, but maybe CONCACAF should think about dividing Champions League in 3 Regions: - NAFU: 16 clubs - US 8, Canada 2 and Mexico 6 (4 Groups; R4 and R2. TOTAL: 7 games) - UNCAF: 14+2 Mexican teams (no mexican team in CONMEBOL competitons) - CFU: 16-32 teams With this maybe US and Canadian fans will give this international competition more atention/importance. In the end a CONCACAF CUP Winners CUP with 4 teams in a host city in US or Mexico (each teams plays agains each other one time. The top 2 advance to the final game) Let's say this was the model for 2016-2017 Champions League US teams: NY Red Bulls, FC Dallas, Columbus Crew, Portland Timbers, Seattle Sounders, DC United, Sporting KS and Philadelphia Union Canadian teams: Montreal Impact and Vancouver Whitecaps
This tournament is a very ambitious idea, but one that will be hard to pull off. If Silva can put together a sponsorship package that pulls in between a quarter and a third of the UEFA champions league, that will catch the attention of the Mexican, Brazilian and Argentine teams. Everything else could fall into place from there. I think those are your three key leagues to attract. A 64 team tournament is about right, and I would structure the first phase to be broken into CONCACAF and CONMEBOL brackets for the first two rounds and have them join at the third round. That should minimize travel costs. I would also probably avoid home and away matches and just do a draw to see who is the home team in match up. Round 1 would be a group phase with 8 groups of 4 teams in each of the CONCACAF and CONMEBOL brackets. The CONCACAF bracket would consist of 32 teams: Mexico - 6 teams USA - 6 teams (MLS supporters shield, MLS Cup winner, MLS East/West conference winner that didn't win the Supporter's shield, US Open Cup winner, NASL Soccer Bowl winner, NASL combined season table winner) Canada - 2 teams (Voyager's cup winner and runner up, until the C-League is ready in which their winner takes the Voyager's cup runner up spot) Costa Rica - 3 Honduras - 3 El Salvador - 2 Guatemala - 2 Nicaragua - 2 Panama - 2 Trinidad & Tobago - 1 Jamaica - 1 Two top finishers of a qualifying tournament among champions of countries not represented above (Cuba, Puerto Rico, etc) - 2 The CONMEBOL bracket would also consist of 32 teams: Brazil - 6 Argentina - 6 Colombia - 4 Chile - 3 Uruguay - 3 Bolivia - 2 Ecuador - 2 Peru - 2 Venezuela - 2 Paraguay - 2 Round 1 would see the top 2 teams in each group advance to Round 2, which would be 16 teams in each bracket or 32 teams overall. Round 2 is a knockout phase that takes to 8 teams in each bracket and 16 teams overall. This leads us to Round 3, in which the final 8 from each bracket are drawn against a team from the other bracket in a knockout round. From here we advance until the Final. If Silva could get together the sponsorship money to significantly separate from the Copa Libertadores. As of 2014 the winner of the CL took home about US$5.25M in total prize money across all the rounds. You'd need the finalists to take home about US$15-20M each, about 25% or 33% of what their peers in the UEFA champions league take home to make it a more compelling tournament for Mexican, Argentine and Brazilian teams than the CL, which has a lot of history. Here is the prize money for the UEFA champions league, I would structure the prize money similarly: http://www.totalsportek.com/money/uefa-champions-league-prize-money/ UEFA has about 1.257 billion euros divided up a couple of different ways. The two finalists took home about 60 million euros each in 2014-15. If this tournament can get say US$300-400M to divide up, that may work. A tall task for Silva to organize, but if he can raise the prize money, it could be a game changer for clubs across the Americas. And if he lands NASL those two berths above, it will be a game changer for NASL including his own Miami FC.
Silva said somewhere he projected the winning club to receive about $30 million in U.S. dollars. Well above the what you said was needed. It's a tall task no doubt, but I don't think its as impossible as some make it seem. It would be a very cool event to watch as well. COMMEBOL would do it simply to tap into the North American market which would be far more money than the Liberadores. Like you said too, if the NASL can get even a single direct birth to this tournament it would be huge for the league.
And how many of the countries you're giving 2 or 3 or 4 slots to are sharing those slots with their 2nd division... What about the 3rd division do they also get slots in Brazil and Argentina...or maybe here too... 3 slots for MLS 2 for nasl...ridiculous unless you're implying that Silva as organizer get some special preference... On a 1 - 10 likelihood scale what is this...1.5...2...
Just looked it up, his initial plan was the tournament would receive upwards of 500 million in TV/marketing rights with about $5 million going to each participating club and $30 million to the winner.
100% saying Silva is organizing the tournament and he is likely to influence NASL getting into the tournament since he owns a NASL team and it would be in his financial interest to do so. If that means MLS doesn't want to participate, no problem just put more NASL teams in.
Just to play devils advocate here but division 2 in the U.S. Isn't the same thing as division 2 in other countries.
That's ambitious, he could probably make it work with a little more than half that and maybe grow into that one day if it is successful.
Yeah looking at the numbers, the CCL and Libertadores only gathers about $100 million combined. The financial benefits should attract clubs from each confederation. So even if you only get half of that $500 million dollar projection, that's still a lot more money than what the Libertadores or CCL is gathering combined.
You're right... Compared to many countries US/Canada D2 is unstable and inauthentic (multiple clubs and even the league taking on names of D1 clubs from a generation ago and pretending they're the same clubs)... The top MLS clubs would find such a tournament extraordinarily daunting...what purpose would be served by sending clubs that would find MLS daunting... Letting nasl clubs in because of the organizer would call the integrity of the tournament into question... And with all the hanky-panky that's being addressed in world soccer at the present time hard to imagine the explanation for letting unqualified teams into a tournament just to appease the guy arranging the financing... Paging Loretta Lynch...
Well way to avoid what I was getting at nicely. In most countries D2 clubs have a way to qualify to the top flight and therefore qualify to whatever champions league we're talking about. U.S. D2 doesn't have that so they are stuck at the D2 level. The NASL is definitely better than several of the Caribbean or Central American leagues, I don't think it's out of question to give them a birth outside of the US Open cup. 2 births could be pushing it but I don't view the NASL getting a birth as out of the question.
I guess we can't all be brand extensions for energy drink companies or colony teams for an EPL club. That's much more authentic than bringing back the most successful soccer club in the history of New York sports. LOL, Red Bull New York and NYCFC fans have no credibility on the issue of what your club is named for. Sorry Don Garber sold out the New York metro area MLS franchise slots and you're stuck with those two choices as a MLS fan.
I would imagine that USSF would be given control of the distribution of entries into this tournament. As a result, they would want to set it up in a way to ensure that they send the most competitive teams possible. Therefore, they would never give any direct entries to the 2nd division, especially if USL attains D2 status as well. The only realistic way in for NASL clubs is through the US Open Cup and that's the way it should be. They could send the two finalists of the USOC to increase NASL's chances of sending a club, but as of now no NASL club is better than 14+ MLS teams, so given them an automatic berth is not in the best interests of US Soccer. Making teams prove their viability through competition against the top clubs (USOC) is the only way that makes sense. If someday the NASL earns USSF D1 certification, then that changes the equation and I would think some type of playoff would be needed after sending each league's champion.
In the very least we are who we claim to be...New York Red Bulls funky name notwithstanding... Bolded above is the rub...that club hasn't been brought back...some British guys mistakingly thinking there was big money to made from the name a generation later has assembled a (quite good) D2 club but any connection to our old home town team from a generation ago is tenuous at best... The good faith declaration would have been to say that this is a new different team that has decided to adopt the name to pay homage to a great team from the past... Playing in a league falsely adopting the nasl name and putting stars from the '70s on nasl cosmos uniforms is frankly playacting and giving them a slot based on carrying a famous name from the past would add a carny aspect to this proposed tournament...
One....they aren't stuck. They don't have the financing or chose not to go that route. I understand that this argument can be made in a circular fashion ad nauseum based on viewpoint, but that isn't my point. There are teams who have made the choice or don't have the muscle financially, or who want to cash in without making the commitment others have. Like it or not, that is the way it is. If you don't want to accept it "just because" that is fine to, but reality is the world I try and live in....even on the net. If you can't see the incredibly rudimentary, obvious reasons against " well, the NASL is better than a lot of Carribian leagues, so why not", esepcially when one of your main points is pro/rel and everyone else does it like that.....I can't help you. If you want to go down that great internet road of....I'll ignore what doesn't help me and hope no one brings it up, and bring up what benefits me when convenient then fine. Your choice. I only say this because you seem more level headed and I expect you to think about it reasonably. If you want this tourney to mean something in any way, and have teams treat it with some form of respect, other than name only, play youth and reserve teams and try to money grab, than it has to be a real comp with real standards. If you are just gonna invite teams willy nilly, fans, and teams TBH, will treat itlike so many of these projects of the past....not worth their time or money. Only way is if the money is so huge, and guarnateed, no one will be able to say no, and as usual the talk is big when it comes to that, reality never matches the talk.
The main reason I could see the NASL getting entry in the tournament would be the man organizing it owns an NASL club and is invested in the league. We can ignore that and say it's the USSF's decision but Silva will definitely have influence so it's tough to just completely disregard it. I just don't think adding one NASL team into one of 6 American slots would be killing the credibility of the tournament. I think that's hyperbole when most people wouldn't care at all. I just don't see how you are correlating having one NASL team to just inviting random teams willy nilly. Like my post earlier indicates the money would probably be really big, more than doubling the amount of the libertadores and CCL combined and that's assuming Silva only gets half of what he's projecting.
Silva's investment in the NASL is very small in comparison to his overall sporting portfolio and even in relation to the proposed value of this tournament. He is not going to push hard to get an NASL club a direct entry, and surely does not quite have the influence over USSF to force their hand. As for the tournament overall, this is an idea that has been proposed forever and I hardly see Silva being given too much control over the tournament when Concacaf/Conmebol can basically say "F-U" and launch this without him.
If they could get the money without him, they surely would have already. If he can raise $300M in sponsor money, he will have some sway.
Do you really think conmebol will leave and make it without Silva over whether an NASL team gets in or not?
I don't see where that money comes from without a strong commitment from all of the top clubs and organizations throughout the region. No significant TV deals will come about. If the clubs and confederations are strongly on board, this would have happened already and Silva is not needed.
No, but the USSF will object i'm sure, and Silva will not have nor use the influence to get his little NASL project involved in what would be a massive project.