Absolutely right. Getting old and losing track of time. MLS was bundled with the 2006 WC, which is why they recieved money. Still nothing substantial, but went from a net negative to a net postive...no matte how small. Spanish rights were there, but bvery small. They treated MLS much better than ESPN ever did. My point remains, and I am not getting into an internet kerfuffle. A limited understanding of the game here, and where it was and is by previous poster. The thought that MLS was ahead of these other leagues and was "caught" is downright silly. Not worth a discussion considering how off base that is.
I would like to see MLS-NASL merger. Then the USL could be used for the 2nd and 3rd divisions. All B/2 teams stay in D3 and aren't eligible for US Open Cup . I would like to see as well a 2nd domestic cup. Maybe just MLS-NASL-USL teams, Kinda like the English League Cup, they could call it the USSF Cup
I think part of that is actually possible. I don't think ALL NASL teams/markets would gain entry into MLS, but a split between MLS and the USL 2nd division is very possible. I don't really agree with requiring the B/2 teams to stay at a level below D2, (I think if there are teams with great development practices and areas producing pro's/stars at a higher rate, let that development team play at a higher level (provided they are winning adaquately at the D3 level and can move up). Why stunt the growth of talented players on a squad that may be the best in D3 by disallowing them to face better competition in D2? Ideally, the independent D2 squads have a bigger payroll and have more talent and keep those B/2 squads from being really competitive and likely being "relegated" back to D3 more often than not. A 2nd cup is probably not necessary at this time ... the Open Cup would likely need to gain some more noteriety before we needed a 2nd tournament (just to have a 2nd tournament). I'd love to see the D2 and D3 schedules increased (like "the Championship" in England). More games to develop more players at a higher rate. If the D3 gets more regional, the more likely this makes sense IMO.
Nice contribution to the conversation, your soccer knowledge is unbelievable, you sound like a 13 yr old
A NASL /MLS merge debate is not relevant to this discussion. There are other threads in the forum for that.
Being that Prime is a mod one of his jobs is to make sure threads stay on topic. A MLS/NASL merger is not the topic of this thread. It's pretty clean cut. No need for an arguement. Also I think this topic is all but dead for now. We haven't heard anything about this since the initial report 3 or so weeks ago.
in other news, since USSF decided suddenly to require time zones to the equation going forward for D2 sanctioning, i am hearing that NALS plans to make LA Aztec announcement this week. Which would make them compliant for having clubs in 3 time zones.
Suddenly? They had that for years. The only thing that changed was that they made the 3rd time zone Pacific time. Before all it said was 3 time zones requirements, so many of us also looked mountain time zone possible cities, but now USSF regulations want a pacific team.
For years, huh? All the way back to what, 2010? 2011? They just required a west coast presence that was not required last year. So yeah, suddenly. A bit convenient that at the time they "clarified" the requirement to be pacific time zone when NASL didn't have a team there, but did in the mountain time zone.
Not in the USA, that is what counts. Before we used to argue that Puerto Rico should count, but we do not think they ever did, so as far as USSF is concerned, NASL did not meet the old 3 time zone rule even with Edmonton in the league.
The NASL's Mountain Timezone team was in Canada, which means it never counted for USSF sanction. As far as USSF sanction for a USA second division was concerned, the NASL only had teams in two USA timezones when the change was made: eastern and central. Your conspiracy theory doesn't work. Not. One. Bit.
I still see no reason behind the change, is mountain time not good enough (say El Paso)? as you expand you eventually want to go to the pacific, more areas to place teams and such, makes business sense. I just do not know why the change (or why not just say all 4 continental time zones), but the USSF makes the rules, so it is what it is.
You do know that about twice as many people live in Pacific vs. Mountain, right? The USSF evidently feels that a D2 sanctioned soccer league in the US should be a national league. They feel that this means they should have teams which span the whole continent. The way they decided to make this a specific and measurable rule is to force a D2 sanctioned league to have teams in the 3 most populated time zones in the US. If they say that a D2 league has to have teams in all 4, then a league would be forced to have a team in a large (geographic) region which has <10% of the national population. Nowhere are they saying that a D2 league can't have a team in Mountain time. There is nothing to say that there couldn't be a D2 sanctioned league where there's one team in Pacific (Las Vegas), one in Central (Omaha), one in Eastern (Indianapolis), and the rest in Mountain. USSF is just prioritizing regions of the country (using a rather weird definition for region) where >90% of the people live.
Sure and from a business sense it makes sense to have teams in the pacific, it just seems weird IMO that they made the change from 3 zones to 3 specific zones (perhaps is not out of the blue and was discussed with the leagues prior to the change). But is not like NASL had any Mountain Time team lined up anyways, so in reality it makes no difference.
Perhaps they realized that they had left the door open? They definitely had already left a door open by having published minimum standards for D2 sanctioning, but not for D1. The wording in the previous standards was vague about whether or not teams actually needed to be in the US to count for the timezones. In this latest revision of the standards, they decided to explicitly close that. Since they were amending the standards anyways, they then decided to make it explicit what they wanted with regards to timezones. It also could be that they just plain changed their minds about what they wanted. Organizations are allowed to do that just like individual people are.
True, the new ones are more clear than the older ones and more comprehensive. With all divisions and Women's leagues included.
It would be interesting if NASL just moved a ward of the league like Atlanta to Los Angeles for the Fall season, just to meet the requirement. Turn it back over to Wynalda there. I would rather see a real LA team and Atlanta stay in place, but it's one way to solve the problem.
I don't think it makes good business sense to keep the Atlanta team in Atlanta. They simply won't be able to compete against the MLS team. They got some time to figure out where to move them, but moving them to LA, San Diego, etc. would be a good choice in my opinion.
I find that requirement to be a load of bullshit to be honest, and it doesn't align with the fact that the other requirements for D2 teams apply to the Canadian based sides (such as financial, bonding, size of market, etc.) All the requirements are for D2 teams across the board, except the physical location of where the team plays...that only applies to US based teams?? Seriously, that makes no sense at all. USSF already allows Canadian based professional teams to be sanctioned here. Therefore, why doesn't the time zone of Edmonton get to count towards where the league's teams play? The answer is there is no logical reason it shouldn't. Which gets us back to changing the rules to require a Pacific time zone team. I get that from a business standpoint having a national profile makes you a stronger league and a presence on the west coast is desirable, but that is a different analysis to whether it should be mandatory. Why is USSF making this a requirement now? Unless you buy into the idea USSF is trying to help NASL by forcing them to expand into west coast markets (which i don't) the only plausible reason is they changed the rule because NASL at the time of the change would not be able to comply (provided they did expand within 2 years) which means they are essentially forcing NASL to expand right now (takes 1-2 ears to get a franchise from concept to on the field usually) to keep their D2 status. Gee, guess what league is rumored to want D2 sanctioning and has teams that can meet that geographic rule change right now? Come on people. I am no tin-foil hat Ted but you have to admit this all looks a bit suspicious.