The National Independent Soccer Association, a D3 league intended to participate in pro/rel with NASL eventually, is set to launch in 2018: http://midfieldpress.com/2017/06/06...onal-soccer-league-expects-to-launch-in-2018/
Peter gives numbers! So he thinks he can get 10 teams by next year that can sell 3,000-5,000 tickets (maybe not right off, but having that potential). The NASL is having trouble getting teams that sell 5,000 tickets. But part of it makes sense. An East Coast/Midwest league split into two divisions should keep costs down. He says that travel differences account for only 2-3% in differences in budgets, but that must be assuming different kind of bus travel, not bus vs. plane.
I wonder if Chicago might be an NISA team instead of an NASL one. I would assume there are a number of venues that could sit 3k.
Throw out the pro-rel hype and its not crazy. There always seemed to me two reasonable ways to develop a league from scratch. A national league with a big splash at the start, which requires a lot of central coordination and control - the MLS way. The other alternative was to be small and very regional and let it grow over time. This way the need for centralization is less. Of course, it would likely take a long time to grow to sufficient size, and it might never get there (which is why MLS didn't go that route) but it makes more sense then being caught in-between; a league with regional finances trying to compete in a national market.
well speaking of reflecting poorly on San Diego...we now hear from Yan: http://www.upslsoccer.com/news/united-premier-soccer-league-announces-pro-premier United Premier Soccer League Announces Pro Premier Division Expansion with San Diego Zest FC A day ago UPSL’s First San Diego-Based Pro Development Team Agrees to Join for 2017 Fall Season
1/2 D-Day for new 3rd division pro soccer league i'm helping launch. @NISAleague https://t.co/hTuwESYsEK— peter wilt - @pwilt1.bsky.social (@PeterWilt1) June 6, 2017 2/2 in depth article w/my Q&A on @NISALeague by @kivlehan of @MidfieldPress https://t.co/qiYhJM1mNz— peter wilt - @pwilt1.bsky.social (@PeterWilt1) June 6, 2017
The more attempts to start teams, with some sort of standards....the better. Many won't stick, but hopefully quite a few will. Between this and the USL D3 project there may be some hope with regards to filling in the soccer map across the country.....in some sort of rational form. Even if one league goes belly up there will be a place for the well run clubs.
I won't disagree with you there. And frankly even tangentially I'm not happy to see him sticking his nose yet again into the San Diego soccer scene. That said, if these guys are pro, they're thus far the only pro game in town.
That is a surprise. I'm hesitant to say that NISA could work. But Peter Wilt has a good reputation in soccer so I will give him the benefit of the doubt. Either competition lifts both D3 boats in the future or we will be using 'internecine' in a sentence. Then we will see that the ASL become the king of D3! Just make sure it's "Done Right!" (all respect to Kenn)
Theres really no neutral forum for it (yet) and they are apparently very friendly to both NPSL and the NASL. My gut says at this point its a NASL friendly league, but adversarial to USL, hence why its here.
The article/interview posted by the OP certainly makes it sound like this league is intended to align with the NASL. There are a lot of questions to be answered. With zero teams currently finalized with nine months to go, it is easy to see NISA missing the spring 2018 launch date. There would be a ton of legwork to do even if they announced their 8-10 teams today. The USL's D3 league is also still highly conceptual, though they have given themselves until 2019. NISA feels like an attempt to rush to the D3 scene to try to beat USL to the punch and establish themselves first. To be honest, it feels rushed and a little bit desperate. But the future of D3 is still very much up in the air. I think we'll get a better feel for how the situation is going to play out based on the groundwork that each league is able to lay over the next 6-9 months.
Their ownership model seems more similar to the nasl so that could be the origin of their friendliness Glad they have a business model for owners to consider or adopt and this might help stabilize the membership
Or, you know, it could be Peter himself, who ran one NASL team, was almost the commissioner at one point and is running what amounts to a temp agency that got Orange County (and presumably San Diegosomething) hired. Note they directly say they have no agreement with anyone to do pro/rel. And the NASL would have to actually exist by the time the NISA magically comes up with its 24th team.
No trolling, asking seriously. What happens if NASL does not get D2 sanctioning for 2018? Will they co-exist as D3 leagues with NISA?
I think the NASL teams that don't go to the USL to stay in D2 will go to this league IF they want to keep going. I could see Miami, PR and probably the Cosmos go here and this league then begins to start the process in becoming a viable D2 instead of feeding team to the NASL. Just a gut feeling.
I think this would be a good test of the startup league. People make far too much about the differences between div 3 and div 2 (or even div 1). What matters is the business model. If Wilt's league has teams selling between 3k and 5k tickets, that's mostly what the NASL is now anyway. The difference, from the sound of it, is that one league is designed to be national and one regional. If that's the case, the NISA should not accept Puerto Rico (or Edmonton, or San Francisco). It goes against their strategic plan. I'd love to hear the story about why this happened so fast. I get the feeling that Chicago to the NASL wasn't going to work, so if Peter was going to stay involved, he pretty much would have to build his own league.
You may be on to something there, Wilt said that he'd probably be the commish of this league. He also said that Chicago NASL needs to be done right and if it can't be then he wont do it at all.I think its not happening and he's focusing on something that could help the NASL in the long term but I'm not certain the NASL will be around when this league gets to that point.