Well, let’s break this down: what’s the better business decision - temporarily bankrolling a team until the two expansion sides come online in the fall, or risk the league’s sanctioning by having 7 clubs play?
Are they even making better business decisions at all? Appease the twitter cadre of eurosnob fanatics, being a feeder league for teams that go to USL and throw junk at the wall and see what sticks aren't better business decisions. Stumptown had several months of missed payments to vendors and players. The Spring season is supposed to start when, like weeks from now? What about their amateur league? And the two other teams planning to join? Chicago House AC, Plumbing and Heating? Teamsterz? Flower City Union Herald?
Do you have a better way to implement and execute it? It worked for a successful professional soccer league here. Not their model. NISA has no idea what they're doing. Decentralized and "independent" from each other which makes badly run teams like Stumptown and 1904 exists.
Which league, specifically, are you talking about? It is absolutely their model to create a strong league system for independent clubs to contribute to the growth of. Articulate what you think their "model" is. Says rando on internet. What do you mean by "decentralized" here? Given the circumstances that have arisen since they started, how has the league's structure caused problems? How did they not meet the needs of their member clubs? Most leagues everywhere have "independent" teams. Are you saying that if they just paid huge league fees to a private equity firm that they would only have incredibly well run clubs like <checks notes> Charlotte Independence?
MLS. Oh yeah, Cosmos, Stumptown, Atlanta, Philly, Miami, Oakland, 1904... Real contributors... Such strong league system... Rude. How about paying your players and vendors on time? The "everything is up to the independent clubs themselves" isn't working. Weak central governance. Teams struggling to self-sustain and stabilize the league structure. Who cares? Meh, the franchise model is the fabric of all American sports. Even the Euro leagues have private equity firms. Welcome to professionalism. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-23/german-soccer-league-said-to-kick-off-private-equity-stake-sale?cmpid==socialflow-twitter-tech
How do you propose funding a single entity model at D3? Single entity absolutely depends on burning tons of capital with expectation that it will eventually pay for itself. You will never see that return in D3, but you still have all of the enormous upfront costs. MLS made it past 2000 because it was the premier soccer league in this country and soccer was poised for enormous growth. It still required a roomful of billionaires being patient with losing many, many millions of dollars. Tell me more about Miami Fusion, Tampa Bay Mutiny, and Chivas USA. Or maybe just Reno, Fresno, Lansing, Penn FC, or Rochester since we’re talking about strong league systems. Hey you’re the guy saying laying out about $100 million upfront to start a D3 league is a good idea and NISA doesn’t know what they’re doing. Yes, indeed, the problem is a “decentralized league”: https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/marek-warszawski/article239008133.html
Let’s not pretend MLS and USL came charging out of the gate at full stride, healthy, stable, and with no questionable decisions or missteps. Only the most most competent teams and ownership groups.
I'm not going to purpose anything. Just that NISA's current model isn't meant for long-term sustainability, where the teams can invest in its structure and growth. For now it's an exhibition league for one and done teams trying to dip their toes in the professional pool and ones that move on to USL. Disagree? Have at it. Those who fail to learn from (American soccer) history are doomed enough to repeat it anyway. You come as awfully surprised yet oblivious. Money involved in professional sports???? Building a professional league is hard work. Executing it consistently is another story. Lots of money involved. Lots of risk. No one has figured out how to implement a soccer league in a better way than MLS. There's no such thing as a strong league system. Clubs/leagues fail all the time in any place. Yep, if you want to move goalposts, I'll do the same. https://www.uslleagueone.com/news_article/show/1136153 Granted, USL and MLS aren't the same.
What makes you say this? Is the EFL meant for long term sustainability? They’re more or less similar models. Miami and Oakland leaving isn’t the signal you are making it out to be. USL-C is above NISA. If you’re upwardly mobile and have the means, there is zero point in the sweat equity that NISA requires. Is USL an exhibition league for teams to move on to MLS from? If we’re using the same criteria, Orlando City, FC Cincinnati, Nashville SC, Sacramento Republic (whomp whomp) would make that case. It’s noteworthy that nobody has left NISA for League One, though. This lecture would be meaningful if American soccer’s historical failures were for making the same mistakes over again or if NISA was repeating them. Odds are against NISA simply because the odds are against any startup league. 50% of all businesses fail within 5 years, and most of those don’t require 7 other startups to succeed to keep in business. You missed the point with this. Of course money is involved: major league sports might actually eventually recoup the investment. Lower leagues are far less likely, so you can’t rely on massive startup costs. Yes. Which is why a lower division single entity league won’t and can’t happen. You have to distribute the expenses and risks. *top division soccer league from scratch Wait, what? I thought you were just saying that the only way to succeed is a strong, central league system but now there’s no such thing? Pray tell, how did I move the goalposts? NISA’s “system” supposedly enabled Stumptown to fall behind on payments. And yet, here’s a franchise in a strong central league system leaving bills unpaid when they fold. Not sure your point with the Fuego: an unrelated organization is moving in at the level below the team that folded, somewhere in the same in same market. What is this getting at?
Who knows. They bought their franchise from the Eagles in 2014 when franchise fees would have been worth almost nothing. They pay $225k annually to play in the league, though.
The Premier League was founded in 1992 by century-old megaclubs that wanted to a huge share of TV revenue to themselves. Every professional soccer league that predated MLS were heavily influenced by copying what Europeans did in their leagues and failed every single time. Only MLS single-entity structure and USL's franchise model managed to survive. Don't jinx it dude! If done right. And in NISA, there a lot of expenses and risks and little ROI. *Professional soccer league from scratch. MLS has a strong central structure, not system. We have three professional soccer leagues with different structures and ways of operating.
Which is why I used the Football League as the example, not the Premier League. Name one since WW2 and tell me its similarities to Europe NASL 1.0? ASL? USISL? NASL 2.0 This is true of any non-major sports league. This isn’t somehow exclusive to NISA. Your argument doesn’t seem to be against NISA’s model, but against lower leagues altogether.
NISA is taking its own approach. The leagues that developed from loose affiliations of clubs were regional in nature and never grew beyond their roots. The leagues that subsequently tried to expand nationally failed. The most leagues that took a centralized approach were more successful but of course most of them failed too.
The Football League was formed from existing teams and absorbed established teams from other leagues. After 70 years it had a maximum wage of about $400 a week in today's money and minimal travel costs compared to the US. At that point they were using stadiums built before World War 1. It also had zero competition as a full-time professional league. Even the there were only a couple of teams that regularly made a profit, Manchester United and Liverpool. The youngest professional league in Europe in the Bundesliga, which was formed by the German FA, including successful well supported amateur teams such as Eintracht Frankfurt who were European Cup finalists as an amateur team. The leagues that have been successfully formed since NASL 1 failed include the K-League, J-League, A-League, Chinese Super League and Indian Super League.
It would be simpler for NISA if they were isolated to east of the Mississippi or something (and that would work for D3), but part of the challenge of getting a league running is finding 8 teams ready to go at the same time. And if your choice is 5 teams in the eastern time zone and 3 in California or nothing, you have to roll with it, because the odds are you won’t find 8 again.
Point being that the United States had over 100 years to establish a professional league and with a system alongside. ASL were one of the early ones. Other lower division leagues are doing just fine, its just that I don't see a path forward for independent, Euro-based minor league soccer except for a case by case basis depending on the market.
You guys are nit-picking two sides of an argument that can not be resolved because, basically, you can have either side of the argument and never concede a point to other. So....What....? NISA is going to do things the NISA way; some teams will fail, some succeed; its nothing new in <DI football in America in the 21st century.