The first stepping stone for NISA is getting enough. teams in a particular area to start playing a full season and that's difficult when the season clashes with NCAA. That's basically what NISA Nation is about. From the home page. ASSEMBLING GEOGRAPHIC CLUSTERS OF CLUBS WITHIN 400 MILES THE EXTENDED YEAR-ROUND LEAGUE FOR ALL TOP QUALITY INDEPENDENT CLUBS. THE NUMBER OF REGIONS WILL BE DETERMINED BY THE CLUBS WHO COMMIT TO THE LEAGUE. AS MORE CLUBS JOIN A REGION, SUB-REGIONS WILL FORM TO REDUCE TRAVEL REQUIREMENTS. NO EXPANSION FEES. NO FRANCHISE FEES. CONTINUE PLAYING IN YOUR CURRENT LEAGUE. I think the second factor is getting people to understand that there's a cost associated with starting a successful football club. Not just wages and insurance, but also the long-term investments it will take to succeed. That means a stadium, and supplemental sources of income, both matchday and sponsorship. To give an example, I don't think Kingston Stockade can succeed playing in a rented public track and field stadium. They'd need a location where they can make money from parking and concessions, including food and alcohol. That means there has to be an up-front investment and that's something the may balk at. But if you go back to England in the 1880s you'll not that many teams that turned professional already owned a stadium and Marks Stadium was one of the reasons that Fall River Marksmen were so successful in ASL in the 1920s.
You’re absolutely right about how pivotal NISA Nation is for NISA to work. There’s a quote about how running a summer league team is “running a soccer team for three months and a t-shirt company the other eight”. That obviously changes completely when you go pro so the purpose of NISA Nation was a way for the team to transition to that mode, without the full out expenses of a pro league. The idea was that there would also be mentorship and some assistance. Such as... I don’t think it’s necessary for a fledgling club to own their own stadium upfront. Yes, you get 100% of parking and concessions, but you have to weigh that against the capital expenses of building it and the trade offs of location, etc. There are plenty of successful teams playing in public stadiums, but it obviously takes some negotiations to make that worthwhile. Other cases may not have have an ideal public stadium situation and perhaps NISA could advise on locations or low cost solutions that can get a club up and running. Maybe they can start with San Diego. :| But all of this is tough for individual amateur organizations to do on their own. As NISA Nation has been pitched and I hope turns out to be is more of an incubator and support network for clubs with aspirations.
The stadium was wrt NISA not NISA Nation. My point was that owning a professional soccer club isn't cheap. If you look at the teams that have climbed the ladder in England recently most have had a major benefactor (even if the ultimate aim is to sell for a profit). This includes Burton, Harrogate, Fleetwood and Crawley. And for each of those successes there are probably two or three failures where someone has lost a lot of money.
Sure, but that feels premature for D3. I just don’t see a lack of owning their own stadium holding back: Tampa Bay Rowdies Colorado Switchbacks Orange County SC Birmingham Legion Richmond Kickers Forward Madison Detroit City San Diego Loyal Chattanooga FC The problem with having your own stadium at this level is that the economics force it to be in a less desirable location (e.g. NCFC, St. Louis FC, Chattanooga Red Wolves) or, for teams owned by MiLB teams, ground sharing the ballpark. And for cities like Rochester, it’s silly not to use the underutilized SSS that’s already sitting there, downtown. I don’t think there are many opportunities for the Rowdies or DCFC to have a sweeter deal than they do right now, regardless of who holds the mortgage. But the lease absolutely has to work for the club, too.
The latest Knights who say NISA break down the Stumptown situation pretty well, IMO: https://open.spotify.com/show/2VCcvJK493KwhKwDPNt8Cl
The Switchbacks sorta backup my point. They're moving into a $35M downtown, soccer-specific stadium which they felt was necessary to "maintain D2 status" (I can't find the exact quote). I think the Kickers and OCSC control concessions revenue. At UAB beer is only sold during Legion games. Bill Edwards actually operated Al Lang between 2014 and 2018, before selling to the Rays. A USL bid in Spokane is dependent on a 5,000 seat downtown stadium which the city would own but the club would operate.
It seems like all of this actually backs my point: Weidner Field is being built by the city of Colorado Springs. (Here’s a reference to what you were talking about, btw: https://soccerstadiumdigest.com/201...-new-colorado-springs-switchbacks-fc-stadium/) Richmond and OCSC are playing in municipal stadiums. Al Lang belongs to the city of St. Petersburg, it’s leased to Bill Edwards’ production company (still, despite the sale of the Rowdies). The point is getting these sorts of terms in the lease. That said, not every city is going to have an underutilized stadium sitting around, but it’s a little surprising just how many seem to.
Back to your original point: this decision is a lot harder somewhere like Kingston where you’re not going have a lot of options outside of high school stadiums and land is pretty expensive anywhere where people want to be. It’s also not a big enough city to realistically justify a 5k multipurpose stadium. So you play in the high school stadium and have a beer garden outside while you figure it out.
Kingston has the fastest rising house prices in the country thanks to the Covid exodus from NYC. As a homeowner in the area I'm thinking of cashing in. But, it's been in the doldrums for the last few decades and I'm sure the city could provide some cheap land for a soccer stadium. There's lots of unused land around the Green Acres golf club for instance, there's even a bunch of under- used grass soccer pitches around there.
https://www.nisasoccer.com/news/2021/03/10/nisa-announces-schedule-for-legends-cup-spring-tournament CHICAGO (March 10, 2021) – The National Independent Soccer Association (NISA) today released the 2021 NISA Legends Cup – a time for legends to rise on the pitch – spring tournament schedule. As announced last month, the Legends Cup tournament will run April 13-25 in Chattanooga, Tenn. Following the season, at the end of June in Keyworth Stadium in Detroit, the 2021 Legends Cup Champion will play the Spring Season Champion on Wednesday, June 30, for the right to play 2020 Fall Champion Detroit City FC for the 2020-2021 NISA Championship. Broadcast details will be announced later this month. NISA clubs will play in three groups during the Legends Cup. Group 1 – Maryland Bobcats FC, Michigan Stars FC, 1904 FC Group 2 – Detroit City FC, Cal United Strikers FC, Stumptown AC Group 3 – Chattanooga FC, Los Angeles Force, New Amsterdam FC
i will go out on a limb here and say absolutely zero legends will be born on the pitch during the legends cup. the nisa is trying way, way too hard.
https://open.spotify.com/show/2VCcvJK493KwhKwDPNt8Cl Knights who say NISA interviewed Rod Underwood, manager of Stumptown AC. Interesting interview, but I can’t believe that they didn’t ask about how the budget works or anything.
Looks like 1904FC are coming back for one more round of embarrassment. At least they had the sense to move to Chula Vista closer to where their few fans live already at fields that have no grandstands to be empty.
Hmm, I wonder how they can do that, given that the minimum seating for D3 is 1k. Maybe they got a waiver as a result of COVID?
They must be running a skeleton crew of no more than 10 employees (not mentioning players/coaches) Social media accounts are practically dormant. Yikes.
Dunno. Maybe they'll bring in temporary bleachers? But as I understand it as the fields stand now in Chula Vista there is no seating. Can't imagine they play with no fans since that's really their only source of income.
Well I wondered if they were basically punting on that in the spring since the COVID restrictions wouldn’t have been clear when they were having to secure a spot. That is, maybe they assumed that they wouldn’t be making anything off of ticket sales in the spring (or not enough to really count on), so they chose a place that it doesn’t matter. That’s basically what New Amsterdam did in the fall (might be what they’re doing this season too - I didn’t notice).