I'm going to go on limb here and say Michigan will probably fold before any USL consideration. Their website removed all tickets and match schedules now. Why would USL allow them into their league after this?
Well, yes. It was always a snowball’s chance in hell for getting in USL, but this is basically salting the newly installed turf at their construction site of a stadium. I mean, they pulled out of the MWPL, too. About as childish as humanly possible. Not sure about their UWS teams. It does suck for their players, though.
This may be controversial but I'd suggest this wouldn't have happened if they'd paid a $10 million, or even a $1 million expansion fee.
Multiple sources tell us Carrie Taylor is stepping away from WISL, NISA’s planned 2nd tier professional women’s soccer league. This is a developing story, and we’ll be inquiring about WISL’s plans for the league going forward ASAP.— Protagonist Soccer (@ProtagonistUSA) May 19, 2021 I’m sure this won’t come as a surprise to anyone.
"MAY WE ALL EXPERIENCE WORLDWIDE EQUALITY AND LEAD THE NEXT GENERATION TO GREATNESS WITHOUT A GLASS CEILING OVER OUR HEADS. Let’s make it so." From the WISL home page
Protagonist Soccer @ProtagonistUSA 3m @NISALeague announces the Saturday, May 22, match between Stumptown AC and California United Strikers FC at the SportsPlex here has been postponed to June 15 due to positive COVID tests among a number of Stumptown players
The big difference with Europe of course is that their players are signing their first pro contracts at 15 or 16 while living at home or in very basic club accommodation, while Americans are signing their first pro contracts at 22 or 23 by which time they may already have a family and definitely not willing to sleep to or 3 to a room in a stranger's house or dorm.
Paul Kennedy @pkedit 12h Soccer is back in full swing at top amateur levels after being almost entirely shut down in 2020. Right now, four leagues (USL League 2, NPSL, UPSL and NISA affiliates) have 440 teams playing vs. 388 in 2019. (I'm trying to assemble a spreadsheet breaking them down by state.)
https://www.nisasoccer.com/news/202...up-returns-with-bigger-more-competitive-field NISA INDEPENDENT CUP RETURNS WITH BIGGER, MORE COMPETITIVE FIELD Field Expanded to Nine Regions, 36 Clubs
Jeff Rueter @jeffrueter 1h BREAKING: MLS is finalizing a plan for a new league expected to apply for U.S. third-division sanctioning, sources tell @MLSist and me. The league would launch in 2022 with over half of MLS clubs involved — plus potential independent members. Report: https://theathletic.com/2626561/2021/06/01/mls-third-division-league/
So rather than absorbing the already established D3 USL league they're going to create another D3 league... This'll go well. NISA in particular might as well just fold now.
Seems like it will have a far bigger direct impact on L1, seeing as 1/3 of the league are currently reserves sides.
I mean it'll have an impact there too. But frankly I think it's going to completely upend D3. When the major league gets involved with the minors it tends to drown out any other minor leagues that happen to share the same space.
True, but any word of all four of those leaving? I can't see FC Dallas 2, Inter Miami 2, Revs 2 leaving, Toronto 2 probably will. The article did say multiple MLS2 teams would remain in the USL in 2022.
Those are more likely the competitive Championship reserves sides: RB2, Monarchs, maybe Loudon, since they’ve got their stadium with no toilets or whatever. I can possibly see NTSC staying, but the rest of them in L1? Don’t really see why they would. It’s that there’s basically almost no possibility of a club cross-shopping joining NISA or this league, whereas with these public/private partnerships that USL’s L1 expansion is leveraging might find the idea of MLS more attractive than USL. NISA’s scruffy low standards might actually give them a market whereas USL’s higher ones might run smack dab into MLS’s. Really hard to speculate at this point, though.
If there were independent teams in the new MLS D3 league, they could be affiliates of MLS Next youth clubs. E.g., Cal United Strikers, a NISA team, is the pro affiliate of Strikers FC in Irvine, a current Boys ECNL club that is reportedly moving to MLS Next for next season https://t.co/hfmA6igUib— Steven Bank (@ProfBank) June 1, 2021
Sure, and that scenario somewhat makes sense, although it really comes across here as a hypothetical. You could just as easily imagine Cal United being used as an example for a NISA D2 league. The point is that Cal United angling for an MLS Next Academy isn’t the norm among NISA-aspirant clubs/investors. If they think the pivot for their academy, which I assume bankrolls the pro men’s side, is enriched by aligning with the MLS league, it makes some sense. It’s not much different, in that regard, to Miami and Oakland jumping to the Championship (which I contend is the far greater threat to NISA, if every club with a following and promise jumps to it once they’ve established themselves). The difference is that USL L1’s standards are especially high for D3 (above and beyond PLS). They’re catering to a different investor. Would NISA welcome these sorts of investors? Certainly, but they’ve chosen a different strategy: achieving stability by lowering the bar to entry, and attracting enough clubs to lower the costs across the board by regionalizing. Yes, the product will be, on average, less professional, but through volume, you’ll find enough quality clubs to carve out a D2. Obviously, it’s a risky gambit and remains to be seen if it can work. USL is swinging the other way: vetting the hell out of ownership groups and accepting those that can, superficially at least, make the product look functionally no different than the Championship. That’s fine, but it naturally means expansion is going to come much more slowly and is much more costly: there is a lot of lobbying of public/private groups to ensure the stadium plan stays on track, etc. Like what was to become the Championship, reserves sides are useful filler while you bring enough sides up to regionalize and one has to assume that they were counting on this strategy while they build out a league footprint, especially out west. The issue, however, is that the USL brand, when compared to MLS, is more along the lines of Buick. When faced with what it’s priced against, does it exude the near luxury of other brands (e.g. Acura, Lexus, etc.)? Who will these public/private partnerships prefer, given the choice. The public side almost certainly doesn’t see the difference between this and the local MiLB franchise. In that case, the MLS probably looks like who you want to hitch your wagon to. Or, to put another way, NISA will always have the Kia set to lean on.
Kia's are more popular than you think. My better analogy: NISA is Mitsubishi. They exist, but not as a popular brand as some might think. Might attract a few sales from the 20 dealers nationwide overall. MLS is Tesla, since both companies are newcomers into this world, and picked a lot of steam since then. USL is Nissan. Not great, not terrible. Is it still around? Yes. Reliable? Yes.