I woke up this morning to see there is a group trying to bring a WPS team to Orange County. They say based on avergage league attendance .. Fullerton College would be an option.
I'll post it later. I really hope they call it The Los Angeles Sol at Cal State Fullerton or something sumilar. It also important that we bring Back Marta and Boxxey. I Know the contracts would be Expensive. If we bring back that Core Sol team the hard core Members of the old Sol supporters Would come out in force.
That would be awesome since I live in Fullerton,CA But seriously? I hope they do consider it, though I love The Home Depot Center, I suppose if playing at Cal State Fullerton meant we would have a team again and lower costs, I say go for it. CS fullerton from what I read on here, has a soccer field or stadium though I've never been to it. IF they brought back the "LA SOL" and put them technically in Orange County, I wouldn't be too against it. I want the LA SOL to stay as the LA SOL. The Players I wouldn't be too picky about, I mean I would love to have Marta and Boxxy...and Miyama, Falk, Abily, Cox, KK and Bock back. I mean that was THE TEAM! Unfortunately Marta and Boxxy I think are under contract for sure with Gold Pride unless something happened, we might have to settle for what we have. Again, I don't know cause didn't everybody on here say that expansion wouldn't happen until 2012 anyways? so who knows if the league would even last that long to have the LA SOL back... I keep hoping though
http://sports.yahoo.com/soccer/news?slug=ro-notebook110310 Well it looks like Marta is coming back to SO CAL. GO SOL.
According to Scott French ( ESPN LA ) the ownership group will meet Friday to decide whether to form a team for 2012 or even 2011. http://espn.go.com/blog/los-angeles/soccer/post/_/id/4468/wps-in-so-cal-2012-maybe-sooner "The league likely would accept an Orange County expansion team for 2011 if the group had the funds to acquire a franchise and pay the "liquidation" fee to fund a full season. That fee, a league source said, was slightly more than $1 million. "
Very interesting. Particularly since there were rumors that this (near mythical) OC group might buy FCGP and relocate them south. That deal fell through (if it was ever really an option).
Geez, while I admit more is better in terms of number of teams right now, I seriously hope they don't try to make SoCal2011 happen. There was already a lot of talk about how late the acceptance of WNY2011 was, I'd be kinda scared to see how quickly thrown together a SoCal team would be if they tried to be ready for April.... Nice article, though. Large investment group (in terms of number of people involved) is very good, and cool to see Rogers back in the picture. Also interesting tidbit about Marta - I wonder how many teams in addition to NJ view her as being around their 'pay scale'.
Actually, Scott French and Jeff Kassouf took away sharply different impressions of what Thomas Hofstetter said (or French's article contains a typo). Kassouf (linked here) quoted NJ's Hofstetter as saying that while Sky Blue was seriously interested in Marta, she "is above our pay rate" (not "around" it, as French reports). Kassouf's interpretation makes a little more sense to me.
"We [at Sky Blue] looked at it, seriously considered it, and made the decision that most likely she is about our pay scale." IMHO, the "about" is a typo which should have been "above".
I agree with you. Kassouf said "above," French said "about," STT said "around," and I got it a little muddled. But a typo in the French article is the most likely explanation--it certainly makes the most sense in context. Probably a typo that was (mis)corrected with spellcheck. What a difference a little word can make, huh? Back to the main topic of Orange County as an expansion prospect, it sounds like a good thing could happen there, but I'm with STT in hoping that it's not rushed. So we have an established team in Chicago worrying about getting all the paperwork done in the next 30 days and, at the same time, whispers of a potential new team springing fully formed into WPS in about the same time frame-seems a little ambitious, but then again I know very little about all this. Crazy business.
http://espn.go.com/blog/los-angeles/soccer/post/_/id/4772/o-c-group-waits-on-wps-brings-in-wpsl-team So, just skimming, looks like a bay area team plus an LA team, both named "Sol", in the WPSL, rather than WPS, for '11. Then, hopefully a Southern California team in WPS in '12.
Wait. Two teams? Does that mean both teams will look to transition to WPS for 2012 (provided there is a 2012)? Potentially, that is massively huge.
I didn't get the impression that both Sols would move to WPS (notice the singular "a WPS team" in the first sentence). If that were to happen, one would have to be rebranded I would think - and one ownership group covering two WPS teams sounds really unlikely to me, considering A) most ownerships groups are having trouble keeping just one WPS team afloat, and B) if this ownership group is strong enough to consider two WPS teams, what happened to them saving the Pride, and why are they going for two amateur teams for 2011 instead of one pro team? (Yes, I know it might have just been deadline issues. But if the group is that strong I don't see why some things could have been bent a bit, like CHI's escrow extension.) Anyway, I think we're definitely looking at one SoCal WPS team for 2012, not two. Which actually makes me wonder what will happen to the "other" WPSL Sol team the group controls. Will it be dropped? Treated as a feeder team?
One possible consequence of this plan for a WPS team in Fullerton in 2012 could be that some players with SoCal roots may be saying to themselves " I'd like to play for the new Sol in 2012, but I also want to play somewhere in 2011". Players like Shannon Boxx, Rachel Beuhler, Carrie Dew, Ali Riley and others could consider signing a one year contract for 2011 so that they would be free to sign with the Sol in 2012. A similar situation exists for Alex Morgan and Christen Press, since both grew up within 30 miles or so of Fullerton. Acquiring players like these would certainly give the new Sol a chance to "hit the ground running", but the other teams involved in 2011 may be unenthused about the idea of "renting" a player for one year.
Well, considering most players sign one-year contracts anyway, I don't think this will be much of a problem. While most of the "big-name" players do have multi-year (or one-year-with-option) contracts, there's enough talent in WPS that you can build a perfectly good team without relying on those players. Heck, I think PHI is an excellent example of a great team with no true "big-name" players. Oh, I missed that, thanks! <reads> ...pro-rel between WPS and WPSL? No, for all the same reason there won't be pro-rel between MLS and <name your division II league here>. Otherwise, nice article. Well, equalizersoccer.com's most recent Thursday Quick Kicks article mentions that both WPSL Sols are planned to continue to play in 2012 and beyond, serving somewhat as feeder teams to the WPS Sol, and - this surprises me - that both will pay players on par with WPS. Ambitious, to be sure. I'm interested to see how well this plan plays out.