I heard January 21st is the date. There are 2 schedules; 1 with Milwaukee and 1 without. What a crime if for the 2nd year in a row a team that played in the Final wasn't even around the next year!
I have it from a trusted source that it might be as late as February now. The League is doing a back-up schedule just in case the Rampage fold. I would think they would be taken over by the league first though, it's too good of a francise to let fold.
From a 12/31/2002 article in the Milwaukee paper, when asked about the possibility of the league taking over the Rampage, a la Vancouver, A-League czar David Askinas said this: "I don't think in this situation we would do that," Askinas said. "That (Vancouver) was in-season, and it was a situation where we had some good leads." The same thing can be said about the Mariner's situation last spring. The season was underway and when a team is on the verge of blowing apart, those types of scenarios really are league emergencies. The whole season is in jeopardy & HQ has to step in. Milwaukee's situation is different, it's the offseason and as much as I don't want to see any club go away, it puts all teams at risk if the league runs a club for a whole year. The USL can't have a lot of cash to spare. Askinas goes on to say that maybe Milwaukee sit out a year which would give the league time to drum up some new owners and transition properly and in an orderly fashion. Here's the entire newspaper article. http://www.jsonline.com/sports/socc/dec02/107069.asp