The All-Encompassing Pro/Rel Thread on Soccer in the USA

But we are in the world that that world created.

 

They are current phoenix clubs in those places. Fine, the US has more of them than England. Is that what you want to hear.

 

The USL Championship currently has the following teams in MSAs smaller than 1 million:

Charleston
Colorado Springs
El Paso (CSA over 1 million)
New Mexico (CSA over 1 million)
Monterey Bay

So the league already meets the D1 market size requirement.

 

Bury and Macclesfield were raised ad nauseam on here as examples of how pro/rel leagues cause more instability. Meanwhile, as you point out, entire closed leagues in the US have disappeared...

 

Good to see a pro/rel team - Wrexham, of course - briefly feature in a Superbowl ad. Of course, I was the only person in the group I was watching the game with to notice that

 

And that world includes the current health of the USL Championship. The majority of the clubs in the league would likely never have been founded without the entry of MLS reserve teams solving the league's critical mass problem.

 

CSA's incorporate about 500 cities in the U.S. I think the chances of more than 25% of teams in a D1 league coming from outside those areas is pretty low but if there's a chance of that happening, and your league is financially stable, you just lobby USSF to adjust standards or provide a waiver.

Media markets definitions are even more generous.

I don't think the $40 million primary investor wealth is a big deal for existing USLC teams. They already have a $20 million requirement. The idea is to ensure clubs are financially stable and don't flit in and out of existence like Rayo OKC and SF Deltas.

And if you want to run a successful D1 club with a 5,000 capacity stadium you may want to think again.

Anyway the D1 standards are arbitrary and could be changed. That's why there's a working committee.

USSF PLS prevented NASL 2.0 from becoming a D1 league that was right. The whole NASL saga was embarrassing. If USL came up with a D1 proposal I'm sure it would be a lot more robust. If that involved small amendments to the PLS, or waivers, I assume they would be considered.

 

This might be a hot take but I think MLS will buy USL and NWSL will buy USL Super League. what do you think MLS is trying to make a D2 league?

 

I don't think MLS will buy USL while Garber is in charge. He's trying to recreate NFL.

 

Is he? I remember him taking over for Logan in 1999 or so.

 

Ooh, I love Logan's Run! Michael York!

 

Mls business model is groups buy a share of it then get to play. I cant see them totally reversing course and buying a league.

 

So what do you think is going to happen if MLS is going to try to create a D2 league?

Different conversation but I don't understand why people think that adding Pro/Rel into MLS is going to somehow improve the quality of youth development. Also if adding Pro/Rel will show how improve the quality of players and make money then why has USL not added Pro'Rel?

 

I don't think MLS cares about a sanctioned 2nd division. They see it as Major league, and Minor league, they hve NextPro so that's their "2nd division". I could see them competing with USL by putting independent NextPro teams in USL cities but again don't see that leading to a 2nd division.

Look back to the DA. That final year, all the MLS teams, no matter how poorly they did the year before, were in the top division, while teams that spanked the MLS teams were moved to the lower division. I think they'll be happy with MLS, MLSNextProd, MLSNext for the yutes.

P/R in and of itself isn't going to improve the qualit of youth development. A system that incentivizes developing players that will either A) become players for your professional team
or B) become players for other professional teams, who will pay you a transfer fee (and training and solidarity if outside of your federation) seems to improve the quality of the youth developed.

That also incentivizes teams to pick the coaches that are known to be able to guide players development, and scouts that have an eye for intake. No point bringing in 50 12 year olds every year and having to bring in 48 14 year olds in 2 years. Sure, maybe only 5 of each coort of 50 every play senior football, but that's 6-8 years later.

The pipeline here seems to be develop youth to go to college. LIke my local team has an "academy" but it's not part of the USL team pipeline. They sometimes put a kid on the roster for publicity in his senior year to get mop up minutes, but the kid then goes off to college. If the "academy" has a big social media presence around "Kid WhoWeFoundat16, is continuing his education and soccer career at school that doesn't offer scholarships so we've really just added a huge price tag to the process of walking on at your local college", it's not real.

Great for the kid, not disparaging their work, effort, ability. Strong pyramids have big bases.

MLS has improved on this front over the past 5-7 years, really since the Yedlin lawsuit and PA Classics declining their cut of the Pulisic to Chelsea money. The recent announcement of MLS agreeing to pass on some amount of money if a kid they lured away from the cannon-fodder MLSNext affiliate gets a transfer fee (that the cannon fodder club would be entitled to anyway under training & solidarity) shows more growth. I mean, plantars warts and cysts are technically growth...

 

Rochester Rhinos won the Open Cup in 1999. They are the last US team to win the current Domestic Cup. How does that compare to England, @Crawleybus?

 

Do you think Pro/Rel is needed to improve youth development and grow the sport?

 

I think youth development could improve without implementing pro/rel. More actual academies tied to pro teams where the goal is make the senior team or be sold to someone else to make their senior team doesn't require pro/rel. USSF allowing training and solidarity to be passed on to non MLS clubs doesn't require pro/rel.

I think the sport would grow everywhere in the country with a pro/rel system. Regional leagues up until the 2nd division, maybe conferences in the 2nd division, national travel for the 1st division. You'd be starting wit soccer fans, and maybe converting casuals, instead of hoping to make out of market casuals into soccer fans.

If you were hoping to make out of market casuals into soccer fns though...or at least get them interested in a soccer team in the same way a lot of Americans have a "team" in the big 4 plus ncaa football and basketball that might not be from their hometown...

I think the sport would also grow with a regularly schedule OTA broadcast window. LIke NWSL is always on Saturday afternoons on CBS, getting 1 MLS game a week where people could watch it for free would have to help. People outside of Texas became Cowboys fans because in the 70s and 80s every Sunday they'd see them on CBS. I mean an epidemic of the head injuries required otherwise would have been noted in the medical literature, right? Gonzaga wasn't mass mailing literature and free sweathshirts about their spunky mid major basketball team, people watched them do better in successive march madnesses (maddeni ?).

 

Who's going to stop a state like California from getting 5+ teams without destroying another market that is trying to grow?
There's many other ways soccer could grow without Pro/Rel.

 

There's much bigger ownership in USLC than people realize.

Birmingham has a guy that's co chairman of ALTEC IN (3.5B revenue company)
You've got the Spurs
Riccardo Silva

You've got folks that own/run/partner in capital investment firms. Wall Street investors, dudes that own MLB teams, sport holding companies, folks that own engineering firms etc

There's not really much stretching for USLC clubs to have a principle owner of 40M (as a group).

 

A prerequisite for any consideration of an automatic pro-rel system between the amateur/part-time ranks and the pro leagues is a professionally run national organization, with a plurality of teams, building an amateur pyramid where the top clubs are capable of stepping up to the pro ranks.

There seems to be no inclination among amateur teams to create that but it has to be bottom up. MLS and USL aren't charities.

 

A lot of USL owners appear to real estate developers who include soccer stadiums in their development proposals to gain community support.

They're smaller than minor league baseball stadiums and they're not dependent on some major league executive's approval. $40 million isn't an issue.

If the US soccer footprint benefits from real estate investment that's a good thing.

 

You're one market short of describing the current state with MLS. LAFC, LAG, SJE, SDDisloyal.

Have fun with that...

 

That sir, is juvenile. I thought you were better than that.

 

So been meaning to get back to this point sorry about the delay.

So I still don't think the size of the country is really a hinderance for pro/rel. The leagues themselves can and will determine their schedules based on what works for their clubs. That can be the same in a closed setup or with pro/rel. So really we are only talking about the promoted clubs.

If I am hearing you and others correctly you are saying that the promoted clubs can't afford the different schedules. But when they move up they are now playing a schedule that is affordable for the other clubs already playing that schedule and they now have access to the increased revenue of the higher level. So I still don't see how this is a major issue.