Here's a great piece from Adam Spangler discussing some future fantasies with the USL/MLS relationship. A long article but like always, very well written. There is no doubt that if a relationship like this is formed, the quality of play in MLS will rise dramatically over time. Having a minor league where draft picks straight out of college can get professional experience instead of reserve games would be a vast improvement from where we are now. Clubs would also be able to send all their reserve players into this minor league. This would grow each club's depth because they would be able to call up players into the major league team that are playing weekly at a decent level of play. all in all, it is an article for dreamers, but that is what many of us MLS fans are. we dream of the huge potential of growth in our sport
So in other words, it's like baseball. I have always thought that was a viable option if there couldn't be a pro/rel situation here. It works great for baseball. In fact, minor league baseball is sort of a hot commodity these days. They're not terribly expensive to operate, and stadiums aren't that hard to build, if you only need 7,000 or so seats. They have affordable ticket prices, wild promotions and a family atmosphere, and the occasional hot prospect shows up every now and then. It's a culture unto itself, and there's even a famous movie about it. I see no reason why soccer can't build a similar type of system. I think it would be our best way of competing against the Europeans, just by using the baseball model.
And ideally these affiliated clubs would be located as near to the MLS team as possible to create affinity between the smaller market, and its MLS daddy.
I can see the advantages of that, but I'd promote having them in different areas that are not already served by an MLS club. That way you don't have saturation and you promote the league in places where an MLS club doesn't exist or is too far away. For example, our A baseball club is affiliated with the Astros, but we're much closer to Cincinnati. Still, this has had no effect on attendance or enthusiasm for the team. In fact, Roger Clemens' son plays for that team, and Roger himself had a rehab start in our ballpark. Once MLS becomes deeper with talent, you might have an injured star play a "reserves" match at a farm team's stadium to develop fitness before returning to the first team. You might have a Cincinnati Kings be a farm club for Columbus, a Rochester for RBNY, or Charleston Battery for DC United for proximity, but then you could also have an LA Galaxy or Houston farm team almost anywhere in the country and feed off the interest of that squad at this time.
For MLS to both cover the US, and ever have a chance of competing with the elite leagues, it needs to do something like that. A 30 team American league would never hold a candle to the 18-20 team Euro leagues in my lifetime. I wrote a similar suggestion, with a twist, back in June: http://bluebloodedjourno.com/?p=96 As for MLS blowing off decent enough media outlets, it doesn't surprise me. They want to hoard all their info, put it out with their own spin, and then they wonder why no one takes them seriously.
agreed. i thought it was upsurd to not answer a few questions, it's not like their too busy to take 10 minutes out of their schedule.
If MLS were to do this, I'd really like to see them go with local teams as opposed to haphazardly placing them about the country like with baseball. I know that would make things a little interesting when it comes to areas with several teams (LA, eventually NY) but I mean if London can support like 11 teams, New York could probably do like 6. Something along the lines of (an example): MLS: New England Revolution (hopefully in Boston) MLS2: Hartford MLS3: Providence MLS4: Portland/Western Mass/Cape Cod/Somewhere in NH? I know that's a hypothetical and would a long way down the line, and it would finally put an end to Pro/Reg which I was kinda hoping for, but this would make the most amount of sense. With youth setups and talent development, we could use these other teams/competitions as a true manner for development. And it could start with simply adding another rung at a time, as these players need to come from somewhere.
This all sounds great to me. I think setting up a minor league system and having local clubs in communities across the nation are vital. Right now most soccer fans in the US still disregard MLS as a joke. Setting up minor professional teams in different cities would show that MLS actually does have very talented players. In addition, these teams would have reserve teams that the area's best localers could play for. Maybe once in awhile one or two make it up to the minor league team. Increasing interest in local soccer and building up small leagues is a way to really establish MLS as the premier and top league of north america. Raising the cap wouldn't hurt either.