The owner has filed for bankruptcy which suggests that he didn’t have the appropriate money. Rumour has it that the league had to take over paying the salaries part way through the season and that is the reason USL withheld to prize funds for winning the cup. The owners appear to be disputing this - but the owners are launching a bunch of legal actions against various people who claim the owners owe them money. Last season Northern Col averaged 1,522. If you assume an average ticket price of $25 that’s a little under 700k in revenue. The USL league specifies a minimum salary of $2000/month for a minimum of 15 players. So assuming players are contracted for 9 months that’s a minimum of $270k. Plus most USL one teams offer their players some form of accommodation. However my average ticket price of $25 is probably generous AND the team likely had more than 15 players and some of them probably earned more than the minimum USL salary. You also have to pay the coaching staff and other club staff. I would suggest the ticket revenue MIGHT at a stretch cover the basic payroll, although I think that might be a big stretch. There will be some other match day revenue but that is going to be limited due to the facilities available. That doesn’t begin to cover all the other costs - the cost of travel in league one must be brutal, particularly for Northern Colorado who were pretty isolated. All of this is fine if you have an owner willing and able to cover the losses, but it looks like Northern Colorado did not. I would imagine the league knows all of this and decided it wasn’t going to get better any time soon. Plus it’s pretty clear the owner doesn’t meet the $10m net worth annymore and I don’t believe 4Rivers stadium has the 1,000 seats - a big chunk of the capacity is SRO. I think the league is just enforcing its rules by terminating the franchise. It’s a great shame because on the pitch the Snowstorm were a good watch.
Lets not forget team and league sponsorship money (USL signed a bunch of new league sponsorships this year), etc. NoCo had New Belgium Brewing as their jersey sponsor. Terminix is all over both the USLC and USL1 websites for the playoffs. No idea how much money is involved in any of that, but the list of official USL sponsors is interesting: https://www.uslsoccer.com/partners. My only real issue with USL and NoCo is what happened to the money that's supposed to be put down as a bond for ownership? Is that what they used to pay contracts?
-------- And living in Southern California, I probably have been to a game in the majority of those leagues with the exception of indoor soccer which really doesn't mean anything to me. Then when I add in all the levels and teams in college soccer, I have been to way too many games
Yeah I also never got into the indoor game. When the old NASL folded, that’s all there was but the MISL games were rarely on TV unless you had cable channels. I don’t think it was the main reason on why pro soccer failed in those years but I do believe the indoor game hindered outdoor soccer and greatly contributed to the NASL’s demise.
I'm surprised (unless I overlooked it) to see no comments on this: https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/orange-county-fan-ownership-usa-usl-mls-b2560554.html
Interesting, I hadn't seen that anywhere. They've had a partnership for 5 years now, but nothing I remember said anything about fan ownership.
"The perception among English and British fans of US Soccer is that it’s all about MLS, shiny stadiums, corporate soccer - it’s important for them to experience that we can do it without billionaires swooping in. We had three employees and played in front of 120 people when I started. We’ve improved everything with local fans and local community.” So they wouldn't get into the USL Championship these days, which requires $20 million+ up front and a shiny 5,000 seat stadium.
Portland Hearts of Pine reveal their inaugural home kit. https://www.uslleagueone.com/news_article/show/1324432
Transaction trackers for the offseason: USL Championship USL League One (starts with Mark Bronnik signing in Omaha)
USL adds Jägermeister Cup for Championship, League One teams https://www.frontrowsoccer.com/2024...lVtjWSSiAj8muy91Do_aem_jTVvdOAJvqLH2cKt9Tvpvw
=========== So I guess this confirms the USL-C and USL-1 team for next year (expansion wise)? Almost like a league cup when you consider they still play a regular season, the USOC and have a playoff. THAT is lot of soccer even for levels below MLS. Too bad MLS wouldn't ditch the Leagues Cup and substitute a "League Cup" between the 3 professional levels of soccer MLS-USL/C- USL-1. (I don't count MLS reserve league). Then again, I would REALLY settle for a bumped up USOC instead- properly marketed, move the final rounds to Saturday or Sunday, get them on general TV, bump up the prize money, emphasize and build upon the 100+ year history of the cup... oh well.
It's not just Garber though is it? Its the owners complaining about the cost and the players complaining about the travel and extra games for no pay short of the final. And they have to hand over a % of ticket revenue to USSF. I think they could have come up with a better solution though.
https://www.uslchampionship.com/news_article/show/1326105 24 and 14 confirmed for the leagues next year with 6 slated to join the Championship in 2026 and 2 for League One in 2026. The format of home and home against everyone in your group means there's a LOT of soccer for these teams, especially the 7 team groups. It will be fascinating to see how this plays out.
The marketing/TV part of things is entirely USSF. Garber is the talking head for MLS owners not wanting to be involved.
============ Better solution for sure- a little revenue sharing shouldn't hurt. Get them ALL on Apple for starters and make sure your QF ,SF & Final available to all free/over the air. Whatever chunk of change whoever gave to the leagues cup winner could just as easily go to the USOC winner. I mean which would make better publicity? Games between MLS & LMX where it seems half hearted by the players and some club/managers. Would seem LMX players would have the most to complain about being on tour in the USA for 3-4 weeks Or 100+ year cup with great history that needs to be told and when a MLS team comes to a USL-C or USL-1 town- that's big news. That is why cups around the would are such an interesting departure from the regular season. I would think most US born players are more interested in the USOC than Leagues Cup and who knows about the foreign born players. Maybe they know the difference in playing in a made up tournament vs. the USOC, one of the oldest cups in the world (?) Once again , until the "Don is Gone" and we get a soccer person in charge, not happening. Other VP's at MLS can still handle the numbers, it would just be really nice to have the top guy actually understanding and supporting the soccer history in this country.
This is my understanding which could be wrong. Prize Money USOC Total prize money $400k. Winners $300k Runner-up $100k Other rounds $0k Leagues Cup Total prize money $40 million Winners $2 million Runners-up $1 million Other rounds minimum $100k per team per match plus $50k win bonus (split between teams and players) Revenue USOC No TV deal No major sponsors Away teams get $0 of ticket revenue Home teams get 80% of ticket revenue Average attendance in 2022 was 7,984 Leagues Cup Part of Apple TV deal 7(ish) major sponsors Ticket revenue 100% controlled by MLS and Liga MX. Average attendance in 2024 was 17,131 For the fan who understands the legacy of the Open Cup and it's role in the history of US Soccer, the Open Cup is important. But that population is about 47 people. For instance do people understand that throughout its history the Open Cup has largely been an amateur competition even when professional teams have existed. In the 1920s ASL teams boycotted the Cup on two occasions due to costs and time commitments that led to a split in ASL in the late 1920s, which contributed to its collapse a few years later (along with The Great Depression and FIFA opposing player imports). I haven't seen any half-hearted games. Rumors of half-hearted games appear to come from people who don't watch them. On the other hand MLS teams have traditionally fielded B teams and often play at training grounds. There are even loan mechanisms in the CBA that allow teams to move players up from the reserves for Open Cup games. They can fly home between games. Mexico is really close to the US, in fact it borders the US. A history that most soccer fans don't know about or care about and really, unless you have Messi in your team no-one cares that you're in town. Colorado Rapids and San Jose Earthquakes aren't exactly Liverpool (sorry to pick on those teams). I think 200 showed up to Las Vegas v Colorado and slightly more to El Farolito v San Jose. What cups "around the world"? Only about 10 or 11 countries have national cup competitions involving professional and amateur teams. Germany doesn't, Italy doesn't, Spain has had problems getting amateur clubs to take part, Mexico abandoned its national cup altogether. The reason the FA Cup is so popular is that it's part of the culture, it's played at weekends taking priority over Premier League and EFL games, it's on national TV, it allows local rivals split by pro-rel to compete directly, it allows community teams to compete against world famous players and most importantly ... everyone involved makes a lot of money. For instance, the prize pot for the Third Round of the FA Cup alone is $4 million, split between the 32 winning teams, each team gets 45% of ticket revenue and each team featured on live TV gets an additional $125k. (Unfortunately the FA unilaterally decided to get rid of lucrative replays, on behalf of the poor, bedraggled top EPL teams so they can play more games in Europe). Garber works for the owners. He's the mouthpiece, the front man. You can bring in Freddie McFACup to run MLS but he's not going to persuade owners to take part if it costs them money and players aren't going to get paid for what is often a 3 day round trip to away games. IMHO the timing of the announcement was shyte and generated a lot of bad publicity but it was going to happen anyway. The solution is some mechanism to combine A and B teams as part of the new CBA so you can field 10 reserve players but pretend it's the first team just like Premier League teams do.
============== Yea I know all the usual arguments....... I just find it funny this half-ass leagues cup can come up with $40 million prize money. If the Don had his way, the players would play 12 months a year and every dollar of every game would go to MLS.
Carlos Llamos takes the reigns in San Antonio MLS veteran Kemar Lawrence signs with League One side Westchester SC