The North American Soccer League is undaunted.
On Tuesday, the new eight-team circuit unveiled its 2011 schedule, with games set to begin April 9. On Wednesday, an expansion club set to enter the league in 2012, the San Antonio Scorpions, announced its partnership with Nike.
It's full steam ahead for the NASL, even though the road ahead may be blocked. Last week, the U.S. Soccer Federation withdrew its provisional approval of the new league's second division status. Without that sanctioning, there will be no 2011 season and no second division soccer in the United States.
Conversations with sources connected to the decision indicated that the federation was troubled by either the financial health of NASL backer Traffic Sports, by a delay in the posting of the $750,000 annual performance bond by one or more clubs, or perhaps both.
The NASL has no intention of playing at any other level, however. It's D2 or bust, and time is running short. League CEO Aaron Davidson told FanHouse that the NASL already has amended its application and resubmitted it to US Soccer for approval.
"It's a temporary setback," Davidson said. "I don't want to to diminish the weight and importance of the Federation. They are absolutely a necessary piece of making this league work. But I think what happened in the last few days is just another sign of the growing pains you face when you're trying to grow the sport."
For two decades, U.S. Soccer adopted a laissez faire attitude toward the base of the American soccer pyramid. The United Soccer Leagues, now based in Tampa, organized the divisions operating below MLS as it saw fit. But the highly-centralized, franchise model it employed didn't sit well with some investors. While USL kept minor league soccer alive, it did so in an environment that Davidson likened to the "wild west." Clubs came and went with alarming regularity, and no USL league ever looked the same from one year to the next.
A decade ago, in what was Major League Soccer's last year prior to contraction, the country's second division (then called the A-League), boasted 21 clubs. That was nine fewer than 1999, but certainly more than enough for a minor league.
Just two of those 21 teams plan to play second division soccer in 2011. One, the Atlanta Silverbacks, has been on hiatus since 2008. The other, the Montreal Impact, will be playing in MLS next year.
The others? There are the success stories in Seattle, Portland and Vancouver. But for each of those, there are several signs of the constant flux that has bedeviled the country's minor leagues. Four 2001 A-League teams now play amateur ball in the Premier Development League. Seven are defunct.
Led by Traffic, several USL owners broke ranks last year, seeking greater autonomy and more control over their clubs. They also felt restrained by a league office that spent little on marketing and showed scant concern for the effect the repeated club upheaval might have on the sport's health in individual markets.
U.S. Soccer forced the factions to play together in 2010 in a federation-run second division (the Puerto Rico Islanders defeated the Carolina RailHawks in the all-NASL finals, above). This year, finally exhausted by the infighting and longing for some kind of stability, the
USSF issued a series of standards that a prospective second division league must meet. They are high.
Here are a few:
-- Each club must post an annual $750,000 performance bond to ensure that it completes the season, and three-quarters of a second-division league's clubs must play in a market of at least 750,000 people.
-- Each club must have a principal owner who holds at least 35% and has an individual net worth of at least $20million.
-- Each stadium must seat at least 5,000 people (In 2009, the last year USL was in sole control of the second division, average attendance was 4,680).
-- The League must have eight clubs in the first year, with two of the four continental U.S. time zones represented. By the third year, 10 teams must be playing, and by the sixth, 12 clubs must be spread across at least three time zones.
Onerous, to be sure. But Davidson told FanHouse that high standards are what the NASL had asked for, what they still intend to meet and what is necessary to ensure the survival of second division soccer in the U.S.
"To stabilize the second division and build a reputable league, you have to respect yourself and demand of yourself what you demand of others," he said.
"If we had a league that resembled itself year in and year out, the second and third divisions, at least in recent history, have never ended and started with the same teams. How the heck do your fans and the media follow something like that? Are the (USSF) standards fair? It's sort of what we asked for. We kept complaining (while in USL) that this league had no standards. Look below us now. There are no concrete standards to speak of."
Below the NASL is the newly reconstituted USL Pro, comprising 15 clubs that seem to be just fine with keeping their ambitions and finances in check. Maintaining the tradition of change that Davidson mentioned, just six of the 15 markets featured USL pro soccer last season.
FanHouse understands that some of those clubs are agitated as well, however. They chose third division soccer in order to limit expenses, but now, with four of the new clubs in the Caribbean and another in Los Angeles (1,900 miles from its closest rival), travel costs will rise significantly. It's not difficult to imagine a 2012 third division schedule that looks different from the one set to begin April 2.
Davidson hopes to leave that all behind. The annual budget for a USL Pro club will be $0.5-$1million. The NASL expects its teams to spend $2-$3 million each year. The NASL expects to be positioned for the day that promotion and relegation arrive in the U.S., he said. The NASL expects to market its players to clubs abroad. It wants to be regarded as a league far closer to MLS than to the level below, and it wants to "help mature the game in this country," according to Davidson.
NASL owners believe it's truly worthwhile to meet the federations exacting standards.
"We wanted higher standards. We have to comply," Davidson said. "We have to educate people in our markets about the difference between the second and third division. We're willing to live up to those standards, whether it's for now or later. If we were to drop to third division, we're right next to the league we tried to separate ourselves from, which has no standards. We need to live up to standards if we're going to recruit more San Antonios, more new markets for 2013 we haven't announced."
(Davidson also said that both the Vancouver Whitecaps and Montreal Impact want to field NASL teams).
But why all the trouble? Why is it worth spending all that money over what, in the end, is a matter of perception? Even if the NASL secures sanctioning, and its teams have bigger stadiums and bigger budgets and don't fold as often, its teams still will be playing in a closed system that offers none of the incentives found in other minor leagues in the US and around the world.
In other U.S. sports, players move between tiers based upon affiliations between major and minor league clubs. In most other countries, the clubs themselves are promoted or relegated based on performance. Only American minor league soccer is cut off from the levels below and above.
So if there's no promotion and relegation for either players or teams, why does it matter what "division" you're in? Why are Davidson and Co. spending all this money for a label?
For starters, the NASL's future depends on it.
"Several teams have signed agreements and sponsorships contingent on second division status," Davidson told FanHouse. "We have sold expansion teams based on second division status. It's a problem to take a step back. That's why we were very unwavering in our press release (following U.S. Soccer's sanction withdrawal). We will not apply for anything less than second division."
And the reason "second division" can command higher franchise fees and more lucrative sponsorships in a closed system?
Davidson believes promotion and relegation is coming. It won't be soon, but it's likely inevitable. For it to function properly, obviously, there would have to be a functioning, stable level of play below MLS.
"We will see promotion and relegation in this country," he said, arguing that younger fans who have access to dozens of leagues around the world on TV and the internet and who know the clubs backwards and forwards thanks to video games will demand that the American game "go a little toward the purist side."
"Our country is not an island in an of itself for soccer, like other sports," he said. "We're not sheltered from soccer around the world."
In the meantime, both the game and his league will benefit if there is a "clear demarcation" between divisions two and three, Davidson argued, even if that demarcation merely is a matter of perception for the foreseeable future.
"Is a major investor more likely to take me seriously if the expansion fee is in the seven figures or the low five-six figures, or I want to give one away," he asked. "All our teams own the league, govern the league. We hire our own commissioner, unlike the USL. We hire our own people ... We all our putting up our guarantees, jointly and severally. If any one of our teams defaults at more than $750,000 on their debts, the rest of the letters get tapped pro rata. We wanted a league that's all for one and one for all."
That financial foundation will offer stability. Perhaps NASL clubs will develop sufficient roots to prompt the "financially based" promotion that allowed Seattle, Vancouver and Portland to join MLS. Either way, the continuity will provide a breeding ground for the next generation of players, coaches, front office staff and marketers, Davidson argued.
Player development is one of Traffic's core businesses. The company acquires contracts and markets them around the world (sometimes it doesn't work out). Davidson claimed the MLS reserve division, scheduled to relaunch this year, is an "imperfect" solution, since games will be infrequent, anonymous and won't count in a genuine league table. He said MLS was forced to go that route because the old USL setup was unreliable.
Now, NASL can step in, developing players for MLS or for leagues abroad. At least that's the idea.
"We see the potential of athletes and infrastructure in this country to develop players, and we want to contribute to that. We think the second division level is where we can help the most," Davidson said.
Traffic is propping up the league. It owns all of Miami FC, soon to be renamed the Strikers, and majority shares in the Carolina RailHawks (which apparently is also set for a rebrand) and Atlanta Silverbacks. The NSC Minnesota Stars are league owned, meaning Traffic has a stake in it as well.
There is precedence for this, of course. Look no further then Phil Anschutz, who's bankrolled teams in seven different cities at one point or another. Traffic doesn't have the best reputation in certain American soccer circles, however, and U.S. Soccer isn't going to make it easy.
But Davidson is okay with that. He and his partners have their vision, and they believe the high standards will be what sets them apart. He said he's hoping that the NASL's resubmitted application earns federation approval at the organization's annual general meeting in two weeks.
"If you want to change things, you have to get them right from the beginning," he said. "Implementing these standards today gives us a much better chance of success."
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