USA/Canada lower leagues 2016: You've tried the best, now try the rest!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Sports Argument Stadium > The Ray Parlour > USA/Canada lower leagues 2016: You've tried the best, now try the rest!

Crazy Ted: Jul 29, 2003

Hello Towel posted:

Yeah, I saw that article. I just don't think Soldier Field is viable for NASL, even for 3 years. But Wilt knows much better than I do.

They're just mad that there's competition for butts in seats, in addition to all the other sports teams already in the area. And - frankly, I'm including myself in this - we're angry that the Fire didn't have the guts or the money or the intelligence or whatever to build in the city in the first place. Bridgeview sucks.

Chicago's big enough to have a well-supported minor league soccer team as well as an MLS team, even if the MLS team doesn't suck. I don't get the Soldier Field thing either, but yeah I'm not going to question Peter Wilt.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2016 19:19

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 19:21

Crazy Ted: Jul 29, 2003

The new NASL team in Oklahoma City signed Giorgos Samaras. If he comes with a functioning back, it's a nice signing. If he doesn't, congratulations on spending however many thousands of dollars on a cheerleader.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2016 06:31

Crazy Ted: Jul 29, 2003

be nice wicka posted:

MLS is the worst loving league and i cannot wait until the people who think of these idiotic rules are either fired into the sun or the league itself collapses under the weight of its own stupidity

To drive this point home, it is roughly 90 miles between Orlando and Tampa-St. Petersburg. Not even the arcane Major League Baseball territorial rules are this crazy.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2016 01:38

Crazy Ted: Jul 29, 2003

Do over Ham posted:

So now we know who the VIP was; it was a player not an investor.

Serious question: the Rowdies already have about 20 midfielders, so where the hell would they put Joe Cole?

# ¿ Mar 16, 2016 07:55

Crazy Ted: Jul 29, 2003

I think the Cosmos are gonna win a few games. They probably should have won 5-0 today instead of 3-0.

# ¿ Apr 4, 2016 03:35

Crazy Ted: Jul 29, 2003

Jacksonville just sold Richie Ryan to Miami FC for a reported transfer fee of $750,000

:stare:

# ¿ May 12, 2016 20:55

Crazy Ted: Jul 29, 2003

King of False Promises posted:

The fee was reported by Northern Pitch, so there's no real reason to believe that the dollar amount was pulled out of thin air or wildly overestimated.

# ¿ May 12, 2016 21:05

Crazy Ted: Jul 29, 2003

CaptainYesterday posted:

USL coming to Nashville in 2018

Apparently not mentioned in the press release is that the franchise has been awarded to Nashville on the condition that the team finalizes it's plan to build a soccer-only stadium in a timely fashion.

# ¿ May 20, 2016 04:48

Crazy Ted: Jul 29, 2003

CaptainYesterday posted:

There's also the MLS/USL partnership, along with the NASL trying in vain to compete with MLS.

At the same time El Paso is an ideal market for a D3 team. Yeah back in the day they were D2, but that was back when the USL ran it and didn't give a poo poo about things like attendance or team finances.

# ¿ May 27, 2016 01:31

Crazy Ted: Jul 29, 2003

Carolina was tied 0-0 with Charlotte after regulation in their Open Cup game tonight. They went on to five goals in extra time :stare:

# ¿ Jun 2, 2016 06:40

Crazy Ted: Jul 29, 2003

awyeahz posted:

Rayo Vallecano might be pulling the plug on Rayo OKC after not even 10 games

https://twitter.com/MLSist/status/740274318849015809

They've already put in the three-year performance bond as one of the conditions of starting Rayo OKC, so if they do decide to pull out of Oklahoma City to focus on promotion back to La Liga the team will still exist. Someone else who watched the press conference said on Twitter said that the word used in regards to selling the team was "possibly" and not "probably".

If they do sell, it will probably only be because someone came in with a ridiculous offer since pretty much every single club in the top two levels of Spanish football is up to its eyeballs in debt. I highly doubt selling an NASL team for five million dollars or whatever would make much of a difference.

Crazy Ted fucked around with this message at 01:30 on Jun 8, 2016

# ¿ Jun 8, 2016 01:26

Crazy Ted: Jul 29, 2003

Indy Eleven just beat Carolina 4-1 to take the Spring Season title from New York*.

_{*Assuming Fort Lauderdale doesn't win by seven goals tomorrow.}

# ¿ Jun 12, 2016 02:39

Crazy Ted: Jul 29, 2003

Do over Ham posted:

Yeah I know! Such a great soccer heritage going down the drain. I really do hope they manage to turn it around.

Well no small part of the Fort Lauderdale attendance drop, from what I understand, is that they stopped giving away free tickets.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2016 06:15

Crazy Ted: Jul 29, 2003

wicka posted:

i heard it was just going to be Minnesota FC and they'd use Loons as a nickname

Then they could just go by "Minnesota Loons" but of course that would be too American-y.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2016 04:07

Crazy Ted: Jul 29, 2003

CaptainYesterday posted:

Expected, as they weren't in the USL 2017 schedule.

Which is sad as they're actually in the upper half of the USL in attendance.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2016 04:15

Crazy Ted: Jul 29, 2003

Do over Ham posted:

20 years in Wilmington, apparently; unusual stability for a lower league team.

http://www.wilmingtonbiz.com/more_news/2016/09/23/usl_hammerheads_swimming_north/15288

On further reading, it's probably dropping to PDL, taking 2017 off, and moving to Baltimore.

Which is still bullshit. Wilmington is basically a perfect D3 market.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2016 04:42

Crazy Ted: Jul 29, 2003

King of False Promises posted:

In unsurprising news, Rowdies have moved to USL: http://www.rowdiessoccer.com/news/2016/10/25/tampa-bay-rowdies-announce-move-to-united-soccer-league

And if you know what kickstarted this, it's also incredibly stupid.

# ¿ Oct 26, 2016 00:26

Crazy Ted: Jul 29, 2003

So it turns out Ottawa Fury didn't clear its move to the USL with the Canadian FA first and the CSA may refuse to sanction their league switch unless some conditions are met.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2016 21:07

Crazy Ted: Jul 29, 2003

Do over Ham posted:

Bill Edwards is apparently talking about legal action against NASL.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2016/nov/11/the-deep-turmoil-of-nasl-dark-times-for-us-soccers-wild-child

Bill Edwards is an absolute clown, and odds are he's doing this to try to get out of the exit fee. He would have known exactly what the governance structure was when he bought in. He knows that the league removed Aaron Davidson they day after he was indicted, and that they also removed from Traffic from the league structure as much as they legally could. He knows that they then helped expedite the sale of Traffic's team in the league (Carolina). He also knows that the league cannot force Traffic HQ in Brazil to sell its shares in the league because Traffic Brazil can sue and argue that the corrupt activity was limited to an American subsidiary (Traffic USA).

If the structure of the league bugged him so much he could have just sold the team or folded it instead. He's moving the team to the USL because his goal is MLS, and that's fine. He doesn't really need to make poo poo up in order to try to save a little bit of money. This man has been court multiple times for fraud himself.

wicka posted:

omg, they're playing it at st johns' hilarious stadium?

For reasons that are absolutely bizarre, Hofstra University told the Cosmos that they would not be allowed to use Shuart Stadium on a weekend if they made the NASL final and told them they'd maybe have to settle for a midweek game.

I would have just let Indy host it, but the league said the Cosmos had to host the final as the top seed, so they had to find a place to play.

Crazy Ted fucked around with this message at 06:36 on Nov 14, 2016

# ¿ Nov 14, 2016 04:13

Crazy Ted: Jul 29, 2003

NASL HQ finally convinced Traffic Brazil so sell its organizational shares in the league. It hasn't been reported on whom they were sold to.

# ¿ Nov 23, 2016 22:22

Crazy Ted: Jul 29, 2003

awyeahz posted:

This is absolutely the best case scenario. But USSF will gently caress it up somehow!

https://twitter.com/AndreT_NY/status/804074463218298880

And of course that piece of paper was put up by a lifelong NYCFC fan with a porno mustache and a soul patch.

And he's wearing a loving beret in his profile pic too good lord

# ¿ Dec 1, 2016 00:41

Crazy Ted: Jul 29, 2003

Do over Ham posted:

So, it was an "historic announcement"; now it is the "biggest announcement in team history".

It damned well better be; don't get my hopes up like this without delivering.

Why the change? Wondering if my mind control rays actually worked.

Meanwhile this mess continues....

Part of me wonders if Sunil will say gently caress it and establish a permanent D2 run by the USSF.

Yes, the NASL is unstable, but the USL Pro league has typically seen a couple of teams a year go bust, and this year is no exception (Wilmington, Harrisburg). They're only where they are because they've been expanding as fast as teams have been leaving, and they got about a dozen MLS orgs to plunk reserve teams in their league. On top of that, the NASL and USL have been sniping back and forth going on seven years now. ON TOP OF THAT, you have the USL basically bribing lower-division teams to leave their setups and join their amateur D4 league, which is...well I don't know what it is but the last thing we need is loving amateur soccer going through this poo poo too.

Everything below MLS is a gigantic pile of poo poo right now, and if this was a country that actually cared about soccer a lot more people would be disgusted.

# ¿ Dec 5, 2016 08:19

Crazy Ted: Jul 29, 2003

camoseven posted:

Harrisburg hasn't had any issues that I'm aware of?

I thought I'd read that Harrisburg was moving to the PDL now that they're no longer the Philadelphia D3 affiliate. But I was wrong, as it turns out. However, Montreal Impact announced today that they're shuttering FC Montreal, so you still have two teams leaving.

EDIT: Haven't heard/seen a thing about the Cosmos being sold for branding purposes, and I follow pretty much every Twitter account that posts breaking lower league news. You sure about that? I'm curious where you saw that rumor.

Crazy Ted fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Dec 6, 2016

# ¿ Dec 6, 2016 05:00

Crazy Ted: Jul 29, 2003

This pretty much makes it official:

https://mobile.twitter.com/FlagshipFooty/status/805945799234428929

Every NASL team, even the Cosmos should they be sold to a serious owner, will be able to move over to the new D2 version of the USL.

I shouldn't hate this as much as I do, but I started following soccer in the mid-to-late 90's when it was becoming obvious that the USL was basically a glorified ponzi scheme that provided absolutely no benefits to its member clubs or the players in its leagues. To see them become the driving force for the game outside of MLS once again is just...I don't like it.

I mean...this was an organization that once mandated that teams play Friday/Sunday road trips in order to save some travel money, and occasionally they'd even schedule teams to play on consecutive nights. Whether the players had to do this on FieldTurf didn't matter.

Crazy Ted fucked around with this message at 06:57 on Dec 6, 2016

# ¿ Dec 6, 2016 05:30

Crazy Ted: Jul 29, 2003

Nostradingus posted:

Is the USL not a little bit more trustworthy now that they've got MLS breathing down their necks? Legitimate question, I don't know much about the subject.

I don't know. All I know is that the reason why we have D2 and D3 standards set by the USSF now is that the USL completely hosed up lower-tier soccer in the US in the first place - enough so that half of its D2 teams in 2009 were willing to face lawsuits in order to leave the league and create the NASL. The Atlanta Silverbacks were actually ready to shut down its pro team rather than play for one more year in a USL-run league.

Now they get to reap the more secure benefits of a structure that was created thanks in no small part to their arrogance and ineptitude.

Crazy Ted fucked around with this message at 07:24 on Dec 6, 2016

# ¿ Dec 6, 2016 07:11

Crazy Ted: Jul 29, 2003

It came out last night that Sunil Gulati is delaying the D2/D3 sanctioning decisions for a week. Now, this morning it came out that this is in part because the USL apparently only wants to take 3-4 of the NASL teams and let the rest fail, and the USSF isn't sure what to do.

You know, if Papadakis and company gently caress around enough they just might see the USSF tell them to gently caress off and then run its own D2 league again. The last piece of info I saw on the matter stated that USSF HQ is thinking about telling the USL that they're just going to have to shut and be happy with D3 if they refuse to take any NASL teams, and they'll use the presence of the 10-11 MLS2 teams as justification for the refusal of D2 sanctioning.

Crazy Ted fucked around with this message at 19:52 on Dec 7, 2016

# ¿ Dec 7, 2016 19:39

Crazy Ted: Jul 29, 2003

fyallm posted:

Former Vancouver Whitecaps FC 2 head coach, Alan Koch, has signed on with the FC Cincinnati staff as the Director of Scouting and Analytics and will also serve as an assistant coach.

A Head coach of MLS 2 side to our scouting director and head of analytics seems to be a powerful statement for FCC..... If we were a MLS side that makes sense, but for him to "step back" into a USL club shows the potential FCC organization has. Excellent grab by FCC, I would love to be in the analytics department and see "The numbers game" from inside.

Well given that Cincy averaged 13,000 a home game last year they can probably afford to spend quite a bit more than the usual USL organization.

Also, Empire of Soccer reported that Jacksonville let all of their players go in preparation of possibly ceasing operations. Which turned out to be completely false, as a few hours later the team only announced that it had declined contract options on four players and let a fifth go because it was the end of his contract.

# ¿ Dec 14, 2016 23:12

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 19:21

Crazy Ted: Jul 29, 2003

all-Rush mixtape posted:

Everything but the wordmark shouts "too much effort". Welcome to American soccer!

Almost every single thing to do with modern American soccer can be summed up with "too much effort".

# ¿ Jan 25, 2017 08:48

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Sports Argument Stadium > The Ray Parlour > USA/Canada lower leagues 2016: You've tried the best, now try the rest!