The Aztexan

My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.

After months of demonstrating their stubbornness and inability to compromise, the USL and the breakaway NASL were finally made to come to terms by the U.S. Soccer Federation (USSF).

More than two long months since I threw in the towel on trying to keep up with the fracas (I followed it myself, but I didn't try to cover it here on the blog), and after plenty of unpleasant bumps along the road, we can now look forward with certainty to a 2010 season of second division pro soccer that will include our own Austin Aztex.

It is a temporary solution, currently slated to last only through the 2010 season. What form the league(s) take in 2011 and beyond will continue to be an issue for the foreseeable future.

But for now, here's what we know so far, according to the USSF press release.

The league will consist of two six-team conferences – the USL Conference and the NASL Conference. The USL Conference will include teams from Austin, Minnesota, Portland, Puerto Rico, Rochester and Tampa Bay. The NASL Conference will consist of teams from Baltimore, Carolina, Miami, Montreal, St. Louis and Vancouver.

In the near future, U.S. Soccer will announce details of the new league, including league rules, a match schedule, television rights and other important operational issues.

That gives us the following team/conference alignments:

USL Conference	NASL Conference

A few things are immediately apparent from this array of team logos. There are new teams: Crystal Palace Baltimore, AC St. Louis and the Tampa Bay Rowdies. There are teams missing from last season: the Cleveland City Stars (now defunct) and the Charleston Battery (moved to USL-2). The Minnesota Thunder are also missing, but replaced by a brand-new, not-yet-named team, owned by Minnesota's National Sports Center (the icon is just a placeholder). And note that although Minnesota, Rochester and Tampa Bay were put in the USL Conference, organizationally they are still members of the NASL itself.

(And I can't help noticing some visual themes: NASL is the conference for birds and fleurs-de-lis; USL is for stripes: red-and-white, yellow-and-green or just plain black-and-white.)

There are lots of details to come — the schedule, for instance — but it already sounds from USSF President Sunil Gulati's comments like things are going to be a bit different in the second division now.

We can’t have this constant issue that bedevils a number of sports, that the offseason is spent primarily to make sure that you can come back the following season. That you’re looking for expansion teams not because it makes long-term sense to build the game and the league, but because you need an expansion fee.

Hopefully with nearly a year to figure it out, the two "leagues" will finally be able to do just that, and we'll all look back at this episode as growing pains that we went through on the way to a stronger and more vibrant 2nd tier of U.S. soccer. For fans, for now, we can relax a bit and celebrate and start planning our season.

As Aztex owner Phil Rawlins put it: "I’m very delighted that we have a resolution for a second division soccer league. With 12 quality teams in our league, we are looking forward to a very competitive and very exciting season."

So are we, Phil! See you at House Park!

Labels: NASL, The League, USL-1

The 2006 hit "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley popped up in my iPod's shuffle today, and it struck me as a near-perfect fit for the mood of uncertainty facing 2nd division pro soccer in America this winter. A sort of theme song for the USL/TOA/NASL train-wreck, if you will.

You can listen along to the song in this YouTube video.

I remember when,
I remember, I remember when I lost my mind
But there was something so pleasant about that place
Even your emotions had an echo
In so much space

And when you're out there, without care
Yeah, I was out of touch
But it wasn't because I didn't know enough
I just knew too much

Does that make me crazy?
Does that make me crazy?
Does that make me crazy?
Possibly...

And I hope that you are having
The time of your life
But think twice
That's my only advice

Come on now, who do you,
Who do you, who do you, who do you think you are?
Ha ha ha, bless your soul
You really think you're in control?

Well, I think you're crazy
I think you're crazy
I think you're crazy
Just like me

My heroes had the heart
To lose their lives out on a limb
And all I remember
Is thinking, I want to be like them

Ever since I was little
Ever since I was little it looked like fun
And it's no coincidence I've come...
And I can die when I'm done

But maybe I'm crazy
Maybe you're crazy
Maybe we're crazy
Probably...

Labels: deep thoughts, The League

The Cleveland City Stars are no more. I'd heard rumors that they might move back down to USL-2, but for some reason the league decided to pull the plug:

After months of negotiation and meetings, and in the midst of the conclusion of our sale, the USL decided to terminate our franchise just prior to Thanksgiving. This news came as a significant surprise to us given the nature of the process we were involved with up until that point. After much consideration and counsel the leadership of Cleveland City Stars decided to accept the leagues termination of our franchise and all implications thereof.

Well, there's another batch of second division soccer players on the market, including Gordon Kljestan (Sasha's big brother).

When I dug up my City Stars expansion team preview from the beginning of the year, I was struck by the fact that their "promotion" to USL-1 was announced on Dec. 5, 2008. If you take a look at your calendar, you'll see that's almost exactly one year ago.

By all accounts, Cleveland had been building a decent team in USL-2 up to that point. They won that league's title in 2008, in fact. But it was clear that the league rushed Cleveland's move to USL-1, to help make up for the Atlanta Silverbacks' sudden departure last November. Perhaps if head coach Martin Rennie had known they were going to move up, he wouldn't have taken the Carolina Railhawks job.

Whether it was the gap left by Rennie's departure, or just expansion-team growing pains, there's no argument that they struggled this season. As did the other expansion team, our Austin Aztex. 2009 was the first USL-1 season for the Aztex, though with the 2008 PDL season under its belt, the organization wasn't completely new. But even with some experience from their USL-2 and PDL campaigns, the two USL-1 sides wound up slugging it out for last place, as expansion teams are often expected to. Cleveland eventually claimed the bottom spot by just 2 points.

They were our fellow expansion team — our freshman classmates in the class of '09, if you will — so I'm sad to see them go.

Meanwhile, we're watching the USL/TOA/NASL/WTF drama unfold. Who knows what tomorrow, let alone next Spring, will bring. But as of now, here are some of the new teams which may be launched onto the front stage of 2nd-division U.S. soccer next year:

1. Atlanta Silverbacks — yes, there used to be a USL-1 team with that name, but what does their roster look like right now?


2. Crystal Palace Baltimore — moving up from USL-2, like Cleveland did


3. Tampa Bay Rowdies — brand new organization, despite the retro name


4. St. Louis — brand new team, not even a name yet; same owner as WPS's Athletica


5. FC New York — brand new organization (and rumored to already be in trouble)


6. Ottawa Fury — existing PDL team

And not only brand-new teams, but depending on how it all plays out, possibly a brand-new league, too.

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking, and nothing is settled. (And you know no work gets done anywhere the last 2 weeks of the year.) My point is that this is all harder to pull off than it looks. Having meetings, making presentations, trademarking names and issuing press releases is the easy part.

Just ask the Cleveland City Stars.

Labels: deep thoughts, The League, USL-1

Just a quick update on the big USL vs TOA grudge match that none of us bought a ticket for, but are being forced to watch anyway.

Some stuff was said, and then unsaid, bluffs are being made, and called, and everybody's kind of confused, and now they're circling the lawyers, and the league meeting is this week. . .

But there's really only one thing I care about, and that's that there will still be a pro soccer team in Austin next year, and every year after that. When it comes right down to it, I don't really care whether they play teams from Miami, Montreal or Buttscratch, Kentucky.

So you know what? I'm done. To hell with the whole stupid tempest, and the teapot it rode in on, too. If you don't want to miss any drama, more power to you. I recommend the fine coverage at Inside Minnesota Soccer and The Kartik Report. But I'm not going to waste any more of my hard-earned pixels repeating, summarizing, speculating, editorializing or otherwise reporting on it here.

Just tell me how it was, once it's all over. And give me the pre-season schedule when it comes out.

Labels: The League, USL-1

The drama continues. Following on the first installment, here's a quick update. This post doesn't present any new or breaking news, it's just a summary of events to date. Most links are to Brian Quarstad's estimable Inside Minnesota Soccer blog, which in more pleasant times focuses on the Minnesota Thunder, but which has been all over this whole story from the start, like white on rice.

• Friday, 10/2 — USL "released" all players from 3 Team Owner Association (TOA) teams (Minnesota Thunder, Carolina Railhawks & Miami FC) from their contracts (link). Also, the league removed the logos and links of those teams from its website (link).


• Sunday, 10/4 — Carolina RailHawks co-owner and TOA spokesman Brian Wellman assures players and the press that the contract release doesn't count (link).


• Monday, 10/5 — In an illuminating interview with David Fellerath, of North Carolina's indyweek.com (which covers the RailHawks), Wellman calls the league's action "unfortunate and unnecessary". (link) (If you click through and read just one of these links, this is the one.)


• Tuesday, 10/6 — Sunil Gulati, president of the United States Soccer Federation (USSF), summoned league officials and team owners to New York to try to settle the whole dispute (link). Also on Tuesday, Quarstad posted the full text of the contract-release email the league sent on Friday (link).


• Wednesday, 10/7 — Gulati jetted off to London for the "Leaders In Football" conference, with no resolution announced in the USL/TOA situation (link). Blogger Kartik Krishnaiyer considered possible advantages that a breakaway league might have with respect to TV rights (link). Lastly, Quarstad also got hold of a copy of "the standard United Soccer League (USL) Players Contract", which doesn't look like something the league has the authority to terminate (link).

So there you have it. More drama; continued limbo. I'll just add a few observations.

I don't buy the assurances that this whole dust-up is a minor distraction. Three whole teams' players — with two more sure to follow immediately after the league finals — were fired last week, and had their teams disassociated from the league. Subsequent analysis, and possibly a future lawsuit for good measure, find that that firing was probably out of order. But in any case, it's the thought that counts, as they say.

Don't forget that these are people's livelihoods at stake here. And not just the Minnesota, Carolina and Miami players, either. If this league falls apart, it will affect every player on every team, not to mention other team staff. Even if their clubs made money hand over fist this year (show of hands? anyone?), you can't pay much of a wage bill if you don't play any games.

Another aspect is the chilling effect this must have on planning, scouting and recruiting for next year. For one example, consider the fate of Jamie Watson. (For the record, I have not spoken with him, and have not the slightest bit of inside info on his career.)

Though he had a good season for the Aztex U23s in 2008, Watson didn't wind up on Austin's USL-1 roster in 2009. Instead, he played for the Wilmington Hammerheads in USL-2. He had a great season there, ultimately being named the 2009 USL-2 MVP. He came back to Austin to finish the season with the Aztex USL-1 squad, was still with them in Wednesday's friendly against Monterrey, and will presumably travel to England with the Aztex.

So I was asked this week, in the wake of the news that the Hammerheads lost their franchise, whether Watson would stay with Austin. I personally hope so, but I don't know, and replied as much. But it got me thinking.

If I were a promising young pro soccer player, would I want to hitch my wagon to a league going through this kind of turmoil? Watson has previously played for Real Salt Lake and FC Dallas. Even if the pay and chances for playing time were both lower in MLS, which league looks like a better bet right now?

Lastly, let me double down on my previous threat. If these shenanigans inhibit me in the slightest from being able to go down to House Park next summer to watch the Red & White play, I'll not only key the car of everyone involved, I'll also track down all their email addresses and sign them up for every free Viagra spam I can find.

And I can find a lot.

Labels: players, The League, USL-1

I really enjoyed Chicago Red Stars' CEO Peter Wilt's post on Pitch Invasion the other day, Grading WPS in Year One. In it, he takes a hard look at 8 aspects of the just-finished inaugural season of Women's Professional Soccer. These include attendance, fan experience, marketing and operations, and quality of play. He also has an overall summary grade for "sustainability":

WPS will not “make it” in 2009, 2010 or 2011. “Making it” in this case is about sustainability and that merely requires keeping enough teams in existence for the League to be around for future generations. The League has not yet proven its business model operationally, but it has set a base line that allows adjustments to be made in order to work toward profitability much like MLS did in its early years.

I find this kind of analysis fascinating, because I'm interested in the business side of the American game as well as the play on the field. I was impressed by the thoroughness of Wilt (and presumably others at WPS) in analyzing their season.

Then I realized: that's the kind of stuff I want USL to pay attention to, but it doesn't seem to me like they've done nearly as well.

There are some significant differences between WPS and USL-1, to be sure. WPS is a brand-new league, with international superstars on every team, etc. But the attendance figures are similar, and from the standpoint that both leagues are laboring somewhat in the shadow of MLS (and EPL, FMF, et al.), there are surely some parallels.

Maybe the current USL-1 league and teams are all over these same issues, and I just don't know it. If nothing else, from my viewpoint as a fan, I don't feel like the marketing, the league-level branding, if you will, gets much attention at all.

All of which is simply to say, I hope that when the dust settles from the current USL/NuRock/TOA drama, somebody makes sure to address these kinds of issues at a league level.

Labels: deep thoughts, The League, USL-1, WPS

My, my. The drama we've had in the United Soccer Leagues in the last week is enough to support a new soap opera. Perhaps USLLive.com should branch out. Here's an episode guide, in case you're just catching up. It's a long story already, so get some popcorn and settle in.

First, we got the news that some outfit called "NuRock" had acquired United Soccer Leagues:

Rob Hoskins, Chairman of NuRock Soccer Holdings, commented, “Our vision for USL is to become the most competitive and profitable pyramid of soccer leagues in North America, while providing affordable family entertainment, and serving as the inspirational destination for professional and amateur youth soccer players in the U.S.”

Nike and Umbro will continue to support USL through a long-term sponsorship agreement naming Umbro as the official sponsor and exclusive supplier of match balls for USL’s professional and amateur leagues, including USL First Division, USL Second Division, Premier Development League and W-League. Nike Soccer will also serve as an exclusive sponsor for USL.

Well, that sounded nice enough. But it became immediately apparent that there was trouble with this deal. The blogs Major League Soccer Talk and Inside Minnesota Soccer were the first to provide some details:

We are aware that the sale to Nurock is a shock to many including some owners in the league. It’s widely known that Traffic FC along with a current USL-1 owners group made a bid for league but did not win that bid. However, that same owners group led by Aaron Davidson of Miami FC and Selby Wellman owner of the Carolina Railhawks, have been unhappy with Marcos and Executive VP of USL Tim Holt. We had been informed by multiple ownership sources, that Davidson and Wellman were working with another group who were in the due diligence stage after winning the bid from Nike. The other group who had reportedly won the bid was not either Nurock or Traffic.

They have since followed that breaking story with an in-depth 3-part history of events leading up to the current telenovela situation: "United Soccer Leagues at a Crossroads".

Part One: Building USL starts all the way back at the beginning, starring a former executive for the NASL's Tampa Bay Rowdies, Francisco Marcos.

Marcos founded the Southwest Indoor Soccer League (SISL) in 1986 which evolved into an outdoor league in 1989. Eventually, he created the first league that spanned North America since the old NASL. However, different from the NASL, this league created a pyramid system. This was something the Portuguese soccer executive understood from his connections to soccer in Europe. In time he built the league to include three levels of senior men’s play, the first national women’s league, (W-League) and the first competitive North American system of youth leagues (Super Y-League).

Part Two: The Struggle for Power covers Nike's purchase of the USL (via their purchase of league owner Umbro), last year's sudden team changes (the departure of the Atlanta Silverbacks and the "promotion" of the Cleveland City Stars), but most importantly, the formation of the Team Owners Association (TOA):

The TOA wanted a league that was team-owner controlled but were willing to negotiate with the league. The teams felt they needed more representation in the league office in decisions that directly affected the franchises.

The financial structure of the league was also in question by the team owners. They claimed the league did not share in the losses and held no accountability to the teams. The USL is structured in a way that teams pay a one-time franchise fee and then have yearly renewal fees. If a team was having financial trouble and would drop its franchise, the league would just repopulate and claim another franchise fee. Some owners were frustrated by this, as many USL teams lose hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. The annual operating expense for an average USL-1 team is between $1.5 million to $2 million. The long distances between USL-1 cities does not help with the cost of airfare and its said that most teams will spend more on travel expenses for one game than they will make in revenue in a home game. The average break even point for most teams is a home attendance of about 5,000.

Part Three: Negotiations Break Down details the groups and circumstances involved in the league's just-announced sale. It would seem that the TOA were on the verge of the takeover they sought, only to have it snatched away at the last moment:

When the dust settled, and the winning bidder was announced internally, it was Jeff Cooper’s group.

Cooper, a successful lawyer from St Louis, had twice attempted to bring MLS to a city whose history in the sport is second to none in this nation. As the owner of the St Louis Athletica, and a board member of English Football League club Brentford, Cooper had made an impact even without MLS. Now, Cooper appeared to have bagged his biggest prize of all: a league that consisted of over 600 clubs, professionals, amateurs and youth.

The TOA began working with Cooper, who had outbid their own efforts and found him to be on the same wavelength. With radical changes about to be made to the league under Cooper’s direction, a closing on the deal that appeared imminent was suddenly off.

Instead, Nike who had formally recognized Cooper as the high bidder shifted gears and awarded NuRock control of USL. This move, which was done legally but without properly notifying many owners, created a further rift with USL’s Tampa based leadership, which could be irreparable.

Meanwhile, the TOA made its appearance on the scene. Their first press release was a little veiled, if only due to the PR-speak.

Following extensive negotiations with USISL, Inc., the parent company of the United Soccer Leagues (USL), to restructure the USL First Division (USL-1) into a league owned and controlled by its teams, the Team Owners Association (TOA) today announced that it has accelerated its pursuit of all league options for the 2010 season and beyond. The TOA, led by the Atlanta Silverbacks, Carolina RailHawks, Miami FC, Minnesota Thunder, Montreal Impact, St. Louis Soccer United, Tampa Bay Rowdies and Vancouver Whitecaps, reached this decision following the announcement by Nike, Inc., the parent company of USISL, Inc., that it had concluded the sale of USL to a third-party (NuRock Soccer Holdings) which does not own a team in USL-1.

"Accelerated its pursuit of all league options for the 2010 season"? What does that mean? BigSoccer blogger Bill Archer took a stab at parsing the press release, along with his own view of the situation:

I don't know much about this NuRock Soccer outfit, beyond what we all can read in the usual cookie cutter corporate-speak press release. Maybe they're great guys.

Personally I agree with the TOA: it's time USL became a real league, owned and operated by and for the teams themselves which is, by the way, exactly how FIFA says it should be done.

As long as the interests of a third party are involved - be it an individual, a public corporation or a private partnership - then stuff like long term development and the good of the game are going to take a back seat to the bottom line. USL1 isn't a chain of muffler shops or fast food joints and it can't be run as if it was.

In the midst of the airing of all this dirty laundry, the league continued to press ahead. The new owners were already restructuring the league offices:

United Soccer Leagues announced Monday the restructuring of its executive management team following last week’s acquisition of USL by NuRock Soccer Holdings from Nike. NuRock’s Rob Hoskins will serve as Chairman with Alec Papadakis being named CEO. USL’s Tim Holt has been named President of the organization with founder Francisco Marcos transitioning to the position of President Emeritus and Senior Director of International Development.

... As Senior Director of International Development, Marcos will expand his recent efforts in the area of international relationships and partnerships as his primary role with the organization, utilizing his European background and residency as well as his numerous relationships with soccer leaders around the world to aid USL in its objectives to foster meaningful relationships between USL, its clubs and players with foreign clubs and organizations.

Back on the TOA side of the story, Montreal Impact president Joey Saputo didn't wait long to start spelling out exactly what the TOA has in mind:

Saputo said the teams, which include the Vancouver Whitecaps, can still reach agreement with NuRock to have more say in league operations, but if not, they are prepared to play a full schedule in 2010 in their own league.

..."We have no say on the type of owners coming in," he said. "No disrespect to (some) other owners, but they don't belong in this league. But we have no say. We find out at the last minute that teams are coming in, like the Cleveland Stars. It makes no sense. We want control of our destiny."

...He said starting a new league would cost about the same, as the teams are already in place [and that] other clubs are prepared to join a new league so it would have between eight and 12 clubs.

..."The league exists because of the teams, not because of the league," he added. "I think we have the power. We are united and finally, we've decided to take this strategy of looking at other options."

So there you have it. The TOA damn sure is threatening a breakaway league, no two ways about it. But then suddenly, news is out from the league that Ontario's Ottawa Fury want to move up from PDL to USL-1:

"Our application for a USL franchise, at this point in time, ensures that soccer specific elements will be incorporated into the stadium design to optimize the experience for soccer fans and players," said Jeff Hunt, an OSEG [Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group] partner.

Don't bother searching that story for the year the Fury would join the league; it's not in there. The Canadian Press story on Joey Saputo linked above, however, puts it at "likely 2012". Not even MLS is looking that far down the expansion road.

The TOA isn't wasting any time getting their word out. Next up was an interview with TOA spokesman and Railhawks owner Selby Wellman. In addition to saying that the non-TOA teams (including Austin, but neglecting to mention Puerto Rico) "[are] still with us and part of our group wanting to move the league forward", Wellman also made these statements:

So the [existing] league office, basically, is an administrative operation. Just keeping up with 710 teams, registration and all those kinds of things they do. They move paper. They’re not like most league offices where you have marketing people, public relations people who can promote your league, who can go out and get national sponsorships, who can go out and seek new owners and get franchises and things like that. They don’t have the skills and the resources to do that. That’s what we’re trying to fix. And if we had been successful at buying the whole league, that was what we were going to do. We were going to restructure the league office into a marketing organization, not just an administrative operation.

...It’s pretty frustrating as an owner, I can tell you this, to put a lot of money, which we’ve done, into our team, and have the attendance to be pretty much not acceptable to us, related to the perception of us being just minor league soccer. Then all of a sudden, you know, I bring New England [Revolution, of MLS] and whoever here, and my crowds will quadruple on me. So what that tells you is that we’re in the market here in Carolina. And by the way, my fellow owners around the league have experienced the same thing. We know we have markets, we know we’re good soccer markets, all right, and we know we play really strong professional soccer. So we’ve got to promote it. And the league has to do that, the league office, that’s a league office’s function.

...I would expect somewhere in the next 30 days or so they’ll start coming out to us, wanting us to recommit to play in 2010 in USL. If they don’t come to the table with us having the ability to control our league, we won’t play with them.

There you have it. It boils down to the same statement heard in heated playground fights the world over: "I'm gonna take my ball and go home!"

I hadn't seen anything specifically from or about the Aztex in all this, so I emailed owner Phil Rawlins for a comment. His reply makes it clear that the team's position is not on the TOA side:

The TOA does NOT represent all the USL-1 team owners, far from it, there are several teams and owners that have chosen not to participate in that group and Austin is one of those. For the most part the "shouting-match" that is now taking place through the media is a distraction from the important work of running a successful team in the League.

I welcome the change of ownership at USL and believe the new owners can bring business savvy and a passion for soccer that can help invigorate the League. I hope that all parties involved in these discussions will give the new owners a chance to prove themselves and share their plans before pre-judging them.

So that's it, the story so far. Volleys will surely continue from both sides. Personally, the fact that this civil war has exploded out into public is embarrassing. The members of this league, in this sport, in this country, at this time, can hardly afford to waste any time or energy on this kind of infighting. It's also attracting the entirely wrong kind of media attention. Somebody here is too greedy for money and/or power — honestly, they probably all are, but someone is outdoing everyone else — and they're jeopardizing the future of this essential component of American soccer.

Here's my bottom line. I'm a soccer fan, I want to watch soccer matches. Thanks to the Aztex, I've had that for 2 years now, without having to road-trip 4 hours to Pizza Hut Park. If this whole ruckus winds up interfering with that in any substantial way, I'll personally hunt down everyone involved and key their car. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go watch the Aztex-Whitecaps game on USLLive.com.

Labels: deep thoughts, The League, USL-1