The NASL’s recent desire to challenge MLS rhetorically and in terms of business has helped to further polarize an already divided base of fans within the American soccer community. The second-division league has tapped into the anger about single-entity and MLS rules expressed by not insignificant portions of the fan base for the sport in the United States and Canada. MLS’ continued obstinance to this bloc of fans may permanently mean it is less popular domestically than the Premier League. But the white knight many in this camp see, NASL is limited by the system they are trapped in and the ownership groups who have bought teams in the league, many with zero background in soccer or institutional knowledge about the game. NASL has made great strides with teams giving a more professional presentation and an improving standard of play. However, it is still nowhere near the level in each Against this backdrop, Minnesota United is moving from NASL to MLS next season.
In many ways, a large number who support NASL and work in the league seem to have lost the sense that they are part of a larger soccer community in North America. It is very easy today if you engage just with NASL fans who have tied their support of the sport to a certain ideology of “free markets,” “open leagues,” and “unrestricted competition,” to believe everything NASL does is in the best interests of the greater good while MLS and the USSF are holding the game back. But this is a dangerously dogmatic and extreme view, just as extreme as the view that MLS can do no wrong which is articulated by many young bloggers and others who have bought into the view that American sports is exceptionally different than the global game and should be organized in such a manner. Some MLS fans who are bloggers and frequent message boards have annoyed those of us who have open minds about this sport for years, but the emergence of a similar culture related to NASL reminds us that every (extreme) action has an opposite reaction of equal force. The polarization of the soccer community was initially more the fault of those who support MLS than NASL, but today the fans and those associated with the second division league seem just as dug into rigid ideological positions as the other side.
Back to Minnesota – In late 2012, when Dr. Bill McGuire bought the Minnesota NASL team from the league, the club was being run on a bare-bones. The NASL had kept pro soccer in Minnesota at great cost to its owners particularly Traffic Sports who at the time owned three other clubs in the league. Minnesota is the one of only four markets in the United States that has had a pro soccer club every season since the 1994 FIFA World Cup, so the investment was thought to be worthwhile. NASL opted to prop up Minnesota over teams in St Louis and Baltimore who were folded after the 2010 hybrid USSF D2 season where NASL and USL’s second division played as one league administered by the United States Soccer Federation.
Minnesota is a success story for NASL anyway you cut it. Yet today, NASL with fans who detest MLS and a front office reluctant to embrace a club who used the improving standards of NASL to cash in on the potential to move almost seamlessly to the first division has opted not to embrace what Minnesota United FC is doing. This to me is bewildering in an incredible sense.
Last week, Dr. McGuire and his ownership group released the renderings for a new stadium facility in St Paul. This came just two years and two months after NASL’s investment in the team by other owners ended at the conclusion of the 2013 season (in 2013 the league continued to invest smaller amounts in the team as part of a transition to Dr. McGuire’s ownership). In 2010 and 2011 when Montreal was moving to MLS from NASL and in 2010 when Vancouver had helped create NASL but was jumping to MLS both teams were given lots of promotion for their stadium plans and staff moves with MLS in mind by the NASL. At the time NASL in a battle with USL for second division status and recognition rightly saw the faith of MLS-bound investors and clubs in NASL as a positive. After all without NASL these clubs may not have been as ready for MLS.
In the case of Minnesota, that goes double. NASL kept pro soccer alive in Minnesota and then recruited an owner willing to build a club within the confines of the league that allowed the team to move to highest possible level in North America. That should be celebrated, and NASL needs to be realistic as to where it sits in the soccer pecking order in 2016. One cannot predict the future but right now we have a well-established first division where owners investments are far beyond the other pro leagues. When one of your class graduates to a higher-level some envy might be expected but ultimately it makes you and your product look more viable – it is about time NASL took that attitude toward Minnesota.
One has to believe when the current crop of NASL owners become more seasoned in the soccer business they might actually appreciate what Dr. Bill McGuire and Team President Nick Rodgers have pulled off. Growing a struggling second division side on the brink of extinction to first division side with a stadium deal in place is a real accomplishment – and it should be celebrated.
Other NASL Notes
- Robbie Findley who was one of just four then MLS-based players that made the 2010 US Men’s National Team squad at the FIFA World Cup has been signed by Rayo OKC. Findley should excel in NASL though the narrowness of some pitches might not allow him the space he was afforded at times in MLS or abroad in the English Championship where he featured for Nottingham Forest.
- The Jacksonville Armada finished a successful slate of three friendly matches against MLS competition on Saturday against the Red Bulls of New York. The club continues to take professionalism to a new level for second division soccer in the United States. As USL talks openly about becoming a co-D2 with NASL, they would do well to have their clubs, many of which operate well-below what should be seen as a D2 standard emulate the operational setup that the Armada have put in place.
