NISA Initial Markets Analysis

NISA finally released their initial 8 applicant markets for the 2018 season. These markets are:

-Chattanooga (Chattanooga FC, currently NPSL)
-Miami (Miami United, currently NPSL)
-Phoenix
-Charlotte
-St. Louis
-Omaha
-Milwaukee
-Connecticut

Note: These markets are not guaranteed to have an NISA club. These are simply the markets where the investor groups are in the most advanced stages of discussion with NISA. They still need to be vetted by NISA and USSF. Letters of intent by 7 additional markets have been signed to join the league in 2019 and the league is in discussion with 45 other markets. 

Initial reactions: Two things stand out from this list. 
1. Half of the markets already have a successful division 2 team the NISA club will have to compete with.

2. The cities are more spread out than I was expecting. There's a substantial travel distance especially for a D3 league. Peter Wilt, the mastermind behind NISA, expected it to be like this as at the beginning but as the league gets older and becomes more popular, clubs new to the league will fill in the geographical holes and competition would become more and more regional


Besides Miami United and Chattanooga FC, very little is known about the rest of the potential markets and the people behind the proposed NISA team there. Regardless, lets breakdown the markets to see which ones will be successful and which ones i'm skeptical about. 

Markets I expect to be wildly succesful
-Chattanooga: Chattanooga is already a wildly successful soccer market. The only question is how much Chattanooga FC will grow when placed in a national, professional setting.

-Connecticut: Connecticut (good chance it will be in Hartford) has the potential to become a great soccer market. There is virtually no competition (except NYCFC) in a relatively heavily populated area. 

-Omaha: Omaha has been described as a sleeping giant of a soccer market. I expect this city to really embrace a professional soccer club.

-Milwaukee: Milwaukee is a massive city with over 1.5 million people in the metro area, yet no professional soccer team. NISA has a great opportunity to create something special in a state not yet touched by professional soccer. They have also laid the groundwork in building a supporters culture, as the Milwaukee Barons have been asked to be the official supporters group of the club.

-Charlotte: While Charlotte already has a USL team and is home to the defending PDL champions, I still see Charlotte as a relatively untapped market. Charlotte, like Milwaukee, is a very large city in terms of population yet the Independence and the Eagles have been unable to see large success in this market which leaves the door wide open for NISA. If they take advantage of this opportunity, NISA Charlotte will be very successful

Markets i'm skeptical about
I'm skeptical about the remaining markets (Miami, St. Louis, Phoenix) for the exact same reason. The respective division two team in their city has already taken advantage of and saturated the local soccer market. I'm obviously rooting for the league to succeed as a whole but competing with already successful lower division club in markets with a finite number of people might prove to be hurtful. 

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