Soccer and Supporters

MLS commissioner Don Garber announced earlier today that Nashville would be the next expansion side to join Major League Soccer. This leaves the three other finalists (Detroit, Sacramento, and Cincinnati) to fight over just one expansion spot left for this round. Garber at the County Music Hall of Fame earlier today to announce MLS expansion to Nashville  The decision seemed clear as day to me as to which cities should be granted the next two teams: Cincinnati and Sacramento. I was naive in believing MLS was competent enough to see that. Cincinnati and Sacramento both have years of overwhelming support for their lower division professional teams that exist already. FC Cincinnati averaged over 21,000/game in 2016 (and almost 15,000 season tickets sold for 2017 already). Sacramento Republic sells out every game with over 11,000 in attendance. Sacramento has also begun construction on their MLS stadium and has over 10,000 MLS season ticket commitments . Credit to Mike Pen...

FC Kansas City to move to Salt Lake City, Bought by RSL The last few months have been plagued with uncertainty for the fans and players of FC Kansas City (NWSL). It has finally been announced that Real Salt Lake has bought the club and will become the fourth NWSL team owned by a parent MLS club (Orlando Pride, Houston Dash, Portland Thorns). This move brings more stability to the franchise and to the league as RSL is a proven soccer club with relatively deep pockets. The NWSL team will likely play at the new stadium being constructed at RSL's new training ground where Real Monarchs (USL) will play as well. Full story here . #SaveFCKC San Francisco Deltas officially fold The least surprising storyline as we've seen this coming for quite some time, the San Francisco Deltas (NASL) have officially folded after one year in operation and after winning the NASL championship. The club had astronomical expenses, low attendance for most of the year, and a lack of sponsors. Full story...

Columbus Crew relocating to Austin-  Columbus Crew owner, Anthony Precourt, has announced the team will relocate to Austin, TX in 2019 if a new stadium is not built in downtown Columbus. The Crew were the first ever team in MLS and play in MAPFRE stadium, the first soccer specific stadium built by an MLS team. Precourt cites financial reasons as why the team should move to Austin. Columbus has the cheapest ticket prices in the league and still on average just over 15,000/game, the two combine for the lowest ticket revenue in MLS. Lack of corporate sponsors is also a problem holding the Crew back financially. The story was first reported by Sports Illustrated's Grant Wahl and can be found here.  MLS2 teams on the way out of USL-  Rumors have been circulating on Twitter that several MLS2 teams (Whitecaps 2, Orlando City B, Bethlehem Steel, and Sounders 2) would not be in operation next season and the parent clubs would create partnerships with independent USL clubs instea...

American soccer has glaring flaws. Let's try to fix a few, shall we? USSF -Get rid of Sunil Gulati (ideally replaced by Eric Wynalda but i'm not picky) -Implement a merit based promotion/relegation pyramid system -Increase prize money and marketing budget for the US Open Cup -Pay women's and men's national team players the same -Invest more money into youth development infrastructure and good youth coaches -Fire Bruce Arena, replace with someone more competent like a squirrel -Create a women's US Open Cup -Grant division two sanctioning to USL and NASL -End the pay-to-play approach to youth soccer (subsidize?) MLS -Get NYCFC out of Yankee Stadium (and out of Connecticut) -Build a soccer specific stadium for the New England Revolution closer to Boston (Kraft out) -Promote youth development more (more programs like homegrown players) -Encourage more world class training facilities like Atlanta United's -Stop banning (mainly away) supporters for s...

I'm not shy about my opinions on American soccer, but I thought i'd make a compilation of my unpopular/controversial opinions on the domestic game. - Portland supporters are better than Seattle supporters - I like the New England Revolution's logo - Detroit City FC has the best supporter's culture in the US/Canada - The NASL has the best group of owners in American soccer (Rocco Comisso, Riccardo Silva, Robert Palmer) - Minnesota United will be a huge success in MLS - NYCFC is an embarrassment to American soccer and MLS - The "fangirls" of USWNT and women's soccer (those weird ones) are holding it back - The average MLS atmosphere is far better than the average Premier League atmosphere - The American Outlaws do a great job - Country > Club - NASL games are far more fun to watch than USL games - USL has too many teams and DEFINITELY needs to stop expanding - Since pro/rel does not exist, the need for division sanctioning does n...

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...

The hottest debate in American soccer right now: Promotion/Relegation. The supporters of Pro/Rel For USA have always been there but it wasn't until recently that the movement had real belief that the United States could actually have a merit based pro/rel system. Riccardo Silva, president and co-owner of the NASL side Miami FC, made big headlines weeks ago when he offered MLS a $4 billion deal that would quadruple their media coverage. The catch? They must implement pro/rel. MLS turned down the deal. Silva wasn't done yet. Miami FC made it to the quarter-finals of the US Open Cup, where they hosted FC Cincinnati. Before the game kicked off, Miami FC supporters unveiled the following two pole: This two pole was an introduction to the largest push for pro/rel in American soccer history. Silva teamed up with Kingston Stockade (NPSL) chairman and founder, Dennis Crowley. Crowley, an established entrepreneur, co-founded Foursquare and Dodgeball. His most recent succe...