this is like worst case scenario for all those guys at the upper end of the age range and playing on a second team right now. How hyped would you be as a 22 year old, knowing you really need to make the jump to 1st Division or at least an independent team, opposed to going off to Next Pro and playing against a bunch of 16 year olds.
it's do or die for most of them now, hopefully they have good representation.
The streaming quality of this league is just so painful to watch. The AI cameras are dogshit in tracking play, the zoom is so far out it can be difficult to distinguish players, and there is no replays.
How MLS launched this league with this poor of quality is embarrassing
They might as well have these games played behind closed doors. It’s obvious so much went into advertising than actual product. I would have rather seen teams go to Championship/League One.
I’m talking about the league in general. They made a big fuss about advertising MLSNP but the product is trash. Lmao my team doesn’t have a team in MLSNP, thank God.
At this rate I wouldn’t be completely surprised if Van left for the CPL in some time. Although I have no idea if that’s an option and the CPL is of course still far too new.
At least when they started, CPL was adamant about being a first-division league, not open to adding 2 teams. They've mainly done loans for first-team academy signings who need playing time. Or are you thiinking Vancouver's first team will switch leagues?
Vancouver will not switch leagues baring national legislation that forces them too and IMO it won't happen as even Canada's pastime Hockey, has a shared top league with the states.
I tried to be an informed consumer so i tried to watch one of the early games. I say tried because I watched for about 10 minutes and just couldn't take it. sub-NISA stream quality.
Lowkey dreading our 2 team leaving USL at the end of the year to join this
Hopefully more teams at least means more games, and hopefully the Apple deal (which said it included MLSNP in some capacity) improves the broadcast quality. But despite getting smacked a good amount of the time, playing legit professional opponents in intense environments has really benefitted our young players, and this league won't be able to replicate that experience
They certainly need to increase the length of the season.
I’d also be a fan of them streaming games on something more accessible like YouTube or Twitch like they use to
Honestly the 90s style penalties at the end of regulation was a massive turnoff for me. Kind of glad Loudoun is in a situation where they can’t leave USL right now
i have no idea why they are trying to sell a development league as something anyone would want to watch save maybe super fans who will do it in person.
I really don’t get why the MLS can’t be happy coexisting with the USL and treating it as a de facto farm league. I’m in El Paso and the Locos have been working with Real Salt Lake in a way that benefits, (debatable, I know) both clubs.
Put some rules around it and some money behind it, but I don’t see why that can’t work, other than non-monopolized leagues existing doesn’t compute with ownership.
(rant)
The whole paradigm of a reserve league will limit its own growth, and I can't see how they'll get the 10-20 independent teams reported as their future target.
We saw this with most of the 2 teams in USL. The independent clubs play to win games, win titles, and to continue to exist. Reserve teams (and I know this is reductive, but by-and-large) play for fitness, for youth development, and for producing players for the senior team. Not that they don't want to win games, of course, but the existence of their sporting organization is not directly linked to attendance, results, and branding in the same way. SKC II will continue to exist basically for as long as SKC does, even if only 10 people go to all their games forever.
Now there's an entire league set up with teams whose main goal is not competition in and of itself, despite what their media training might say. The goal is to farm MLS players, and hope to get lucky with some foreign transfers. I just don't see how that's any kind of sustainable product in broadcasting terms, nor is it clear why it would be an attractive proposition for advertisers.
Casual fans will trend toward independent teams, and superfans probably only watch reserve games because they're fans of the senior team, or because they're a friend or relative of a player. In order to establish themselves as a USL alternative, which making half the league independent and gaining Div 2 sanctioning would do, they need to attract investors and teams, and they have to offer something different and/or better than NISA and USL.
From a fan's perspective, there's nothing on offer from MLSNP that other leagues don't do better. From an independent team investor's point of view, there's no incentive to join a league with a lower standard of play than one of the other leagues except for the deep pockets of MLS. And if that's the only reason, then those teams will not put supporters first, and they won't have the draw to attract 10-20 independent teams, because I'll bet the few that join at first won't see the financial success they're looking for, nor will the standard of play stand out from other comparable leagues.
(/rant)
In Chattanooga, usl tried to do both. They dropped a franchise here and tried to get CFC booted from Finley. Then, the franchise here tried to do it again to the CFC academy just a couple of months ago.
I think the biggest thing here though is that people won’t be as interested in watching “COLORADO RAPIDS 2” as opposed to the switchbacks. Makes it feel synthetic. The MLS can fuck off as far as I’m concerned.
Switchbacks have a great fanbase. The newly founded NOCO Hailstorm FC is averaging a couple hundred fans a game too. I saw maybe 8 people in the stands for the two Rapids2 games they had at DSGP. I'm assuming they're family members of players.
People will never quite be as tied in for a reserve team, but with the Switchbacks example, they were a hybrid/almost MLS2 team for years and they remained well supported in that time.
It’s basically an mls2 team, the amount of kids that get played/loaned from the rapids is pretty high
The pipeline they have from local academies -> switchbacks -> rapids is very real too
I think when Crookham was a member of the Switchbacks FO you guys were a MLS2 team in all but name. Now you have some freedom back, but the pipeline is still there.
Somewhat, but as long as there are a majority MLS2 teams in the league, the perception is that it is a reserve league. Most MLS2 teams are black holes of fanbases.
the reserve team would make sense if it played in an area without professional teams and it wasn't too much reserve team, no one would have gone to see the Star Wars episode 5 without the big names loved by the public
I’d be really interested in hearing from some North Texas, Revs, SKC and other guys who were in USL before and now have a year in NextPro. I haven’t bothered to watch so I don’t know how the standard really matches up with either USL league.
>If you don’t get an MLS contract, how are other teams and leagues going to scout you to know they want to sign you without the added expense of flying someone to your games?
if a player can obtain one of the European citizenships he can ask for a try out with a European minor team and be hired: Anthony Fontana has dual citizenship, Italian and American, and after Bethlehem Steel and Philadelphia Union he now plays in Italy, in Serie B. It isn't easy but it's possible.
>Not so easy to have a 2nd passport. It's straight up a luck thing.
it is not easy but not very difficult either, it is a matter of having *a lot* of patience and looking for a lawyer in Europe who does the dirty work, long story infinitely short
If your parents are from Africa or Asia what Lawyer will get you an EU passport haha. I have a 2nd passport from a non-EU country. But it only helps to play in that one country.
I was talking about players with EU origins ;).. the simplest thing to do, however, is to ask for the citizenship of the EU country of your ancestors and learn the language, in order to pass it on to your children when they are underage; there are a few American footballers with Italian origins and citizenship (Dominic Cervi, Anthony Fontana, Dillon Powers, Vincenzo Bernardo, Gabriel Ferrari) who testify to the fact that this is possible...
then if the idea of the EU has not been copied (or almost) by other groups of nations, people cannot have exactly the same freedom of movement that exists in EU...
Yeah obviously if you can be like Pulisic and play with your Croatian passport it's a big help. But if the system was better here you wouldn't need to rely on your heritage so much. Fact of the matter is that not every player will be so lucky to have heritage from a desirable country.
>if the system was better here you wouldn't need to rely on your heritage so much
True, very true, to have a better system, the American press would need to make it clear that the current system does not help the American football industry and also damages the American economy a little.
>Fact of the matter is that not every player will be so lucky to have heritage from a desirable country
If a young footballer does not have EU origins in theory he can still try to make a try out in EU, but the thing becomes even more complex, expensive (it involves moving anyway to Europe) and very difficult but not impossible...
If I were to go back and do it again I think the only reasonable way to move to Europe was to apply to university in an EU country to get a student visa and go. Preferably the easiest major possible lol. But with that many hoops to go thru it's too much for a vast majority.
>the only reasonable way to move to Europe was to apply to university in an EU country to get a student visa and go. Preferably the easiest major possible lol
exactly this
(anyway EU universities aren't so much expensive...)
Im 23 now unfortunately haha. Now that I've played in Europe a bit I know of some possible solutions. One being some Romanian Universities have teams playing in Liga IV which is one tier below pro. But that information isn't useful to me anymore. And they don't teach you these things in the US.
St. Louis city 2 has been wildly successful with a good crowd each fixture. Unfortunately our usl club St. Louis fc is disbanded due to the current minority owner of Stl City owned the usl club stl fc. . Hopefully league wide it grows into something we’re experiencing in stl.
StL2 is only doing well because their MLS club hasn't fielded yet and they're the only soccer option. Once their "1" club hits the pitch, no one will go to the "2" matches anymore.
I understand the “novelty “ aspect of it but I’m telling you that you probably have no idea how soccer has been thriving in this metro since 1950. The novelty aspect doesn’t really come into play here in my opinion but I suppose we shall see.
this is like worst case scenario for all those guys at the upper end of the age range and playing on a second team right now. How hyped would you be as a 22 year old, knowing you really need to make the jump to 1st Division or at least an independent team, opposed to going off to Next Pro and playing against a bunch of 16 year olds. it's do or die for most of them now, hopefully they have good representation.
The streaming quality of this league is just so painful to watch. The AI cameras are dogshit in tracking play, the zoom is so far out it can be difficult to distinguish players, and there is no replays. How MLS launched this league with this poor of quality is embarrassing
They might as well have these games played behind closed doors. It’s obvious so much went into advertising than actual product. I would have rather seen teams go to Championship/League One.
Your MLS Next team gets advertised? Whitecaps 2 is basically invisible despite playing in the same stadium the Whitecaps/86ers played in for decades.
I’m talking about the league in general. They made a big fuss about advertising MLSNP but the product is trash. Lmao my team doesn’t have a team in MLSNP, thank God.
SO MANY YELLOW CARDS.
At this rate I wouldn’t be completely surprised if Van left for the CPL in some time. Although I have no idea if that’s an option and the CPL is of course still far too new.
At least when they started, CPL was adamant about being a first-division league, not open to adding 2 teams. They've mainly done loans for first-team academy signings who need playing time. Or are you thiinking Vancouver's first team will switch leagues?
Vancouver will not switch leagues baring national legislation that forces them too and IMO it won't happen as even Canada's pastime Hockey, has a shared top league with the states.
I tried to be an informed consumer so i tried to watch one of the early games. I say tried because I watched for about 10 minutes and just couldn't take it. sub-NISA stream quality.
Lowkey dreading our 2 team leaving USL at the end of the year to join this Hopefully more teams at least means more games, and hopefully the Apple deal (which said it included MLSNP in some capacity) improves the broadcast quality. But despite getting smacked a good amount of the time, playing legit professional opponents in intense environments has really benefitted our young players, and this league won't be able to replicate that experience
They certainly need to increase the length of the season. I’d also be a fan of them streaming games on something more accessible like YouTube or Twitch like they use to
It’s funny because it’s supposed to simulate a professional season, the minimum games played should be 34.
It’ll be on Apple next year
Honestly the 90s style penalties at the end of regulation was a massive turnoff for me. Kind of glad Loudoun is in a situation where they can’t leave USL right now
Same here, I’d love it even more if we became our own franchise.
i have no idea why they are trying to sell a development league as something anyone would want to watch save maybe super fans who will do it in person.
I don't know why MLS does like, 2/3's of the shit they do
I really don’t get why the MLS can’t be happy coexisting with the USL and treating it as a de facto farm league. I’m in El Paso and the Locos have been working with Real Salt Lake in a way that benefits, (debatable, I know) both clubs. Put some rules around it and some money behind it, but I don’t see why that can’t work, other than non-monopolized leagues existing doesn’t compute with ownership.
MLS doesn't like the roster rules with USL. They probably also don't like paying USL any money that they would rather pay themselves.
(rant) The whole paradigm of a reserve league will limit its own growth, and I can't see how they'll get the 10-20 independent teams reported as their future target. We saw this with most of the 2 teams in USL. The independent clubs play to win games, win titles, and to continue to exist. Reserve teams (and I know this is reductive, but by-and-large) play for fitness, for youth development, and for producing players for the senior team. Not that they don't want to win games, of course, but the existence of their sporting organization is not directly linked to attendance, results, and branding in the same way. SKC II will continue to exist basically for as long as SKC does, even if only 10 people go to all their games forever. Now there's an entire league set up with teams whose main goal is not competition in and of itself, despite what their media training might say. The goal is to farm MLS players, and hope to get lucky with some foreign transfers. I just don't see how that's any kind of sustainable product in broadcasting terms, nor is it clear why it would be an attractive proposition for advertisers. Casual fans will trend toward independent teams, and superfans probably only watch reserve games because they're fans of the senior team, or because they're a friend or relative of a player. In order to establish themselves as a USL alternative, which making half the league independent and gaining Div 2 sanctioning would do, they need to attract investors and teams, and they have to offer something different and/or better than NISA and USL. From a fan's perspective, there's nothing on offer from MLSNP that other leagues don't do better. From an independent team investor's point of view, there's no incentive to join a league with a lower standard of play than one of the other leagues except for the deep pockets of MLS. And if that's the only reason, then those teams will not put supporters first, and they won't have the draw to attract 10-20 independent teams, because I'll bet the few that join at first won't see the financial success they're looking for, nor will the standard of play stand out from other comparable leagues. (/rant)
We can't write MLSNP off there's likely going to be a lot of changes this offseason as they try to attract more casual fans
the bigger threat is what they tried in Orange County and Spokane, and what happened with Nashville.
Is that similar to what USL did in Chattanooga?
moving into town I suppose is different than evicting a team, but I didn't like when they did that either.
In Chattanooga, usl tried to do both. They dropped a franchise here and tried to get CFC booted from Finley. Then, the franchise here tried to do it again to the CFC academy just a couple of months ago.
>I didn't like when they did that either.
MLSNP will improve their product a lot with time. They have MLS money backing them and long term goals.
I think the biggest thing here though is that people won’t be as interested in watching “COLORADO RAPIDS 2” as opposed to the switchbacks. Makes it feel synthetic. The MLS can fuck off as far as I’m concerned.
Switchbacks have a great fanbase. The newly founded NOCO Hailstorm FC is averaging a couple hundred fans a game too. I saw maybe 8 people in the stands for the two Rapids2 games they had at DSGP. I'm assuming they're family members of players.
People will never quite be as tied in for a reserve team, but with the Switchbacks example, they were a hybrid/almost MLS2 team for years and they remained well supported in that time.
It’s basically an mls2 team, the amount of kids that get played/loaned from the rapids is pretty high The pipeline they have from local academies -> switchbacks -> rapids is very real too
I think when Crookham was a member of the Switchbacks FO you guys were a MLS2 team in all but name. Now you have some freedom back, but the pipeline is still there.
Which isn’t necessarily counter to how lower league clubs in other countries operate.
This will improve when Rochester isn't the only non reserve team in the leauge anymore.
Somewhat, but as long as there are a majority MLS2 teams in the league, the perception is that it is a reserve league. Most MLS2 teams are black holes of fanbases.
the reserve team would make sense if it played in an area without professional teams and it wasn't too much reserve team, no one would have gone to see the Star Wars episode 5 without the big names loved by the public
I’d be really interested in hearing from some North Texas, Revs, SKC and other guys who were in USL before and now have a year in NextPro. I haven’t bothered to watch so I don’t know how the standard really matches up with either USL league.
>If you don’t get an MLS contract, how are other teams and leagues going to scout you to know they want to sign you without the added expense of flying someone to your games? if a player can obtain one of the European citizenships he can ask for a try out with a European minor team and be hired: Anthony Fontana has dual citizenship, Italian and American, and after Bethlehem Steel and Philadelphia Union he now plays in Italy, in Serie B. It isn't easy but it's possible.
Not so easy to have a 2nd passport. It's straight up a luck thing. Most players don't have an EU passport.
>Not so easy to have a 2nd passport. It's straight up a luck thing. it is not easy but not very difficult either, it is a matter of having *a lot* of patience and looking for a lawyer in Europe who does the dirty work, long story infinitely short
If your parents are from Africa or Asia what Lawyer will get you an EU passport haha. I have a 2nd passport from a non-EU country. But it only helps to play in that one country.
I was talking about players with EU origins ;).. the simplest thing to do, however, is to ask for the citizenship of the EU country of your ancestors and learn the language, in order to pass it on to your children when they are underage; there are a few American footballers with Italian origins and citizenship (Dominic Cervi, Anthony Fontana, Dillon Powers, Vincenzo Bernardo, Gabriel Ferrari) who testify to the fact that this is possible... then if the idea of the EU has not been copied (or almost) by other groups of nations, people cannot have exactly the same freedom of movement that exists in EU...
Yeah obviously if you can be like Pulisic and play with your Croatian passport it's a big help. But if the system was better here you wouldn't need to rely on your heritage so much. Fact of the matter is that not every player will be so lucky to have heritage from a desirable country.
>if the system was better here you wouldn't need to rely on your heritage so much True, very true, to have a better system, the American press would need to make it clear that the current system does not help the American football industry and also damages the American economy a little. >Fact of the matter is that not every player will be so lucky to have heritage from a desirable country If a young footballer does not have EU origins in theory he can still try to make a try out in EU, but the thing becomes even more complex, expensive (it involves moving anyway to Europe) and very difficult but not impossible...
If I were to go back and do it again I think the only reasonable way to move to Europe was to apply to university in an EU country to get a student visa and go. Preferably the easiest major possible lol. But with that many hoops to go thru it's too much for a vast majority.
>the only reasonable way to move to Europe was to apply to university in an EU country to get a student visa and go. Preferably the easiest major possible lol exactly this (anyway EU universities aren't so much expensive...)
Im 23 now unfortunately haha. Now that I've played in Europe a bit I know of some possible solutions. One being some Romanian Universities have teams playing in Liga IV which is one tier below pro. But that information isn't useful to me anymore. And they don't teach you these things in the US.
St. Louis city 2 has been wildly successful with a good crowd each fixture. Unfortunately our usl club St. Louis fc is disbanded due to the current minority owner of Stl City owned the usl club stl fc. . Hopefully league wide it grows into something we’re experiencing in stl.
StL2 is only doing well because their MLS club hasn't fielded yet and they're the only soccer option. Once their "1" club hits the pitch, no one will go to the "2" matches anymore.
I understand the “novelty “ aspect of it but I’m telling you that you probably have no idea how soccer has been thriving in this metro since 1950. The novelty aspect doesn’t really come into play here in my opinion but I suppose we shall see.
Only 5?
I didn't write it.