Replacing Rayo: Finding A Central Time Zone Solution For NASL’s 2017 Season

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http://midfieldpress.com/2016/09/12/replacing-rayo-finding-a-central-time-zone-solution-for-nasls-2017-season/

Replacing Rayo: Finding A Central Time Zone Solution For NASL’s 2017 Season

by Chris Kivlehan - September 12, 2016

The Rayo OKC experiment has failed.  The league announced its intentions to expand to the city in 2013, but had its efforts to launch there derailed when Oklahoma City FC investor Tim McLaughlin jumped ship to join the USL bid in the town that would become the Oklahoma City Energy.  Sold Out Strategies, one of the groups behind what would have become a NASL incarnation of Oklahoma City FC, kept working behind the season until a new investor group came together. SOS found a majority investor in Spanish club Rayo Vallecano.  In November 2015, NASL announced that Rayo OKC would debut in Spring 2016, just five months away.  The league, which had sued McLaughlin and settled the case, remained determined to go to Oklahoma City despite the Energy’s success in the market.

Rayo OKC debuted earlier this season, and the experiment of having both NASL and USL teams operating in a metro area of only 1.35 million was going okay.  Rayo OKC drew an average attendance of 4965 across five Spring Season home matches, while the Energy drew an average of 5481 over the same amount of games in the same period.  Considering this was an improvement over the Energy drawing 5130 during its first give games in 2015, the presence of Rayo in the market did not seem corrosive at all. A spirited Open Cup derby match between the clubs drew 4385. Up until Rayo Vallecano was relegated from La Liga, the experiment in OKC could have been objectively said to be going well.

Rayo’s relegation triggered a series of events that have been among the biggest embarrassments in league history.  That is saying a lot considering several of the stunts the San Antonio Scorpions were involved in, from trading for Walter Restrepo in exchange for hotel accommodations to firing Alen Marcina at a baggage claim.  Marcina once again was at the wrong end of this, as he and Sold Out Strategies walked from the Rayo operation after the majority owners in Spain started dictating a new cost reducing strategy.  Peak insanity was (hopefully) reached when minority owner Sean Jones collected 40 squares of the Nexxfield turf the club uses to cover the Miller Stadium football lines.  Jones released a statement to the effect that he had purchased the turf independently from the club and was simply recovering his own property.