The Future Of US Club Soccer At A Crossroads: Part Two – How NASL Can Overhaul Its Value Proposition & Bring Promotion & Relegation To US Soccer

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http://midfieldpress.com/2016/09/06/the-future-of-us-club-soccer-at-a-crossroads-part-two-how-nasl-can-overhaul-its-value-proposition-bring-promotion-and-relegation-to-us-soccer/
   
The Future Of US Club Soccer At A Crossroads: Part Two – How NASL Can Overhaul Its Value Proposition & Bring Promotion & Relegation To US Soccer
by Chris Kivlehan - September 6, 2016

Fair warning: This is a promotion and relegation article.  As such, it will not be for many readers.  If you find discussion on the topic of promotion and relegation upsetting, for the sake of your blood pressure, turn back now.  All others, proceed.

Let’s get this out of the way:  Promotion and relegation with Major League Soccer isn’t happening.  MLS investors have too much to lose, and they are strongly aligned against it. So much so, that they want you to think that you don’t want promotion and relegation, either.  Their position was made abundantly clear by New England’s Jonathan Kraft, Seattle’s Joe Roth and MLS commissioner Don Garber at BlazerCon last year, as quoted in Part One of this article. 

Before MLS partnered with the United Soccer League to create a system where USL teams could affiliate with MLS teams, MLS and the North American Soccer League were discussing such a partnership between the nation’s first and second divisions.  Kartik Krishnaiyer, who was the NASL’s communications director during that period, shared with the Two United Fans Podcast (14:30-18:00 marks) details on how the New York Cosmos’ entry into NASL influenced the league away from an affiliation path and onto an independent course with an eye towards competing with MLS in the future.  Once turned down by NASL, MLS took the partnership offer to third division USL.

In the years since, USL’s close relationship with MLS has allowed it to attract a greater number of new franchises than NASL, due to the reduced costs of operating a USL team.  Granted, some of these new franchises are MLS reserve teams.  These reduced costs are driven by lower travel expenses due to regionalized conferences and operational resources provided by MLS teams to their USL affiliates.   Several investors with MLS ambitions have launched USL clubs to demonstrate their market’s suitability for MLS.  Now that USL is potentially on the verge of being sanctioned as a second division league by the United States Soccer Federation, NASL’s position in the US soccer pyramid is in jeopardy.  MLS and USL are developing a closed system similar to Major League Baseball and Minor League Baseball, and there is no place for NASL in that system.

Here in Part Two, we will explore a vision for an alternative soccer pyramid structure that the North American Soccer League could create in conjunction with teams from lower level leagues like the National Premier Soccer League (NPSL), American Soccer League (ASL), Premier League of America (PLA) and United Premier Soccer League (UPSL) to compete against the MLS-USL system.  Perhaps even some teams from USL’s Premier Development League (PDL) could jump ship, as club movement between NPSL and PDL has been relatively commonplace.  The NASL already has a working relationship with NPSL that sees many clubs playing their reserve teams in NPSL, similar to how MLS reserve teams compete in USL.