by Dave Hoyt
USL: What Happened?
What does it mean to be a second division soccer league? The textbook definition is obvious but trying to describe and contrast the gap between the divisions, from the quality of play to the visibility of the teams, is something else entirely. For countries with relegation and promotion, the proof is always determined by the success on the field and the intent to play at the highest possible level. In the USL, things are never quite as clear. No chance of movement and a league which is owned by investors instead of the teams themselves set up conflicting priorities and mixed signals. The league in which the Timbers have played for the last 9 seasons is known as much for its schizophrenia as anything else. On one hand, the talent on the field has increased considerably and lower league teams have delivered consistent results against MLS opponents in the US Open Cup. On the other hand the league has kneecapped itself many times, whether through incompetence or by design. From failing franchises to a publicly stated unwillingness to compete with the MLS to restraining teams from aggressively marketing themselves, the league itself has always been satisfied to run a distant second to the MLS even as some teams chafed about the lack of drive. This came to a spectacular head during the offseason as teams tried to abandon the USL and form their own league.
USL, TOA, NuRock, Cooper and Nike
The basic timeline is this: In 2006, Umbro purchased a 30% ownership stake in the USL, bringing their total holdings to 94% of the entire league (President and founder Francisco Marcos retained the remaining 6%). A little over 18 months later, in the fall of 2007, Nike bought Umbro and inherited the USL in the process. From the start, Nike was uncomfortable owning a sports league and started the process to sell off the USL, directed primarily by Marcos and his Director/VP Tim Holt. The Team Owners Association (or TOA) organized in the January 2008 to begin to strategize a buyout of the league by the teams themselves. This group included Joey Saputo (Montreal Impact), Selby Wellman (Carolina Railhawks), and Traffic Sports (Miami FC), among others. By the summer of 2009, the league was on the block in a sealed bid process and it appeared that the TOA was destined to put control of the league into the hands of the franchise holders. When the bids were opened, to many people’s surprise, it turned out that Jeff Cooper, a lawyer who had been trying to bring an MLS franchise to St Louis for several years, had made the highest bid.
Now is when things start to get sketchy… and heated. Cooper’s group reached out to the TOA since they shared similar ideas and goals. Cooper also knew about the dissatisfaction of the owners and wanted to keep them happy. He started the due diligence phase of the acquisition with Nike to conclude the deal. Suddenly, a press release was issued by the USL: the league has been sold to NuRock Soccer Holdings. Tangible details were nearly impossible to get but rumors coalesced around some tidbits. The NuRock bid was not as large as that of Cooper’s group. Cooper had met with Nike’s lawyers less than 24 hours before the news broke. Cooper was going to open up bids to become the official supplier of the league whereas NuRock’s announcement of a long term deal with Umbro (now a Nike subsidiary) was included in the initial press release about the sale. Most of the management, including Marcos and Holt, were allowed to keep top echelon jobs within this NuRock ownership group. Perhaps worst of all, most of these details leaked out in reverse chronological order. Fans were surprised to learn that their league had been purchased by an entity they knew nothing about, then found out about the Cooper bid and TOA partnership, then found out about the dubious nature of the bidding process and the spoils distributed by the people who brokered the deal. For supporters who had been hoping that team ownership would help bring stability and visibility to the league, this was a bitter pill to swallow.
Edmonton, we hardly knew ye
When the Timbers first took the pitch after reforming in 2001, the A-League, as it was called at the time, stood at 21 teams. By the beginning of 2010, only 5 teams remained of those 21: Vancouver, Montreal, Rochester, Minnesota and Portland. In a bit of irony, it was only the newest kid on the block, Portland, which decided to stay with the USL as the other 4 teams tried to break away to form their own league. But more on that in a minute; first, let’s take a look at some of the teams we’ve seen come and go since that 2001 season. As far as I can tell, every single season has seen turnover, turmoil and transition from the season before. We have never seen 2 seasons with the same teams sitting in the same table. We’ve seen 5 franchises leave the league in a single offseason (both in 2001 and 2003). We’ve seen the league have to step in and run teams who went bankrupt midseason (2003 – Calgary, 2004 – Edmonton). We’ve seen franchises announced with great fanfare and then shut their doors after a single season (California Victory, Edmonton Aviators). It’s no surprise there is a general sense that the USL would accept any franchise willing to pay the franchise fee with little regard to basic solvency, much less a credible business plan for success.
Not that they had much sympathy for their franchise holders. One of USL-2’s best success stories, the Cleveland City Stars, was convinced to make the step up to USL-1 after a scheduling hole developed when the Atlanta Silverbacks left the league. Not ready for the costs associated with the higher division, much of which was associated with travel, Cleveland announced it would be financially incapable of returning for the 2010 season and hastily arranged to locate a buyer. Ultimately, after a fruitless search, Cleveland shut down their operations and will not field a team in USL-1 or USL-2. When Edmonton joined the league in 2004, critics questioned their ability to survive before the first ball was even kicked. Their business plan predicted (and was reliant on) attendance figures of 11,000 per game in order to meet revenue projections. They rented out a 60,000 seat CFL stadium at enormous cost, paying tens of thousands per match just to operate the stadium’s Jumbotron. Their player wage budget included flying their South American signings back home monthly to spend time with their families. It was to the surprise of no one that the team had lost so much money that by midseason their ownership group rejected an infusion of cash to the club and the league had to step in to finish the season. What was self-evident to virtually any casual observer of the sport went completely unremarked by the league office.
Money, money, money
And that was one of the problems with the situation. The league made more profit off of expansion fees than any other line item. There was a perverse incentive to keep the barrier of entry as low as possible to encourage any investor with more money than sense to buy into the league as the next Toronto or Seattle. This is what Francisco Marcos called “stability”: a carousel of franchises that were in one year, out the next, and leaving nothing in its wake a trail of disillusioned fans. Well, not entirely nothing else. The owners of those few franchises that had the solid business plans, that had found a way to survive and thrive in this environment, they found in that wake an executive who was purposely tarnishing the credibility of the league and therefore devaluing their teams. They never saw any of those expansion fees and they never had any say whether or not a franchise should be allowed to join the league.
Another problem was the marketing. Even if a team had the money and a strategy to launch anything larger than a regional campaign, the USL would not allow any team to market itself nationally. Wonder why an idea as obviously appealing as USL Live took so long to come to fruition? Or why the sole program devoted to the USL, USL Breakaway, looked like it was shot on a cheap Handycam? Or why the only advertisements you saw promoting the USL was Fox Soccer Channel’s half-hearted attempts to get interest in their game of the week? The reason is that the USL describes itself as “minor league” and has no interest in spending money to increase their appeal. Interviews with Tim Holt refer to teams “living within their means” but that rings especially hollow considering the examples I’ve already given about the USL’s diligence about checking business models for franchises. More likely is that they’re afraid that a higher profile could scare away potential low ball investors and those sweet franchise checks that come along with them.
Things fall apart
NuRock’s announcement about purchasing the USL came on August 27th, 2009, right in the heart of the battle for playoff positions. At the time of the release, the Timbers were probably in the air, flying to Charleston in preparation for a game the following night. By the beginning of the next week, the TOA had put out their own press release stating their unhappiness about the deal and promising to explore all possibilities to play in a team-controlled league. A month later, the USL sent form letters to some players notifying them that they were all officially released from their contracts. A technicality of administrative convenience meant that most teams in the USL used a league-generated contract template when signing players. The contract contained language that the terms were specific to the team playing in the league. Minnesota’s players were the first to receive the news. The team was in debt both to the league and their suppliers and it didn’t appear likely they would be able to stay solvent for the following season. Miami and Carolina soon followed, two other breakaway teams. All information about the teams was then scrubbed from the USL website.
There was one flaw in that plan: the two teams playing in the final, Vancouver and Montreal, were also members of the breakaway group. NuRock had painted itself into a corner where it had to wait until a champion was crowned before it could, somewhat belatedly, kick it out of the league. By this point, NuRock had lost whatever cautious optimism fans had left about them and their defenders were mainly reduced to a motley bunch of supporters of USL-loyal teams afraid to be left behind and other fans of soccer afraid this would negatively affect future plans of anything from MLS expansion to the World Cup hype machine to the possibility about hosting the World Cup in 2018/2022 (claims which always seemed a little overblown to me considering USL’s assiduous goal was to be as low profile as possible). Things had gone so badly for NuRock that even highly touted new clubs Baltimore and Tampa Bay elected to move to the NASL (as the TOA group had rebranded itself) along with USL-stalwart Rochester. This led to a furious round of lawsuits and countersuits that finally forced the US Soccer Federation (USSF) to step in and mediate.
Resolution?
Even USSF intervention was not without its own share of intrigue. Marcos was a commissioner on the USSF council. MLS was never going to allow a potential competitor in the NASL to get off the ground. Adidas (MLS) wanted to make Nike (USL) look as bad as possible. Everyone had their favorite pet theory on which direction the USSF would rule. After stalemated meetings and weeks of delay, the USSF finally came to a decision: neither league would be sanctioned to play independently and instead would be forced into interleague play, of sorts, under the USSF banner for the 2010 season. Teams from both leagues were sorted by region and put into one of three divisions for the season. There was no mention made about what would occur in 2011. The NASL should have enough teams to qualify for sanctioning and the USL will try to build off of Austin and Puerto Rico, two strong franchises, and the nascent FC New York group.
I still wonder whether NuRock fully understood the state of the league when they decided to purchase it. It doesn’t take perfect hindsight to notice that every position they took seemed to alienate the owners even more, from those form letters to the players to their public declarations that they would negotiate with the TOA while privately insisting they would only meet with one club at a time, hoping to play one against another. I return to the question at the beginning of this article: what does it mean to be a second division soccer league? Right now, it looks like 2011 will put us farther away from a definitive answer than ever before.
One last polemic
On a more personal level, this was a subject I wanted to try to tackle because I think some people overlook the importance of what this level of soccer has meant to Timbers Army fans. In the excitement over the successful expansion bid to join the MLS, there’s a sense of good riddance to many of these problems and I can’t say I fully disagree with the sentiment. On the other hand, we owe a lot to the Rochesters and Minnesotas of the soccer world: teams which were playing at this level before the Timbers joined the league and will hopefully continue playing for many years to come. Their chances of MLS expansion are slim to none and they will have to make do with what they’ve got. We should all try to put ourselves in their shoes and ask what we would want as fans if Abe Alizadeh or some other owner lacking Merritt Paulson’s capacity for investment and vision were still the owner of the club. Whether you choose the NASL or USL, don’t forget about these teams, these fans, and this soccer which gave us the opportunity to become the group we are today.
I’d like to thank Bruce Eaton for giving me the opportunity to write here from time to time as he sees fit. I’d also like to thank Brian Quarstad of Inside Minnesota Soccer for his diligence in tracking this story. I relied on his research when my memory failed me but all errors are mine alone.
I’m told we should have comments up soon. Until then, please send me feedback at daaaaave@thewoodwork.org. I also hope to run a question and answer column occasionally so send in your questions!
