Rochester Rhinos Owner Rob Clark Jumps USL Ship to TOA and new NASL
ROCHESTER RHINOS JOIN NEW NASL
(Rochester, NY)… The Rochester Rhinos today announced they have officially joined the North American Soccer League (NASL).
“We evaluated the situation very carefully and decided that the best decision for the future of the Rhinos and soccer in Rochester was for us to join the new NASL,” said Rhinos CEO Rob Clark. “Soccer is maturing before our very eyes. We are joining a family of team owners who are committed to investing in our league and their teams to further the development of players and support the future growth of the sport in North America. The NASL is a new beginning for soccer in Rochester.”
The addition of Rochester brings the NASL to ten teams, including the Atlanta Silverbacks, Carolina RailHawks, Crystal Palace Baltimore, Miami FC Blues, Minnesota Thunder, Montreal Impact, St. Louis United, Tampa Bay Rowdies and Vancouver Whitecaps.
“I’m looking forward to working with my fellow owners in the coming weeks to hire a Commissioner, create a 2010 schedule and finalize league marketing initiatives,” concluded Clark.
The NASL has applied for USSF Division II status and expects to start its first season as a Division II professional soccer league in April 2010.
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like shots through the 18yd box so are the days of our soccer lives….
The next question is will whoever’s left in USL-1 follow suit? My gut tells me that there isn’t much from a legal obligation to USL that’s preventing Tampa Bay and Baltimore from being so open about this. If there hands were tied in any strong manner I doubt they would be so committed and forthcoming.
With Rhinos coming over the battery now want to play in USL-2 which leave what 4 or 5 teams for USL – 1 ? so what will happen to USL -1 they not play this year or make USL – 2 into USL – 1?
should change United Soccer Leagues at a Crossroads too USL obituary…..
With all these teams leaving, I think this gives USL little leverage to sue. Do they have a legitimate cause of action; probably. Are they going to get sympathy; probably not. I am looking forward to some soccer as I OD on college football this past weekend!
I do think whomever helped design the Rhinos logo should donate their time to the NASL 2.0 in helping them moderize the logo. The NASL 2.0′s logo looks like something my five year old would draw.
For those who need a scorecard:
Still USL-1….PR & Austin
Still USL-1 but stepping down to USL-2?….Charleston & Cleveland
Caught in between….Crystal Palace(stepping up) & Tampa Bay(expansion)
Still listed as USL-1 expansion…..New York
To issue the obituary of the USL is very premature. One of the strengths of the organization is it’s size coupled with it’s lack of ambition. There is a very real need for a soccer development structure independant of High School and College soccer. The USL serves this purpose very well up to a semi-pro level. They are nation-wide and more than adaquate at an administrational level to successfully run such a conglomeration of leagues.
What they are not able to, or more accurately haven’t the desire for, is to compete, directly or indirectly, with MLS for the “Soccer Dollar”.
So, they will do what they have always done when confronted by setbacks like massive and regular franchise failure; downsize a bit, scaleback operations to fit the new business parameters, and let the “big boys” fight the battles on the larger stages.
IF the NASL survives and is smartly run, it could become the American version of the Football Leagues (Championship, League One, League Two) of English soccer, perhaps someday challenging MLS for our version of EPL. The USL would operate the Conference system (Conference National, Conference North, Conference South) plus an elite youth system. There is even room for an Americanized pro-rel within the NASL and USL organizations.
In a time of great change, great things are possible.
How ’bout that. A comment and fortune cookie, all in one.
The NASL logo he used is from the original NASL. As far as I know, no new NASL logo has been released. But they probably don’t want to do that until after the USSF signs off on them. Probably some time this week. I would think that Rochester wouldn’t have jumped without being sure that the USSF would sign off on the NASL.
“like shots through the 18yd box so are the days of our soccer lives….”
Classic!
As one important player in this craziness said to me today, “You couldn’t make this stuff up.”
So the soccer world turns. If I write a book about all this who’s up for buying it?
I poster via Twitter earlier, perhaps its time for USL to focus on creating a strong USL-2 on the east coast and creating a USL-2 on the west cost.
he used meaning me? as in he? Yes, of course it’s the old NASL logo, not the new NASL 2.0 logo.
The USSF will not be signing them off this week. The USSF said three weeks at the MLS Cup weekend so that gives us two more weeks.
Yes, ‘he’ meaning you. Sorry, I was responding to someone else upthread, should’ve used something to clarify.
“Three weeks?” Interesting. This is the first time I’ve heard anyone say this anywhere. Is there somewhere that this is posted? Not that I doubt you. You’ve been golden. It would just be nice to spread that info around a bit so some folks could take a deep breath.:)
Sorry Scott i should have said USL 1 obituary ….. i’m so happy to be abble to still hate Rhino…Montréal fan here ….
It’s getting to the point that I can’t even keep track of what I’ve written and when. Perhaps I did in a comment. Just hearsay but pretty legitimate hearsay from some folks who have connections with people at US soccer. I’m hearing they gave USL and TOA both 3 weeks to get there act together and USSF was not happy with any of them.
Here’s my thing which I want to write about but don’t think I will have time tonight.
What the hell was NuRock thinking and what the hell was Nike thinking. Nike, one of the biggest sports apparel companies frankly must not have given a shit about second tiered soccer in the US.
Please remember that when you go to make your next soccer apparel purchase. They had an owner in Jeff Cooper who was willing to work with the existing USL teams to make sure everyone was happy and that he was getting his monies worth when he bought the league. He did that by consulting with everyone and trying to make a consortium. IE everyone was on board and Cooper and company get the full value of the money they pay.
IN COMES NuRock and Nikes give the league over to them. Now you have a group that immediately tries to draw a line in the sand and go old school on everyone. Tell me, from a business perspective, who was smarter, Jeff Cooper or NuRock with Papadakis?
And Nike walks away with all this and quite frankly, I hold them at least 50% responsible for all this and you should as well. People should be making a bigger deal out of this fact.
I bet Jeff DiVeronica will be all excited now.
Turncoat.
Who’s got your back SR.
Nike is pretty sophisticated so I doubt if they got snookered. I suspect that the money involved rumored to be about $5 million was below their dignity level. Nike by an act of omission just let things evolve to allow the existing USL management stay put as this would cause the least amount of effort and money on their part. Nike’s lack of due diligence on NuRock does indicate a cavalier attitude to second tier soccer here but they just wanted to get out with the least amount of hassle.
Well, I know what Nike was thinking: $_$
But YEA, what the hell was NuRock thinking? It seems like it was common knowledge that the owners weren’t happy with the structure of the league and trying to buy it out.
If the TOA fallout was foreseeable, it makes me wonder what NuRock’s vision for the USL is. Could it be that they were never interested in hanging on to the professional divisions? Or was it simply naivete (or a bad case of chutzpah) that led them to believe that the owners would take this lying down?
Speaking of which, does anyone know where the USL makes the majority of it’s money? Is it in the professional divisions or the amateur divisions?
USL was afraid they would lose their jobs at the executive level so they went and pushed someone they knew (nurock) to buy sight unseen .. i dont think TOA would’ve lkept the likes of Holt, Economides and Marcos… i heard that Nurock owner was very close to one of them hence they were pushed to buy a dud
also if i were the expansion teams or the newer teams with three year commitments i would sue USL for failing to uphold a D-2 league hence breach of contract
Folks, I would certainly not be counting USL/NuRock down at the count just yet. The facts have yet to be disclosed, but consider the following:
1. Does anyone really think that USSF will allow a precedent to take place where committed teams to one league can just move all willy-nilly to a new one on the come that grass is greener on the other side of the fence? The repercussions are endless.
2. Even at 10 teams, you have 2 start up teams (Atlanta and St. Louis) that have yet to evidence that they are ready, willing and able to start up teams; you have Minnesota that is broke; you have Tampa that is in a lawsuit over their name (Rowdies) and is obligated to play in the USL through 2012; and you have Baltimore, where they have certain balance sheet issues. This all has to get flushed out, and when all is said and done, without all the smoke and mirrors, NASL only has 5 legitimate teams. Out of these 5, two are leaving for MLS.
I imagine the boys at NASL are bullish today because of the inexperience of Rob Clark and his premature decision to move towards their side, but he will be in the same boat as Baltimore and Tampa. More importantly, Rochester government folks don’t like him right now, and rumor has it that the stadium lease requires he field a USL-1 team.
This ain’t over until the fat lady sings.
Brian’s note that “… (the USSF) gave USL and TOA both 3 weeks to get there(sp) act together and USSF was not happy with any of them.” is pretty telling about how this is going to be resolved. The 2 groups will be forced to compromise by the USSF by not sanctioning the TOA/NASL outright and force a deal with USL. Both Kartik and I postulated a few weeks ago that the USL will be mandated to relinquish full control to the TOA club owners but run the league under the USL umbrella /sanctioned league. The TOA clubs would have complete control on all critical league issues such as marketing/promotion, appointment of a commissioner, national sponsorships and expansion. In return, the TOA teams will pay a small administrative fee for scheduling, registration and referree assignments plus a nominal royalty for use of the USL brand. I suspect USSF does not want the upheaval of a brand new league and the potential unknowns this would entail for second division soccer in North America. I also suspect that MLS does not want a potential rival for sponsorship dollars and notoriety from a nascent, proactive NASL in compelling markets.
This is the best face-saving compromise that should have been worked out by rational businessmen before egos got involved. This type of arrangement will not make anybody happy but that is what compromise is all about. USSF will probably mandate a year for them to make this work during which time both groups can either co-exist or plan on a proper development of lower division soccer together or individually.
Nike doesn’t seem to care about soccer right now. If and when the sport gets big here then they’ll jump on the bandwagon. We were supposed to be a “Nike sponsored club” yet we had to pay full retail for our uniforms. Wow, thanks so much Nike. I guess we were just another market to you. So much for supporting our youth. You’re welcome for the free advertising by the way.
Several of you are absolutley correct. This whole mess was caused by Nike not listening to the owners who have had legitimate complaints with the USL for many years. Nike got out of the league business, created a mess that has hurt soccer, and came out the only winner with a big check from NuRock.
@Bart you say “Rob Clark and his premature decision to move towards their side”
How do you know this is a premature decision? Do you have access to special info or insight about this situation?
I’m pretty sure Rob Clark is not a total idiot, and would not announce this publicly unless he had access to some pretty solid info that the new league is a go, especially considering how pro-USL and anti TOA his previous statements where….
Today, at soccer is a kick in the grass, Rob Clark mentioned that he checked many times his contracts with USL and he is sure he is not legally bound to play in USL-1 next season. I don’t see why he would make such a move if there was any risk.
Wow, it’s so nice to read a meaningful and intelligent soccer discussion on a local blog here in MN. And since I said intelligent, I’ll refrain from posting at this point
OT: Rhino’s logo … good design? … just do a google image search for Rhino, and you’ll find that they just plucked an image … sad.
On Topic: to quote Bob Dylan “… oh, the times, they are a changin’ “
.. oops, re: rhinos, should have said “clip art” page 4 of 5 http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/clipart/results.aspx?qu=rhino&sc=20
… oh, yes, the discussion here has been great, I have nothing to add, except, I hope the vision of the TOA will be achieved.
Anyone remember the Minnesota Kicks game day tailgate parties in the Tiger lot at the old Met Stadium? I saved my newspaper route money to buy tickets as a kid, and saw the great games of the day including Pele and the Cosmos.
Neal, you had a paper route at the same age you took part in the tailgate parties? Nice… I think.
Kicks memories – I remember coming up from Rochester to be a ball boy at the Met. Must have been 10 years old. Ron Futcher scored a hat trick that game, all header goals. Waited outside the Kicks locker room after the game – perk for being a ball boy was player access. Not wanting to miss Ron, I let all the other Kicks players pass by as they exited.
He came out and I ran up to him asking him to sign my extremely blank autograph book. He threw his arm around a trashy looking woman and told me, and I kind of quote but won’t use all the letters, “F-off kid.”.
Nearly 30 years ago but still remember it clearly. Ah, the memories…
Neal: “I hope the vision of the TOA will be achieved”
I don’t mean to sound sarcastic or anything, but what is their vision exactly? It seems pretty obvious to me that the TOA clubs had little reason to stay with the USL. And of course, being able to chart their own course at a league seems like reason enough. But once they’re in the driver’s seat, where do they want to go?
What does it mean to be a second division team in North America? It’s hard to say when teams like Montreal own their own ground and a team like Houston doesn’t. I’m not saying that to give MLS a hard time, (most clubs already own their own ground or WILL have one in the next few years) but to illustrate that the club growth has been kind of unbalanced throughout the divisions.
I wonder what the TOA’s targets are in terms of team/stadium ownership, TV, sponsorship, relationship with Major League Soccer AND the USL, hell everything!
MA, LOVE that story.
I was a bit older than Neal and a lot older than you and have my fair share of fantastic stories as well. It seems many of those stories standout above other sports tales of those years. At least for me and others I talked to who shared in those experiences, even if they didn’t become per se soccer fans. Perhaps for me it was because I somehow knew it would become my life passion. But I do think that young or old, we knew that we were in the middle of something unique and revolutionary in the US.
As bad as some of the uniforms were and the silliness of some of the rules, there was just some sort of magic the league seem to have over people, if not for just a few short years of time.
It’s after 9:30am here on Tuesday and nothing new has happened so far today. What’s up with that?
This story just keeps unfolding. In one of the podcasts I can’t remember, it was mentioned that the PDL is the real valuable property. More valuable than USL 1 or USL 2. This was disputed in another podcast but might be true and might be the way to save face for everyone involved.
Take your USL1, we’ll keep the PDL and USL2.
In the 90′s the Long Island Rough riders were one of the top teams in the A league and then USL1. They moved down to the PDL, as the owner once put it, because the business model had changed. The riders once had a friendly with a Salvadorian team. There were 5000 people attending and others outside the fences watching. What happened?
The owner made his “model” statement was made in 2007 and if you read between the lines, you can see the TOA’s charge of non support. That owner moved from Long Island to Brooklyn and has a commitment to Brooklyn soccer but at the PDL level. Long Island is still an untapped market and it will take years to build it up again.
I just hope that if the new NASL takes off, that it will survive and thrive. Clubs will move in and out of the NASL to MLS, but hopefully there will be others to come in.
So say the new NASL takes flight, where might the Thunder play? Are they still welcome at NSC?
I wish the MPLS Park board had had some cojones and made Parade into a viable venue, Dunwoody would have loved the money to be made in parking as well. Hmm, oh well, the Kenwoodies would have screamed bloody beaujolais.
Mark – my best guess is still up at NSC. There’s a good chance that the entity that is NSC could in some way, shape, or form actually be the owners. I believe they are kind of sitting on the sidelines waiting to see how things unfold between USL/NASL and the current Thunder ownership before sticking their toe into the deep end.
Mark, I think if you look at the archives here you will find your answer many times over. Thanks Tom, that pretty much sums things up except that the Thunder would have to come up with 145 grand to make things right with the NSC. What are the chances of that happening?
I’ve always said, Parade would have been the absolute perfect place for the Thunder and of course they had proposed Crystal Palace at Parade but there was no chance of that ever happening for exactly the reasons you suggested. The wealthy Kenwood gang.
Yes, I had read your earlier posts about the NSC forming a team of their own, but thought that was a non-starter now that USL looked to be in such a mess, and that Thunder management was said to still owe $ to NSC.
What is the state of the Thunder management—three people? How do they seriously consider being able to put something together for next summer; management, coach and a team? -Unless, as Tom suggests NSC grabs the reins.
and that NASaL logo is awful!
BQ – I agree which is also why I believe the NSC will end up picking up the pieces and either buying just the assets from Wingfield (of which the Thunder name would most likely be included) if possible or creating a new team/club with a new name (old NASL?). USL will be stuck with the Wingfield bill and the NSC will most likely have to write off their debt. Regardless of which direction they go in, they will be virtually starting from scratch since there is very little Thunder infrastructure still in place.
If you guys have been reading carefully, NSC basically said both sides are courting them. The ball is totally in their court if they should decided to field a team when the 30 days are up after notifying the Thunder of termination of their lease. We have to be close to day 15 at this point.
The NASL logo is just something that we’ve dug out of the archive just to have a visual. The TOA has not come up with a new logo but I’m positive they are working on it as we write.
Also, the NASL was not the leagues first choice. National Soccer League was, but they couldn’t get the rights.
I guarantee you if NSC starts a new team, which I have no doubt that they will, it WILL NOT be named the Thunder for a whole lot of different reasons. I have written about this before as well. There are pros and cons but right now I think there are more pros to not keeping the name than cons, even though I am very attached to the name that has been around longer than any MLS team has. As well, its a tribute to Buzz Lagos. But there are a lot of negative connotations with the that name right now which is very say and a product of the last several owners.
“How do they seriously consider being able to put something together for next summer; management, coach and a team?”
Mark, this question has to be asked not just of the Thunder but of all the teams involved with the TOA and USL at this point. Again, I wrote about this in the last several weeks, but all these teams are paddling up stream right now as they are losing their Christmas sales, the first of the year sales and are going to lose sponsorship because all their other clients are planning for next summer NOW. The GM’s of these teams are having a fit.
I will have two articles later tonight. One on Nikes share of the stakes in this mess and the other in what I think will be the ultimate solution to this issue…for this year.
I just hope that ALL of the teams and leagues do well enough to exist. I dont have anything to add to the ‘meat’ of this discussion other than I’m a born and raised American Soccer fan, with a healthy knowledge of the sport AND a potential season ticket buyer in the Tampa market who needs a void filled. Eveyone I talk to about The Rowdies coming back seems pleased or at least glazes over remembering the 4th of July celebrations that the team used to throw (on the field…no less!)
I guess what my wildly uneducated question is…instead of thinking that ‘my team might not play’ this season, should I be happy/optimistic that there are so many leagues that my team can fit themselves into? If there is one common thread from everything Ive been reading, its that there are these soccer teams with owners, and they are trying to decide what league they want to play in. What a strange dilemma? I love it! Its not the usual “Were gonna start a soccer league…would you like to be in it?” …”Ummm…no!…nobody likes soccer!” Its a reverse of that. They are going to have to instead ‘consolidate’ leagues. It sounds like, if your one of the many groups who own a soccer team in the US, you can be in youth development up to PDL, or USL-2 if your slighlty more ambitious, or USL-1/NASL if your middle range serious, all the way up to MLS which is the marquee league for Professionally managed teams….or still yet…be in all of them!
Sounds like the burden is on The USSF to make sure all of these markets remain ‘interested’, right? to make sure ‘a’ league exists which unifies all of the soccer watching American populace?
This is going to make for an interesting chapter in yet to be published ‘The History of American Soccer’ Are there any examples of this happening in modern sport? NFL/AFL, maybe?
Just heard this afternoon that the TOA team in MN may be branded the Minnesota Strikers.
Maybe instead of Thunder Jrs. we’ll have Youth Strikers, and MN Thunder Academy (MTA) can morph into MN Youth Strikers Academy (MYSA).
I know that’s posted tongue in cheek, but I’m not touching that one with a 10 foot pole.
MN Youth Strikers Academy— ha! very funny!
What about the “Minnesota BUZZers” with a big August yellow-jacket as their logo (but better than Edina’s).
Grant—nicely put.
@Grant
Good point. Having trouble deciding where to play isn’t nearly as bad as having nowhere to play.
But man, with the NCAA, PDL, NPSL, USL, NASL, and MLS, the American Soccer Pyramid is one wacky looking structure. However, as long as our clubs don’t go bust, our players develop and get paid what their worth, and our national team is competitive, I’m happy.