USL PRO Announces New Franchise in Phoenix for 2013
USL PRO announced today that a new franchise will kick off in Phoenix, Arizona for the 2013 season. Details were limited in the USL press release.
The franchise will be owned and operated by BDR Sports, LLC, a consortium of Phoenix-based investors led by local developer Tim Thomas. Rui Filipe Bento, a longtime Phoenix soccer entrepreneur, will serve as its General Manager.
“This is an important moment for USL PRO as we continue to build for the future,” USL CEO Alec Papadakis said. “USL PRO is already experiencing a great deal of success on and off the field, and the addition of a solid group in Phoenix continues our plan of western expansion which will ultimately lead to eastern and western conferences. BDR Sports’ leaders possess the vision and experience to make professional soccer a success in Phoenix through USL PRO, and we welcome them into our family.”
According to the Tucson Sentinel, Bento also directs Phoenix’s Benfica Soccer Academy.
The Phoenix expansion team is currently unnamed and is still looking for a venue. USL President Tim Holt told the Sentinel that they are looking for a stadium that would hold a minimum of 2,500 fans. The press release states that the future team will host a launch event including the formal announcement of the team name, stadium, and coaching staff later this summer.
Currently, USL PRO has only one other team, the LA Blues, in the west. All other teams are located in the east with Antigua Barracuda FC located in the Caribbean.
USL PRO was a re-launch of Division III pro soccer from the formerly named USL II. It was precipitated when the majority of their Division II teams moved to the NASL. About that same time the USSF set strict financial standards for D II teams that only a few of the remaining USL PRO teams could have met. USL PRO was also said to be a regional model which has worked well for 9 of the 11 teams that are located up and down the Eastern Seaboard. Over the last two season the LA Blues have been the only team in the west, yet Holt has made no secret of the fact that USL would also like a western division.
The announcement comes only one day after the Phoenix Business Journal published a story on the potential of the NASL starting a team in the city. NASL Commissioner David Downs told IMS in late May that San Diego, Phoenix, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, Sacramento and the greater Los Angeles area (Anaheim, Riverside) were all targets for expansion.
Comments are closed.
This franchise is going to be the official training ground for the USMNT in preparation for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. I hear it was only 92 degrees in Phoenix today…at 5am.
It was slightly cooler than that at 5:30, I was out walking then. Today’s high was only about 105, we had clouds for much of the day. It was balls hot the last few days, though, and won’t get significantly cooler for a while.
The weather will be a challenge here. No question.
Ok so let me get this straight, the last successful expansion team for USL was FCNY.
NASL announces expansion teams 2 years in advance for the team to prepare.
USL talked about expanding in Tampa, nothing’s happening…..what about the USL San Antonio team?
So why is USL doing this?
We don’t know how long the USL has had its eyes on Phoenix, and there are pretty good soccer facilities in and around that area. It does seem odd that the announcments (pre-announcments) were close together, but maybe this is more along the lines of the USL Pro league actually wanting more South Western teams. L.A. (O.C.) Has done better then I initially thought, and they seem to be quite intent on succeeding. If the USL is careful with expansion, then FCNY could be a distant memory quickly. Also FCNY didn’t outright fold, they still exist.
@WSW
Simply put, because that is the USL Pro business plan.
And no one has said there will not be an announcement shortly regarding a Tampa expansion, either.
USL needs a western division to support the LA team, so this makes sense.
But this is a NASL oriented website and God forbid that any USL expansion should ever taint NASL.
@Bart
I’m just questioning the timing?
I’m not the only one who has doubts:
USL PRO announces new franchise to start play in spring of 2013. Dare we believe this is really happening?
But it’s understandable to take this with a grain of salt, given the numerous failed attempts to make it happen in the past.
http://arizona.sbnation.com/2012/7/2/3132763/phoenix-awarded-upper-division-pro-soccer-franchise
My question is why didn’t they wait to have all their ducks in a row before announcing? Sounds like it will be a make shift team for 2013. What are they going to do if LA Blues fold after losing all that money again this year? Too many questions and not enough answers.
I agree, it’s funny how they announce a 2013 Tampa franchise and nothing is happening for a year….yet they announce a Phoenix franchise in less time just right on the heels as NASL was looking at Phoenix as a potential expansion market.
“..they announce a Phoenix franchise in less time just right on the heels as NASL was looking at Phoenix as a potential expansion market.”
Did you think USL arranged the ownership group in the 24 hours after the non-story published by Biz Journals?
I think the idea of setting up competing franchises in the same city is dumb. It’s a dumb in Tampa and dumb it was a dumb idea in San Antonio and it will be dumb in Phoenix if that’s what plays out.
Gee, if only there was some way to avoid that problem before it arises.. maybe through some sort of governing body for the sport..
Honestly, there is no better news regarding the possibility of an NASL franchise in Arizona than this.
Why? Well, I hope because it will keep the NASL from actually trying to put a team in the city.
There are just too many questions, and this announcement answers exactly none of them.
Well depending on the ownership group this could be good for USL-Pro.
On the whole USL-Pro and NASL war, I think it is the USSF responsibility to bring all these leagues into one house. Maybe the best way is to look at how Japan does it. The Japanese Soccer history is a lot like the USA. Both have other sports that are more popular. Yet The Japanese has found away to make Pro/Rel make sense in their country.
The Japan Association Football Leagues
The top two levels of the Japanese football league system are operated by J. League, which consists of J. League Division 1 (J1) and J. League Division 2. All of the clubs in J. League are fully professional.
The third level, Japan Football League (JFL) is a semi-professional league consisting of amateur, professional, and company clubs from all over Japan.
At the fourth and fifth levels, nine parallel regional leagues are operated by nine different regional football associations. Some have multiple divisions. The regional associations are divided by political or geographical boundaries.
At the sixth level and below, parallel prefectural leagues are hosted by each of the 46 different prefectural football associations, again divided by political or geographical boundaries. Some have multiple divisions.
This the one i meant to put in there.
“The leagues are bound by the principle of promotion and relegation; however, there are stringent criteria for promotion from the JFL to J2, which demands a club being backed by the town itself including the local government, a community of fans, corporate sponsors rather than a parent company or a corporation.” wikipedia
@Danwolf, …and you can drive to most any teams location in a short amount of time with minimal cost. Therein lies the biggest, more expensive and most daunting difference.
If the US was the size of Japan I guarantee we would not be having all these discussions. Travel costs, proximity and lack of local rivalries creates added costs and keeps ticket sales down.
Am I missing something here? According to the esteemed Kenn’s figures, LA is averaging a whopping 897 this year as the only western USL Pro team in their “regional” league model. As I recall, the owner of the Blues is on record as saying that if attendance doesn’t turn around, he’s out after 2013, correct? Considering how dismal it’s been again this year, would anyone blame the guy if he just cut his losses sooner rather than later and didn’t stay in for 2013? Would anyone blame him for thinking that a brand new team in Phoenix would do exactly zip to help his attendance and money gushing issues?
So what we’ll have is once again a “regional” D3 league with one western outlier. And I don’t care how you want to rationalize it, there is no coincidence whatsoever behind the fact that this announcement came 1 DAY after that article about a possible NASL franchise. Sure they’ve probably been working on it for quite awhile behind the scenes, but you always can control the timing of announcements. It’s a shame that Holt, Papa, and Co. continue to view this as a turf war rather than just going to a plan that might actually work and help them grow their league the right way by focusing on their stable franchises in the east and growing out from them. Just can’t think of anything else to say but assclowns…..
Attendance for the last two LA Blues games:
239
276
Good luck to Phoenix as IMO they are going to need it. In the summer it doesn’t dip below 100 until late in the evening. Fortunately it’s a dry heat (insert joke here…).
LA is a big market, maybe the problem is not the location, maybe it is the way the owners are running their front office. They knew at the outset that in the first few years, they would be somewhat isolated, and this would mean a heightened marketing effort for fans.
This was their choice. I heard somewhere that USL did not want to start them out this early, without at least one or more teams more closely located in the regional concept, but the owners of the Blues insisted on starting, thinking this would give them a marketing advantage.
In spite of the heat in Phoenix, this market does start to create the regionalized area of the western portion of the US for USL.
For many (maybe most) of you, anything that USL does is subject to second guessing and extreme critical review. NASL, on the other hand, can do no wrong. I would think the Holt/Papadakis team is grateful that there are more fans in the PDL league that they can build off of than the total of the hard core NASL fans.
I don’t think that USL even focuses on NASL anymore, and I don’t think NASL focuses on USL Pro. This is now as it should be. Each have their own base, and business plan.
As well, the NASL have also talked about Phoenix so any objection to the location because of the hot summers must also be questioned by that league.
There is no question about the quality of players in the area and the passion for the game in that area of the country. The big question is can they get the numbers in the seats to make this work? If USL PRO can truly get a regionalize western conference you would think the answer would be yes. But we are talking about finding at least another 2 to 4 teams to make that begin to work.
@Bart the reason we criticize USL is 3 PR teams and FCNY, are they going to do the same thing with a western division.?
@WSW
One can also criticize NASL for St. Louis and Baltimore. NASL can further be faulted for the Rhinos not liking the NASL environment and leaving the D2 league as well.
He who is in a glass house should not throw stones.
@BQ, Minnesota is no nirvana weather wise. It gets bitterly cold quickly and for a very long spell, and when the summer rolls in, it is hot and very humid (with pretty big flies and mosquitoes), and is much more uncomfortable than the dry heat of Phoenix. A lot of the lack of fans in Minnesota relates not only to the location of the pitch, but also the weather.
The youth soccer association in Phoenix is very much alive and well (although my preferred sport in that neck of the woods would be swimming…)
So nice to have electricity and catch up to what’s been going on in the Modern World…
@Bart: I’m calling you out, again on the St. Louis & Baltimore debacles–you and I both know that USLHQ was eager to have Baltimore move up before the defected and St. Louis was already aligned with the USL before they went TOA.
Let’s keep it real. Both of those clubs were in USL GLASS HOUSES before they shattered into a million pieces.
You know that.
Good luck to both leagues as they hitch up their wagons to a horse named Phoenix. They’re gonna need it…
It’s funny, I came across this site looking for more info on the USL expansion into Phoenix and find all of you knocking around complexities that I’ve no doubt exist and am ignorant of. I’m just a fan and am excited by the potential of a team. Many of us who live here in Phoenix deal with the heat as a fact of life and won’t be deterred by sweating while we watch out team (again, if it happens). If the possibility of being a season ticketholder exists, I’ll be one of the first to buy!
@Jay Long
The key word you used was….”defected”, meaning NASL welcomed Baltimore into their fold with wide and open arms. As it relates to St. Louis, you are dead wrong that Cooper was in the USL house and then wandered over to that desert we know as Traffic.
Cooper and TOA attempted to “buy” USL, if that is what you meant, but that would have meant that all of the top brass at USL would have been gone, and frankly, USL would have withered into the netherlands like Frodo looking for a magical ring.
You cannot blame USL for the Medd activities in D2, Baltimore was NASL through and through. So was St. Louis, a founding father and the only real reason that NASL really came to be. Cooper was like that fine soldier waving his country’s flag, motivating them at highest heat of battle, and ultimately giving them the lift they needed to become D2. You NASLers should have a very high appreciation for King Cooper as he was indeed the man.
Sir Long, I don’t know if this is “calling” someone out, but seriously, blaming USL for the NASL teams that gave NASL it’s virgin voyage is over the top, not withstanding all the joy you provide the readers here on this site
@ Jay Long
By the way, you do realize that San Antonio summer weather ranks with Phoenix in terms of heat measure, don’t you?
Playing in Minnesota summer weather is the worst.
@Bart
That’s why USL/D3 needs standards just like D2 has.
D3 has standards under USSF. Go read them
Minimal standards. I think a lot of the regular commentors have said this for a while Bart, and even US Soccer (Yes, I’ve said this before here) said that when the D2 standard were set they were going to make specific standards for the WPS and D3. Then they retracted that. It has never been explained why.
For sure they should have had them for WPS, we all know that now and I think folks would have liked to see some financial standards set for D3 as well to make sure there was more stability in USL PRO also. You would know this better than I, Bart, but one would think that may have helped this situation with the teams that dropped last year.
I don’t think that will be so much an issue anymore from USL standpoint as we both know that was pretty embarrassing to them and not something they want to happen again under the ownership of Papadakas and Hoskins.
@Bart
I think you mean Gollum/Smeagol, as he was the one who wanted to get the ring back from those “tricksy hobbitses” that had taken it from him. Frodo inherited the “magic ring” from his uncle Bilbo, and would have much rather have lived out his days peacefully in the shire than wander cross-continent to throw the burdensome thing into the fires of Mt. Doom. And Bilbo only found the ring by happenstance, and mostly thought of it as nice little trinket he had acquired on his adventure with the dwarves.
Also, there’s no way you can claim the USL is blameless with regards to CP Baltimore just because they happened to be in the NASL camp when they folded. USL jumped them up from D3 to D2, despite what had happened to the Cleveland City Stars when they did the same thing one year earlier. Yes, NASL deserves blame for getting in bed with Baltimore, but it was USL that made the bed in the first place.
@Bart: St. Louis–that situation is still up for debate–but I get your take, so I’ll conceed you that one.
USL did with Baltimore what they did with Cleveland. They pushed them to move up. Then Baltimore bolted for what they thought were greener pastures. The Baltimore groups ambitioon and enthusiasm made it a very easy sell. They were already predisposed to the idea of moving up.
USL has Baltimore blood on it’s hands just as much as the NASL. There’s no getting arounnd it. None.
So we’ll just agree to disagree and everytime you throw that card out there, I’m gonna throw my “USL hand their fingerprints all over that!” card..
@ Jay Long
The game of the “Musical Chairs” involves willing parties wanting to play a game where someone loses when the music goes away.
In this case, as you well know, the Medds decided to move to the Pro division and they were coerced by the TOA group, through lies, innuendo and promises of future riches, to go to NASL.
We are all adults here, or maybe not, in some cases. The music stopped, and NASL was standing.
Had Baltimore gone to USL, this would have been a different story, but that was not how the game was played.
But, hey, with one concession by you, I am now at a 50% win rate, so all it takes is a little push to get the other to the finish line!
@Ropyro: Welcome to the site and I hope wish the best for your team(s)-you get to help partner “building” a lower level, professional club-that’s something that I had an awful lot of fun doing when Baltimore had a club. It can be a lot more intimate experience because you get a lot more access to the club’s front office and players.
Congratulations!
(Yankiboy)
@Bart – Ever in lawyer mode, spinning the facts to suit your purpose for today. There is an easy test, and I’d nominate yankiboy to answer this question as he seems to have had more intimate knowledge of that organization than any of us – Were the problems that caused the death of CP Baltimore things that occurred only after they joined the NASL, or “pre-existing conditions” that joining the NASL could do nothing to overcome, and perhaps even exacerbated? Furthermore, if they had stayed at USL instead of going to NASL, would it have made any difference in the end? I think I know how yankiboy will answer those questions, and I think it will prove his point on the matter.
@Ropyro – Hopefully some group gets itself together the right way down there and gives you a local club to cheer for at one level or another. I seriously hope both leagues don’t try to field teams, as that would probably mean disaster for both. Having a club to embrace and call your own is as good as it gets, so good luck!
@ Strikers Return
So…. your argument is that a “pre-existing” condition is what led to the Baltimore demise, and therefore, when Baltimore was nothing more than PDL, this is USL’s fault?
Baltimore never played D2, except for NASL. More importantly, as has been repeatedly pointed out on this site, the league had an ultimate responsibility to conduct proper due diligence on the team owners before accepting them into the NASL fold.
This obviously did not occur. NASL gets hit with the penalty. Just because USL wanted them as well, they should be blamed?
If this is true, then the inverse of this is just as true. USL deserves credit for Tampa’s on field success because Tampa was initially signed on with USL, but also defected to NASL. Tampa’s success cannot all be NASL’s success due to the fact that USL was there first.
USL should by that thought process be responsible for some of MLS’s most successful teams, because they were with USL first. So USL is responsible for MLS’s success.
This all cuts both ways.
Not an argument I would take, folks.
CPB would have had the same problem if they had stayed with the USL. USL and NASL had no ******* business encouraging them to move up. But both wanted more troops for their arms race.
Both Tampa and Miami should have both known how bad things were. There’s no getting around that. But they both were short-sighted and looking to add to their number. It was a ******* embarrassment that both sides recruited the club to move up to the second division. An absolute ******** EMBARRASSMENT.
The Medds and Jim are GREAT PEOPLE THAT I WILL ALWAYS BE GRATEFUL TO for everything that they did for me with that club. Their great ambition, coupled with a economy in free fall and difficulties experienced by the parent club in London meant that even in USL2–without a minor miracle–the club was treading water, surviving on borrowed time.
That’s my take-for whatever it’s worth. Some others might have a different one.
Nobody in Tampa or Miami should be bragging about how things went down. I wouldn’t invest a dime in either league until they were able to prove to me that they have actually learned something from that, and the situations in St. Louis, New York and Puerto Rico.
@ Jay Long
If you are ready to consider investing funds for a pro soccer team, I can probably get you an audience with both Davidson and Papadakis.
If you can be convinced that all is well in both leagues, how much are you willing to spend on the downstroke? How much are you willing to feed on an annual basis?
In other words, how much of your net worth are you willing to lose right off the bat because soccer in the lower divisions, except for the lofty few teams, don’t pay off?
NASL has never apologized for its decisions on Baltimore or St. Louis.
USL has already distanced itself from New York and Puerto Rico.
I think NPSL should become the new D2!!
NASL is truly a league after the standards were set…not the USSF D2 that was provisional.
@ WSW
On what basis do you claim that setting new standards makes for “truly a league”? The only difference from the USSF D2 was that the team owners have to cough up bigger Letters of Credit and have higher established net worths. USSF wanted the team owners to have skin in the game. Nothing else much has changed.
When you peel away the skin from the Onion, you still don’t have NASL “truly” establishing, or following the D2 standards. To wit:
1. Atlanta, may have Boris as a showcase net worth owner, but Traffic funds all the obligations, not what USSF had invisioned.
2. Minnesota does not have any owner with a net worth, certainly not in line with D2 standards.
3. Ft. Lauderdale has Traffic, maybe one of three legitimate owners at NASL under the new standards.
4. Carolina? Another Traffic backed team with no owner (Wellman left) that meets the D2 standards.
5. Puerto Rico? Can you say gimme some money under the table, Mr. Traffic guy?
6. Edmonton – Mr. Fath has the funds you got one here. D2 branded
7. Tampa Bay? Establishing a net worth based on grape production is not what USSF had in mind. And gasp! They even lie about where they buy their produce. Class act of a group….NOT.
8. San Antonio – Hartman is a true visionary, and from the looks of this first season, he is the only one at NASL that understands what D2 should really be all about.
So, NASL has three of eight teams that probably qualify legitimately. The rest of these are nothing more than smoke and mirrors, with rose colored glasses altering the true view.
The Good Book says to build your house on a firm foundation, where bad weather will not tear the foundation from the ground. I would say NASL has built their foundation right on top of a sink hole, with just one bad gust of wind ready to demolish the shaky house that does not meet current code requirements.
So,“… NASL is truly a league after the standards were set…not the USSF D2 that was provisional?…”