The MLS All-Stars suffered their second loss after changing the game format in 2005 from an East vs. West exhibition to a competitive game against club teams from Europe. The previous All-Star teams have defeated Fulham, Celtic, Chelsea and West Ham and lost to Everton.

The game did not start well for the All-Stars. Just 24 seconds in, right back Kevin Alston sent a poorly weighted and aimed pass to central defender Jamison Olave. The pass was picked off by United forward Federico Macheda who drove a shot past goalkeeper Donovan Ricketts. A few minutes later, Ricketts put himself in a dangerous position when he failed to deal with a back pass and nearly lost possession of the ball just outside his own six yard box. The game didn’t get much better while the All-Stars struggled to string passes together and develop some hint of an attacking flow to the game despite the strong play of holding midfielder Shalrie Joseph.

Manchester United pulled ahead 2-0 in the 13^th minute as a result of two dangerous consecutive corner kicks. United captain Ryan Giggs sent the ball from the first corner into the box and defender Wes Brown nearly slipped it into the lower corner of the goal, but the ball was deflected out for another corner. The second service came from Nani to Macheda who easily lost his mark, midfielder Sebastian LeToux, and sent the ball in for his second goal of the game.

Finally after about 20 minutes of play, the MLS All-Stars began to connect passes and anticipate their teammates’ runs. In the 24^th minute a string of passes resulted in left back Heath Pearce sending a dangerous cross to forward Juan Pablo Angel, who was just outside United’s six yard box, but his defender was able to get enough of his body in the way to force Angel to send it over the bar. Four minutes later, quick short passes through the top of the penalty box ended with a dangerous low shot by midfielder Marco Pappa.

Despite the attacking play of the All-Stars finally coming together, the defending was still in question up to the end of the half. In the 41^st minute, United played an easy one-two around a ball-watching LeToux, but the resulting shot from midfielder Darren Fletcher slammed off the crossbar.

The second half began with the same fluid offensive play by the All-Stars that they finished the first half with despite a total of six substitutions during half-time. The All-Stars earned three free kicks in dangerous positions, but were unable to convert on any of them, managing to only get one service on frame. However, their luck turned in the 64^th minute when they cut United’s lead to 2-1. Midfielder David Ferreira was fouled on the left side of the field. Ferreira sent the resulting free kick into the box where it found the head of an unmarked Brian Ching who beat goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar to the ball.

The defensive woes of the All-Stars, however, did not end in the second half. Ten minutes after they pulled within one goal of United, another errant pass to the back line put centerback Wilman Conde in a dangerous position that lead to him fouling a United player after losing possession. The resulting free kick, taken by Darron Gibson, was driven to the upper 90 leaving goalkeeper Nick Rimando little chance.

Just three minutes after United gained back their two-goal lead, another defensive fallout lead to another goal for the Red Devils. The MLS All-Stars were unable to step up and prevent the passes that lead to a short high lob to forward Tom Cleverley who flicked the ball over the head of his defender and slotted the ball past Rimando.

United’s final goal came in the 83^rd minute. Forward Javier Hernandez made a run into space beating the high defensive back line to receive a long ball from Darren Fletcher. Hernandez let the ball bounce once then calmly sent it over the head of Rimando, who was forced to come out to the top of his penalty area, and into the back of the net.

The All-Stars were able to score one more time before the end of the game thanks to the play of former Houston teammates. Forward Brian Ching slipped a pass into Dwayne De Rosario as he made a diagonal run. De Rosario then cut back to lose his mark Wes Brown and sent a shot to the far post beating van der Sar who had been leaning towards the near post.

Goals:

MLS All-Stars: Ching 64, De Rosario 90

Manchester United: Macheda 1, 12, Gibson 70, Cleverley 73, Hernandez 84.

Lineups:

MLS All-Stars: Donovan Ricketts (Nick Rimando 46’); Heath Pearce (Landon Donovan 74’), Jamison Olave (Omar Gonzalez (46’), Chad Marshall (Wilman Conde 63’), Kevin Alston (Dwayne De Rosario 74’); Sebastien Le Toux (Bobby Convey 46’), Javier Morales (Jaime Moreno 63’), Shalrie Joseph (Brad Davis 74’), Marco Pappa (Jeff Larentowicz 46’); Guillermo Barros Schelotto (David Ferreira 46’), Juan Pablo Angel (Brian Ching 46’)

Manchester United: Edwin van der Sar; Fabio (Paul Scholes 72’), Jonny Evans, Wes Brown, Rafael; Nani (Javier Hernandez 63’), John O’Shea, Darren Fletcher, Ryan Giggs (Darron Gibson 51’); Gabriel Obertan (Tom Cleverley 23’), Federico Macheda (Danny Welbeck 63’)

This is the fourth of a 4-part article looking at the future of Division-2 soccer in North America. Click here for part-1. Part-2. Part-3.

Sanctioning of the League – Where do we go from here?

As reported earlier in this series, US Soccer has called a meeting for August 9th. At that meeting the federation will lay out a standard in which teams involved with D-2 will need to comply. The organizations that bid for sanctioning of the league will also need to comply and enforce US Soccer’s new standards.

USSF President Sunil Gulati has said the federation does not want to be in the business of running a league. With the standards in place, they hope that someone will step forward who has the teams, infrastructure, financial backing and the plans to run Division-2. In that regard it only made sense for USSF to release these standards before allowing bids for sanctioning the league. Perhaps part of the bid will be an explanation on how these organizations will uphold these new standards set by US Soccer.

But who will make this bid? Of course the forerunners will be the usual suspects, the North American Soccer League (NASL) and the United Soccer Leagues (USL).

First, let’s look at what we know about the NASL and the USL:

USL
Currently they have the: Austin Aztex (solid team but rumored to be on the fence for future affiliation and want what’s best for their team), Puerto Rico Islanders (solid USL team) and the Portland Timbers (leaving for MLS in 2011).

USL has recently announced Orlando and Antigua for 2010 as new teams but many have questioned Antigua with the great distance to many D-2 teams.  There could be further expansion plans for a Caribbean division. The USL had previously announced FC New York will play in 2010 which was revised to 2011. There are possible ownership groups in Phoenix, San Antonio and San Diego.  The Michigan Bucks of the USL-PDL are rumored to be moving up to D2 as well. When USL was asked for a time table on when these teams would join their league, they chose not to respond.

NASL
Currently the NASL has 9 teams affiliated with the organization but some of those teams seem unstable at best: AC St. Louis (have had major financial issue and future is cloudy), Carolina RailHawks (solid team but lag in attendance numbers and are now looking for investors), Crystal Palace Baltimore (major financial issues and may not withstand the new USSF D2 standards), Miami FC Blues (solid team backed by Traffic Sports US but poor marketing and dismal attendance), Montreal Impact (leaving for MLS in 2012), Rochester Rhinos (most solid team of all D2 teams that are not moving to MLS), NSC Minnesota Stars (good organization but have to improve marketing and attendance to survive), Tampa Bay Rowdies (first year has been very solid both on and off the field), Vancouver Whitecaps (leaving for MLS in 2011).

The NASL claim to have two teams, Atlanta who were to originally join the league in 2010 but were pushed back to 2011 and Edmonton FC ready to join the league in 2011. Edmonton is already playing exhibition games this season but there seems to be very little activity with Atlanta. The NASL like the USL is working with ownership groups in San Antonio but are making realistic dates and do not expect them to enter into the picture until 2012. They are looking at San Diego, Phoenix, Ottawa and Hamilton for 2013.

US Soccer will want 8 teams for the league–a FIFA minimum standard.  They will need the league to be financially stable with the ability to not only run the league but market the league and expand wisely. One course of action by either NASL or the USL would be to continue to add teams slowly and carefully to make sure the league supports those teams. Ideas such as the MLS model that Rochester owner Rob Clark suggested with a centralized office might be just one of the many things the sanctioning league may consider.

Yet another option would be to regionalize divisions which seems to be the option of choice for many currently involved with the league. It would reduce travel costs, build rivalries and help divisions to market within their own ranks. If this is to be done, either D-2 teams will have to step down to D-3 or a good many D-3 or even PDL teams would need to step up and many new D-2 teams would need to be added. If this idea were to work it would seem to make the most sense for the sanctioning league to work on one market at a time. Rushing it will mean disaster and we will have teams in the revolving door of D-2 once again.

Bruce McGuire of duNord Futbol blog supplied IMS with a list of 64 cities that he feels could be potentially minor league soccer cities. Gerry Wiittmann of AC St. Louis Fanatic created a list broken down by regions or divisions with D-2 and D-3 teams listed along with potential teams.  Dave Clark of Sounders at Heart has put together a Google map of MLS teams which he believes could host an MLS Reserve Team along with current and potential NASL and USL-1 teams. Click here for the lists.

The USL certainly have the experience and organization behind them. Under new ownership of NuRock Soccer Holdings, they have been bulking up their organization, adding PR and media people amongst others.  They ran USL-1 for many years and have the infrastructure and personnel to get the job done.  USL remains a franchise system and moving into 2011 will only have two established teams.

The NASL have the bulk of the teams and because of that would seem to be a forerunner. But with the financial troubles of Jeff Cooper’s AC St. Louis who was acting commissioner for the organization, the NASL took a big hit. Andrew Nestor, owner of the Tampa Bay Rowdies and Aaron Davidson President of Miami FC and Vice President of Traffic Sports US have taken over the leadership roles of the organization. There still is no infrastructure in place except for a PR position and the NASL has become very quiet since the incident and are said to be questioning how they want to assemble a bid.

There is one positive wrinkle in all of this. The NASL is said to be interested in working with Major League Soccer to establish a relationship with them to run the league. MLS’s involvement may be the best of all possibilities. It would only make sense to have the first division of soccer involved with running the second division of soccer. Could this be the MLS-2 that many have been desiring?

When Gulati was questioned last January about MLS’s involvement with D-2 he stated: “We’ve had discussions with MLS, some of the teams and some of the leadership of the groups we’ve been talking about had their own independent discussions prior to all these processes starting with MLS. They talked about working together and potentially partnering, having MLS handle some of the functions and developmental relationships. There was a longstanding relationship early on between MLS and the USL on player development and players moving up and down. All of that is possible, and we certainly encourage everyone to try and do things in an efficient way financially. If there is an economy to be had, or a player development scheme that makes sense, then terrific. We’ve already seen some of that integration happen where you’ve got teams for example that play in the U.S. Development Academy that have affiliations either indirectly or are owned by a second division team, or an MLS team, or are sponsored by those teams. As we continue to develop this model and look for further stability, you’re going to see natural synergies come into place that make sense financially to try and get everyone on sound footing both on and off the field.”

Another factor to consider is the new MLS collective bargaining agreement signed before the start of this years season that says:

RESERVE DIVISION: MLS and the Players Union will establish a joint committee to study the re-launch of a Reserve Division. In the event the rosters are expanded, the salary for those players will be a minimum of $31,250 with additional annual increases.

While that salary figure seems ridiculously high if players are to be playing for teams in D-2 where many players’ top pay is far less, the door is open to many possibilities for relationships with existing teams to act as reserve teams for MLS. One thing MLS complained about before dumping the reserve league was restrictive costs for travel, a familiar cry to many involved with Division-2 soccer.  Regionalized divisions with existing teams seems to be in the realm of possibility.

Aztex CEO Djorn Buchholz says he would like nothing better than for Major League Soccer to be affiliated with the league and would love to see the Austin Aztex’s logo next to an MLS-2 logo. But whatever direction the league goes he thinks they need to have a better relationship with MLS. One that allows the 1st division teams in the US and Canada to develop 5 or 6 players at the division 2 level.

Bruce McGuire writes du Nord Futbol blog and has followed both Division-2 and MLS closely for years. McGuire is a realist and warns us. “If people think MLS will stick a lot of money into this they are mistaken,” says a cautious McGuire. He explains there are very few if any MLS teams making a profit and that soccer in the US is still a losing proposition at this point and time. “If MLS is going to kick money into this it’s not going to be very much. They may do a partnership to work together but as far as investing money it’s probably not going to be a whole lot.”

At the current time Division-2 does not seem to be as much of a developmental league as USL-PDL and USL-2, which MLS already is involved with. At one time MLS had a relationship with USL-1 but it seemed there was too much give on the USL teams’ end and too much take on the MLS end, said McGuire. He remembers those days and says there would need to be changes in the rules to keep that from happening again. “The most important thing is that players are not shuffled back and forth, in and out,” said McGuire. “I think it needs to be as simple as possible.”

McGuire suggests MLS could help D-2 soccer by sharing marketing departments. He said instead of marketing to 16-MLS markets you could have another 12-30. “You could find other sponsors that perhaps can’t afford to advertise at the MLS level but could get into those thirty D-2 markets for a lot less,” said McGuire. He also suggests MLS could expand on the new sales center that has been set up in Minnesota to train young talent to sell tickets. He says some of those trainees could go to D-2 teams or perhaps go to D-2 teams before they move onto MLS teams. He says he could also see the same sort of scenario with a marketing center or a PR center.

In writing the conclusion to this 4-part story, I talked to many individuals to get their thoughts on how they see D-2 progressing into the future. Some are directly involved with the league. Others I spoke with were not directly involved but have followed the league for years. My goal was to attempt to lay out the strategies an organization might take to win sanctioning for the D-2 professional soccer league for 2011. It quickly became obvious that the possibilities of how an organization might structure their league are endless and the current task at hand is more than overwhelming.

Sunil Gulati and US Soccer have clearly stated the running of the league is not their business and it’s not something they want be involved with. However, as one person who is significantly involved with soccer in the US recently told IMS, “This is truly a big moment for US Soccer and a chance to shape the development of the sport in this country for years to come.”

USSF could give the league to the NASL, USL, MLS or some other entity that makes a bid. Or they could take another route.

In the US we’ve had to form different models of soccer from top to bottom since we are a latecomer to the sport and because of the myriad of choices of sport in this country. We have been affected in growing the sport by the massiveness of North America. Perhaps Division-2 also needs another model. Something different then we are currently doing. Perhaps US Soccer needs to convene a think tank of individuals who would create a new model. That model could be league run by a group of owners with a vested interest. Or perhaps a non-profit organization with no direct ties to the clubs but for the betterment of soccer in the US. It could be MLS or MLS with the owners of the teams involved. The scenarios and possibilities are endless.

Perhaps its time to step back and see what other successful minor sports leagues in the US have done right.  Perhaps if we are truly interested in player development it’s time to consider how to get MLS involved with D-2 and D-2 involved with D-3, PDL, NPSL or USASA teams. Perhaps its time to see the Development Academy teams involved as well. Perhaps its time to create a master plan that D-2 could play a significant part of and hopefully eventually prosper from. There is money in player development and that most likely is the future for many D-2 teams. In the early years the league was definitely about development. Many players graduated from D-2 to play in MLS, the US National Team and some to Europe.  Presently the league seems to be more of an entertainment league then a developmental league. Perhaps it can be both.

Perhaps in the near future D-2 teams will draw more fans that will see the up and coming US, Canadian and international stars of the future. They could also see former MLS stars in their own home town who now lead their D-2 teams and help guide the young rookie who’s got great future potential. They could also watch the journeyman D-2 player who holds the team together and may be a fan favorite.

With the correct leadership and planning the future of Division-2 soccer in North America could be both helpful in building a nation of professional soccer players and potentially profitable for the teams owners. The future could be bright, but who will lead the way?

A list of potential D-2 or D-3 pro soccer cities compiled by Bruce McGuire, a list broken down by regions or divisions with D-2 and D-3 teams listed along with potential teams compiled by Gerry Wittmann, and Dave Clark put together a Google map of MLS teams which could host a Reserve team along with current and potential NASL and USL-1 teams.

Compiled by Bruce McGuire from Minneapolis, MN

A list of cities in the US that do not have professional soccer but could realistically support a minor league soccer team

ROUGHLY BY SIZE – 64 Cities
Riverside CA – Inland from LA
Phoenix AZ – Heat restrictive?
Atlanta GA
San Antonio TX
San Diego CA
Dallas TX – (Urban) In the city not in the suburban sprawl
Detroit MI – Northern suburbs
San Francisco CA
Jacksonville FL
Indianapolis IN
Fort Worth TX
Memphis TN
Boston MA – (Urban) In the city not halfway to RI
El Paso TX
Nashville TN
Milwaukee WI
Las Vegas NV
Louisville KY
Oklahoma City OK
Tucson AZ – Heat restrictive?
Albuquerque NM
Fresno CA
Sacramento CA
Omaha NE
Norfolk-Virginia Beach VA
Cleveland OH
Tulsa OK
Colorado Springs CO
New Orleans LA
Cincinnati OH
Lexington KY
Buffalo NY
Madison WI
Norfolk VA
Birmingham AL
Reno NV
Boise ID
Spokane WA
Grand Rapids MI
Little Rock AR
Knoxville TN
Worcester MA
Jackson MI
Providence RI
Chattanooga TN
Bakersfield CA
Sioux Falls SD
Eugene OR
Quad Cities IA-IL (Davenport, Moline, Rock Island)
Peoria IL
Syracuse NY
Boulder CO
Hartford CT
Dayton OH
Wichita KS
Columbia MO
Mobile AL
Missoula MT
Akron OH
Hunstsville AL
Champaign-Urbana, IL
Green Bay-Appleton WI
Toledo OH
Des Moines IA

The same 64 cites but in alphabetical order

ALPHABETICAL
Akron OH
Albuquerque NM
Atlanta GA
Bakersfield CA
Birmingham AL
Boise ID
Boston MA
Boulder CO
Buffalo NY
Champaign-Urbana, IL
Chattanooga TN
Cincinnati OH
Cleveland OH
Colorado Springs CO
Columbia MO
Dallas TX
Dayton OH
Des Moines IA
Detroit MI
El Paso TX
Eugene OR
Fort Worth TX
Fresno CA
Grand Rapids MI
Green Bay-Appleton WI
Hartford CT
Hunstsville AL
Indianapolis IN
Jackson MI
Jacksonville FL
Knoxville TN
Las Vegas NV
Lexington KY
Little Rock AR
Louisville KY
Madison WI
Memphis TN
Milwaukee WI
Missoula MT
Mobile AL
Nashville TN
New Orleans LA
Norfolk VA
Norfolk-Virginia Beach VA
Oklahoma City OK
Omaha NE
Peoria IL
Phoenix AZ
Providence RI
Quad Cities IA-IL (Davenport, Moline, Rock Island)
Reno NV
Riverside CA
Sacramento CA
San Antonio TX
San Diego CA
San Francisco CA
Sioux Falls SD
Spokane WA
Syracuse NY
Toledo OH
Tulsa OK
Tucson AZ
Wichita KS
Worcester MA

Compiled by Gerry Wittmann of St. Louis, MO

A list of  cities with current D-2 and D-3 teams put into regions with a few other possibilities thrown in.

Atlantic                            Southeast                                 Central                     Southwest
CP Baltimore                 Miami/Ft. Lauderdale             NSC Minnesota              Austin Aztex
Harrisburg                     FC Tampa Bay                           AC St. Louis                    San Antonio
Pittsburgh                      Atlanta                                        Des Moines                     Ventura County
Richmond                      Charleston Battery                   Edmonton FC                 Phoenix
Real Maryland              Charlotte Eagles                       Nashville ?                       San Diego ?
Carolina Railhawks     Puerto Rico Islanders              Milwaukee?                     El Paso?
South Jersey?               Bermuda Hogges ?                   Thunder Bay?                 Las Vegas?
Virginia Beach?            Orlando                                      Cincinnati?                      San Francisco?
Chicago (Urban)?
Madison Wi ?
Cleveland ?
Milwaukee?

Compiled by Dave Clark of Seattle, WA

A map of:
BLUE: MLS teams which could host a Reserve team in their own Metro area.
RED:  USL-1 with possible expansion teams.
GREEN: NASL with possible expansion teams.

Click on the map to go directly to the Google Map.

Minnesota’s Teal Bunbury scored his first league goal last night in a 1-0 win away against the Columbus Crew. The MLS rookie was said to have been excited to return to Ohio where he played for two years at the University of Akron. Bunbury gets fed a nice throughball around the 14 minute mark as he makes a run down the right side of the field and lets go a nice low rip from the top of the box and through Crew goalkeeper William Hesmer’s legs.

Bunbury could have gotten two on the night when he was sent through with a nice diagonal ball that left him one-on-one with Hesmer late in the game, but he squandered the chance. Still, the Bunbury goal stood and the Wizards held on for the team’s first road win of the year.

Click for video of Bunbury’s goal.

This is the third of a 4-part article looking at the future of Division-2 soccer in North America. Click here for part-1. Part-2.

Adding teams, regionalizing divisions and reducing travel costs

In most countries around the world the growth of soccer has been much more organic than it has in the US. As the sport grew world wide, teams formed with the need for competitive games. As more and more clubs were formed the most organized and successful clubs rose to the top. For many countries one hundred years or more of growth, along with smaller geographical areas, has caused the many-tiered systems where teams are promoted and relegated.

At the top levels in North America we’ve  faced a much bigger challenge. The combination of an expansive area between Canada and the US and a sport that has only recently become more popular has meant the growth of pro soccer would have to be more strategic. The North American Soccer League was briefly successful in the 70′s, but poor planning caused the league to fold in the early 80′s. Major League Soccer learned their lesson from the NASL and seemed to have gotten it right, choosing slow growth with major market cities and more recently plucking successful teams from Division 2. They also went about finding the right owners who have bought into a league that is a single-entity structure. One where teams are controlled by the league in order to keep costs under control.

MLS also started Soccer United Marketing (SUM) which many say is the reason the league continues to have success since most teams still are not making a profit. No matter what the formula, Commissioner Don Garber is widely believed to be responsible for the success of the league and has been referred to as the David Stern of MLS.

While MLS seems to be on its way to success with a master plan, the second division of soccer has seemed more like an experiment that has not gone well.

In the 80′s and after the NASL exposed many new fans to the game, youth soccer exploded in North America. Francisco Marcos started the Southwest Indoor Soccer League (SISL) in 1986 which become an outdoor league the following year. Eventually his organization was called the United Soccer Leagues. He built the league to include three levels of senior men’s play, the first national women’s league (W-League), and the first competitive North American system of youth leagues (Super Y-League). In 1997, the American Professional Soccer League (A-League) was merged with the USISL to create a nationwide pyramid structure. During the course of twenty years the A-League and the USISL, and now USL have been vitally important to the growth of soccer. Many former and current MLS pros and US National Team players spent their early years in the USL system.

As important as the USL has been to the growth of soccer in North America it’s still had far too many teams fail at the D2 level. The league has seen 39 teams come and go and has a 75% rate of failure. Some have lauded the USL’s franchise system and claimed it has allowed the league to stay solvent while teams languished and died. But others have criticized that same franchise system. In fact, even Sunil Gulati seemed to refer to that system in his January press conference concerning 2nd division soccer: “We can’t have this constant issue that bedevils a number of sports,” said a stern Gulati. “That the offseason is spent primarily to make sure that you can come back the following season. That you’re looking for expansion teams not because it makes long-term sense to build the game and the league, but because you need an expansion fee.”

The USL, who in recent years had been owned by Umbro via their parent company Nike, was sold to NuRock Soccer Holdings late last August. NuRock Holdings, based in Atlanta, is led by Rob Hoskins and Alec Papadakis.

While the organization will continue to run as a franchise system, Papadakis, has made statements that their new ownership groups would be more responsive to owners within the 2nd division. This was a complaint of the breakaway owners group that called themselves the Team Owners Association (TOA) and eventually took on the name NASL.

In researching this article nearly everyone I spoke to shared a common idea concerning the second tier of soccer in North America: Regionalizing divisions and reducing travel costs.

Andrew Bell has been with the Charleston Battery since 1999 where he’s held almost every position within the organization and was named president of the club in 2009. Bell explains that when the Team Owners Association formed and when it was clear that there was going to potentially be a break-off between the two leagues that they would drop down a division to USL-2 (3rd division).

“We decided from the outset that we wouldn’t be a part of that,” said Bell from his office in Charleston, South Carolina. “We have felt for a long time that lower division soccer in the United States should be arranged regionally. Having competed in a league that gradually became national and had a national footprint and personally having visited every single one of the USL-1 facilities over the years it was pretty clear that in the majority of cases the number of fans attending the games isn’t enough to justify the travel costs.”

“We’ve long been proponents of regional leagues,” continued Bell. “Looking at the options for 2010 we decided that USL-2 (division 3 soccer) presented not only the best short term fix for us but also the best chance for long term stability for the Battery.”

USL-2 has only 6 teams this year but they are all located on the East Coast with the longest trip being about 650 miles from Charleston to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (Riverhounds).

Charleston’s attendance has averaged 3,600 this season which Bell says is on a par of what they’ve experienced the last few years. “The Battery has been playing since 1993 in what would now be called a PDL league,” explained Bell. “We joined the A-League in 1997 and spent 12 years in that league. We watched that league change from a regional league with 32 teams in 1997 to a league that had 9 teams in 2009. The number of owners that have come and gone over the years has been absolutely catastrophic for the sport. We are fortunate in that our ownership group has been consistent since day one. We may be the only team that has that stability. The financial pressures involved in competing in USL-1 were tremendous and are the root cause of a lot of the churn.”

Those 32 teams that Bell referred to played in a league with two conferences and 4 divisions: Northeast, Atlantic, Central and Pacific. A model that he and others feel Division 2 soccer should go back to in order to save money on travel expenses.

Bell could envision 2 divisions on the East Coast, a Central division and a West Coast division and he says it’s not out of the bounds of possibility for a Caribbean division.

“We are only interested in the sport growing across the United States,” stated Bell. “We are one hundred percent supportive of MLS and the US National Team. We want to be involved and do our part to develop players and to allow the soccer footprint to be as large as possible in the US.”

Bell says moving to an all East Coast D-3 league means the Battery have been able to eliminate all air travel and some other costs that are incurred as well. The team now takes all their trips by bus and often will turn around and take the bus back home immediately after the game instead of staying the night in a hotel. “In my estimation it would cost about $200 thousand for travel costs this year in the USSF D2 Pro League where it will run us between thirty- and forty-thousand dollars to travel this year in USL-2.”

There’s another added benefit to playing in a regional division: traveling fans and more intense rivalries. “We have definitely seen that,” said Bell. “Not to say we didn’t have good rivalries with the Rhinos and believe it or not, Puerto Rico, but it’s been refreshing to get back to some of these teams that were with us in the early days like Charlotte and Richmond. They were both around in 1993 when we started. The first game of the season we were at Charlotte and had close to 100 fans show up for the game. It’s only a two and half hour drive, but still, it’s doable and not like traveling to Vancouver for a game.”

Eddie Rock, a licensed player agent at Libero Sports, agrees with Bell. “I think it has to be regionalized,” said Rock. “If you look at the geographic sphere of the 2nd Division, it’s bigger than all of Europe. When you have teams like Puerto Rico traveling to Vancouver and the costs associated with a flight like that along with other travel expenses and hotels… I think long term, that’s actually taking away from players salaries as much as anything else. When the costs are so expense and when there isn’t a national TV audience it only makes sense to regionalize 2nd and 3rd division soccer in North America.”

Rock feels that the USL is looking to move back to those days of regionalized divisions: “I really believe that USL is moving in the direction of regionalized leagues. I’ve seen some comments from some officials that would lead me to believe that. Also, they have announced a team in Antigua, and you’ve got Puerto Rico and Bermuda. I could easily see them having a Southern and Caribbean conference next year. They already have one on the East Coast (USL-2). They could easily put together another 3rd conference on the West Coast.”

In fact, in an interview with IMS last March, Tim Holt, President of the USL, announced that the league would be expanding USL-2 to the West Coast. Holt said: “USL-2 is a very important league within our structure and the one which has the most immediate growth opportunity. We will be expanding USL-2 to form a Western Conference for 2011, which will be comprised of some current PDL teams and expansion teams. At this base level of professional soccer, maintaining regional competition and controlling expenses is imperative so there will not be teams traveling coast-to-coast with any regularity except for the post-season.”

Rock says looking at the big picture and the future of Division-2 soccer, he’s not sure if teams would move up to D-2 or down to D-3. He feels that it’s dependent on several factors. He believes that will be up to US Soccer and who they award the sanctioning to for the 2nd division in 2011 and what teams jump online with the league.

“If you look at a team like the Charleston Battery who dropped down to USL-2 (D3) this past year, they still pay as well if not better than some of the teams that are playing in the USSF D-2 this year,” states Rock. “I think it all depends on the level of commitment from owners and who can bring in fans and can put a good budget together because ultimately we have seen so many teams – 2nd and 3rd division teams – come into the leagues and die in this country.”

Rock says he believes there would even be possible TV interest in regional divisions that wouldn’t happen at a national level. “If you had a Midwest league with teams like Minnesota, Milwaukee, Madison, Des Moines, you could travel to any one of those markets,” said Rock. Maybe with the regionalization of the sports networks you could put together a package that would be something that would be a lot more attractive to a local Fox Sports Net than a national carrier.”

Adding teams and regionalizing divisions may seem like a great idea but the execution will take time and some teams that are already successful at lower levels will need convincing that it’s worth their while to jump up one or two levels. They will also need the assurance that the right things are in place to make that venture successful.

Todd Meiners is the General Manager of the Des Moines Menace, a USL-PDL team that draws over 3,500 fans per game, better than many D2 teams. Meiners said they think about moving up to D-2 almost every day. However, the organization doesn’t believe the timing is right or that the correct things are in place at this time to convince them to make the move.

“Now is not the right time and it’s not the right circumstance,” said Meiners. “We would need a lot of assurances and a product that would draw bigger crowds.” He explains that his team already draws well fielding an amateur side they don’t have to pay.

So what would lure the Menace to D2? Meiners says the team tried to build a soccer-specific stadium (SSS) about 5 years ago but that fell through. He says a SSS  appropriate for the Des Moines area would be one of the things that would be important to moving up a level. Also, the Menace would need the right things in place to draw enough fans to make up for the salaries of a paid team.

“We know MLS isn’t a possibility in Des Moines,” said Meiners. “If we were to make that move (D2) we would need attendances to be closer to 6 to 8 thousand per game.  Regional leagues are a good idea as long as it’s competitive and the teams are of the same caliber. We would need to know that each club is actively pursuing soccer with the same marketing philosophy that we are in Des Moines.”

And how do they approach their team’s financial objectives? “Like a small business,” says Meiner.  “Kyle Krause, the owner of the team, is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Kum & Go, L.C. and he owns over 400 stores. Our team office is located right in the headquarters for Kum & Go and everything is run in the same fiscally responsible way.” Even the team’s website boasts that Krause “has applied his company’s 50-year-old business approach to the Menace.”

Meiners says the idea of a strong regional conference is alluring and he loved what was happening between Portland, Seattle and Vancouver when they were all in USL-1. He says he believes MLS will be stronger when those three teams all make the move. But the Menace GM believes that most important is the assurance that other teams are building their markets and that the teams and the league will be around for a long time. “With the right amount of things in place we might be willing to make the move,” said Meiners.

But not everyone sees the benefits of entirely regionalizing divisions. Rob Clark, owner of the Rochester Rhinos, states he’s not a believer in completely regionalizing. Clark, who switched his alliance last fall and from the USL to the NASL,  believes there should be at least 3 local markets in each region.

“I think our fans really like and enjoy the fact that we’re playing a team from Minnesota and that we are on a national stage,” said Clark. “I think when you go totally regional it diminishes what you look like, so to speak. I don’t know for sure if that’s true but that’s my belief. I think you can regionalize it within reason but our fans do really enjoy playing a team from Portland, Oregon or Vancouver or Puerto Rico. I think it brings something to the table that this is a legitimate league.”

But when talking to members from teams in both the USL and NASL, the idea of regionalized divisions seemed to not necessarily run along alliances but more what each team felt was best for their organization and their particular market.

Djorn Buchholz, CEO for the Austin Aztex, currently with the USL, is not opposed to regionalized divisions, but wonders who the Aztex would play. Currently, the closest team to Austin is AC St. Louis which is nearly 900 miles away.

Even though regionalization seems to make sense there are definite obstacles. Where do you come up with 24-teams which seem like a minimum amount for four divisions with 6 teams per division? As if there aren’t enough problems at the current time finding qualified owners playing in appropriate stadiums and marketing correctly this would be no small task. Several solutions could be possible.

1) For now, drop D-2 teams down to D-3 and move some PDL teams up to D-3. A certain amount of those teams will rise to the top and eventually a new D-2 league could be started when the teams are ready and the timing is right.

2) Another scenario would be to move D-3 teams up to D-2 and add a few successful PDL teams as well. But getting those teams to comply with the new USSF standards might be difficult. However, this could be the best solution for now.

3) Keep the status quo for now and continue to recruit new owners and teams that fit the D-2 market with the plan to create 4 or 5 divisions with 6-8 teams a piece. However, this could not be done as randomly as it seems both the NASL and USL are currently going about it. Teams would need to be created strategically in cities that are appropriate for both the league and for the division.

No matter what the solution, the process cannot be rushed. It will take time to identify the right owners, start teams the right way or bring teams up from lower levels and help them along to be successful.

Tomorrow, Part-4 – What’s next for Division 2

This is the second of a 4-part article looking at the future of Division-2 soccer in North America. Click here for part-1.

Running teams like a small business instead of on their potential profit – Balancing the Budget

While USSF is looking at standards to make sure teams are run with fiscal responsibility, Rob Clark, owner of the Rochester Rhinos, feels there’s much more that can and must be done. Clark spoke to IMS while he was preparing for a home game. He wasn’t wooing potential corporate sponsors although you may find him doing that later in the evening. “Right now I’m stocking ice into the beer carts, then I’ll stock the beer carts,” said Clark. “I can’t speak for anyone else in the league but everyone on my payroll has to do a minimum of 2 jobs. We have a very small staff but I expect 200 percent work from them because that’s what it takes to survive. I think what differentiates me from many others in the world of soccer in North America is I run it like a business. I’m not a soccer guy. I’m trying to show people that it’s necessary to do so if you want a workable business model.”

Clark, a banker by trade, owns a community bank in upstate New York with his father . They started with one branch and have grown that to over 20. “That’s the way we’ve always done business,” stated Clark. “We find challenges, we turn them around and they have to become self sustaining. That’s what we’re on the verge of doing here with the Rhinos.”

Even though the Rochester Rhinos have been involved at the D2 level of soccer since 1996, Clark has only owned the team for 3 years. He bought the team in ’08 after the club had accumulated debts in excess of $15 million dollars. “Its been a tough learning experience for me the last few years but we successfully altered the bottom line by approx. 1.7 million dollars,” said Clark. “I lost approximately $2 million in ’08 and this year we are essentially at a balanced budget. I am very proud of that turnaround and proud of my staff for really buying into what we are building. It is my belief that the Rhinos brand is beginning to appreciate in value as a result of our turnaround.”

Clark says there are things teams can cut back on and others they cannot. “Our production value to fans like game day giveaways and the game day experience is better than ever,” states Clark. “We spend heavily on local advertising and in our production and save immensely where we can.”

The Rhinos owner says teams need to cut costs in areas that the customer doesn’t see and those cost saving measures cannot diminish the game day experience. “The fans need to walk into a professional environment and the event has to feel like an event.  If you operate like a high school team, then the public will treat you like a joke. I cannot stress the importance of spending in the right areas and finding ways to save in other areas. That’s what everyone needs to focus on right now, building your regional market.”

“I still don’t feel like we’ve got enough clubs that are running what you would consider a successful business,” says Eddie Rock, a FIFA licensed players’ agent at Libero Sports whose firm represents numerous athletes who play in this year’s USSF D2 Pro League.  Rock says that he fully understands that in order for players he represents to be successful the team owners need to be successful. He says with all the teams that have come and gone in the league it isn’t doing anyone any good. “I think we’ve too often been running them [D2 soccer teams] on potential and camps. We need to develop a system where there are five to ten thousand people going out every week to see a match. And there are sponsorships and possibly even TV money to bolster the front office, the back office and players salaries.”

While Clark says he agrees that too many teams are run on potential he has specific ideas on how to cut teams costs. However, he may not see eye to eye with Rock on all issues. He says one of the areas he thinks that owners need to look at is player payroll.

“The last 2 years I didn’t know enough about the soccer business so I went with the norm for the league which is pretty high payrolls,” said Clark. “When I first got here our payroll was through the roof. Last year it was still extremely high, probably the top 3 in the league. In the off-season I said, I’m just not going to do that anymore! We’re not going to lose a fortune. I’m going to find a seasoned general manager and a seasoned head coach and we want to play an exciting brand of soccer bringing in more youthful players that have a different dynamic. If you have a really strong coach and GM who can develop that talent then you have something long term. So far I think we are onto something and succeeding with our model.”

“I’m not suggesting the payrolls need to be some minute tiny number,” added Clark. “But I’m not an advocate of a player having one good year and then everyone is infighting for that player the following year who gets a 400% raise. There should be a cap on a players increase from year to year.”

“If you look at operating budgets and players salaries in leagues, TV money is usually what drives something from what we would call minor league to major league,” explains Rock. “Players are worth as much as a team can afford to pay them. A team is going to pay that player based on three of four revenue sources. Attendance is typically the number one factor. Two would be commercial sponsorships and the third is almost always TV money. Through all the major team sports in the US those are the three revenue generators. If you look at the leagues that have high salaries and the largest visibility, it’s all based on a national TV contracts. MLS finally has a very favorable contract with ESPN but there’s been nothing that shows there’s a large demand for a national TV contract for whatever the equivalent is to our 2nd Division soccer.”

The National Sports Center in a non-profit organization that run nearly 100 different businesses within the organization. Each one must break even or make a profit in the first year and the NSC Stars are no different according to Kris Bjerkness, general manager of the team. While running a pro soccer team may be very different then other ventures the NSC has delved into, they’ve taken a similar approach to player salaries as Clark when it comes to keeping player budgets low and looking for young exciting talent.

The NSC owns their own stadium that’s been paid off for years. They already had a staff in place and only had to hire a few more positions to run the team. Recently Bjerkness said that he believes his team could break even with paid attendances of around 2500 to 3500 per game. So far this season, the Stars are falling below that attendance number.

Clark states that his break-even number is most likely a bit higher than the Stars number. “There are so many contributors to that equation,” explains Clark. “Commercial sponsors are just as important. So are suite sales. If I had to establish a number, I would say approx 4 thousand per game paid, not including corporate packages or comps.”

Looking at the attendance numbers of Division-2 in the US, average attendance was 4,408 as of July 12 of this year. However, subtracting attendance numbers from Portland and Vancouver who will be moving to MLS next year sees that number drop to 3,880. Without Montreal, who will move to MLS in 2012, that number plummets to 2,934. Obviously numbers that wouldn’t allow many D-2 teams to financially break even on the year. If a team sold nothing but $12 dollar tickets at 2,934 fans per game and a 16-game home schedule that’s only $563,328 thousand dollars a year from ticket sales.

It’s said that average cost of travel for D-2 teams is approximately $190 thousand per year. Considering players salaries, stadium costs and staffing amongst many other expense, it’s clear why D2 teams must be extremely frugal if they are to survive let alone make a profit.

The NSC’s Bjerkness says the organization has been working hard to stand by a budget it made last winter. The Stars have applied many cost savings measure sometimes only bringing 15 players on a road trip to save money. The salaries of the Stars players are also believed to be one of the lowest in the league. Yet looking at the Stars and Rhinos record as of July 10th (midseason) Rochester was in 2nd place overall and Minnesota was tied for 4th place. [Minnesota did have a number of games in hand on some teams due to a very heavy early season schedule.] Teams with much higher payrolls like Carolina, Montreal and Puerto Rico are all below the Rhinos and the Stars at the midway point.

Rob Clark says he also has a few other simple money-saving ideas, some that he believes could save teams up to $200 thousand dollars a year. He states that teams could save not only independently but collectively as a league. One of his ideas is to follow an MLS model where there is a league center where everything filters through one office and back out. He believes teams could experience large savings by purchasing their workman’s comp for all players through that league office.

“We could save an enormous amount of money doing that,” said Clark. “Nearly 6 figures for each and every team. It just doesn’t make sense to me they way we are doing some things right now and I hope over the next several years we can look at those things and try to find a way to make it more productive.”

But Djorn Buchholz, CEO for the Austin Aztex and former GM for the Minnesota Thunder, underlines the complexity of the issues. He points out that while some ideas may look great for some teams, they may not work for all teams. For example, while Buchholz is not opposed to a centralized office and cheaper workers’ compensation, he explains that Texas does not require workman’s compensation. However the league does require that players are covered for injuries. So the Aztex self-insure themselves saving a considerable amount of money. The Aztex CEO explains that Austin’s cost for insurance is around $25 thousand a year. He says that when he was GM of the Minnesota Thunder their workman’s comp insurance was running in the area of $70 thousand a year. Clark’s centralized workman’s comp would most likely save most teams money but cost more for the Aztex then they currently pay.

Clark says he has other ideas as well. He believes teams could save by banding together and using their buying clout to get larger discounts on products used by all teams such as cups, promotional products or even promotional appearances. He says AAA Baseball is very good at banding together to buy down cost. He gives an example of a Sponge Bob day promotion. He explains how the league will book him at 10 different ball parks and by doing so they cut their costs in half.

Tomorrow Part-3– Adding teams, regionalizing divisions and reducing travel costs. Click here for Part-3

This is the first of a 4-part article looking at the future of Division-2 soccer in North America.

This past January saw US Soccer make a decision to run its division two pro soccer league themselves – but only for one season. Sunil Gulati made the announcement in a press conference that seemed to draw a record number of journalists for business concerning US Soccer’s second division. At the time, everyone seemed to be writing about the riff between the Team Owners Association’s North American Soccer League (NASL) and the long standing United Soccer Leagues (USL). Simon Evans of Reuters News Service posted a Twitter message that said, “Suddenly everyone loves 2nd Division soccer.” Evans was referring to the sudden interest from the American soccer public after the NASL and the USL had been dueling for control of the league. While Evans was being sarcastically humorous, he was also insightful.

The league controversy is gone for now with the 2010 season into its fourth month of play. Also gone are the many North American soccer fans who followed the saga last winter. But the importance of Division-2 pro soccer has not diminished. While many soccer fans may again be focusing on MLS or the upcoming European seasons, D-2 soccer is just as important if not more so than ever. It’s a critical piece of the soccer landscape in North America. While soccer purists will hardly watch MLS let alone a St. Louis – Minnesota Division-2 match, it’s vitally important to give players who are not in MLS a high level league in order to develop and grow their skills. Over 300 players are involved with and make a partial or full time living off of Division-2 pro soccer in North America and the Caribbean.

While US Soccer has taken this year to get better control of the teams involved with D-2 they are also looking at ways to better serve the league in the future. However, two teams have already had major stutters this season. Crystal Palace Baltimore’s co-coach and owner Pete Medd stepped down from his coaching position in mid-April to concentrate his efforts on off-the-field business. Medd was said to have been looking for cash for the money-strapped team who already found themselves in trouble as the season began. Medd was able to free up family money to temporarily alleviate the problem but sources have told IMS the club is still struggling.

At the same time Jeff Cooper’s AC St. Louis was said to have been in trouble. The organization eventually folded their WPS team, St. Louis Athletica and refocused their efforts on the men’s D-2 pro team. US Soccer used some of the team’s bonding money, money that each team must submit before the beginning of the season, to make several payrolls. It was revealed later that the Vaid brothers from London who Cooper had secured as primary investors in the club had not been making payments, causing the team’s financial hardship. Eventually Cooper was able to free the team from the Vaids. This has allowed him to free up personal money which he has now invested in the team to guarantee them safe passage at least to the end of the season.

Last year saw two teams fold after spending the 2009 season in the US second division of soccer. The Cleveland City Stars folded at the end of a 1-year experiment that saw them move from USL-2 (third division) to USL-1, (second division) that ended badly. The Minnesota Thunder, a team with a 20-year history and one of the longest running soccer teams in North America, also folded at the end of 2009 due to financial issues.

A look at the record of Division-2 pro soccer in North America shows thirty-nine teams have come and gone in the last 15 years. With the 12 current teams in the USSF D2 Pro League and adding a 13th team, the Seattle Sounders who where successful in the league before moving to MLS, the numbers total 52 teams that have played Division-2 pro soccer in North America since 1995. While all minor league sports have fairly large numbers of teams that come and go, that puts Division 2 soccer in North American at a 75% fail rate. A number that would be unacceptable in any sport or franchise system.

With teams coming and going at an alarming rate it’s no wonder scores of soccer fans throughout the US, Canada and the Caribbean see the league as amateurish. US Soccer has certainly seen these issues as well. Sunil Gulati has said this year would be a season where the Federation looks at the vetting process and would develop new standards to govern Division 2 league applicants to ensure the long term viability and sustainability of the leagues and teams.

“Yes, we’ve got some very specific targets in our regulations and we intend to put in more of those,” said Gulati in a January press conference. “Whether they apply to financial stability, what staffing levels look like, etc. To give you an example, our regulations have minimum standards on size of stadiums, a full-time operation for P.R. Director and CEO and so on and so forth. We think we need to put some more meat behind those in order to make sure that the teams that are part of a Division 2, or Division 1 for that matter, meet a certain standard and most importantly can meet that standard year in and year out and improve.

“We can’t have this constant issue that bedevils a number of sports, that the offseason is spent primarily to make sure that you can come back the following season. That you’re looking for expansion teams not because it makes long-term sense to build the game and the league, but because you need an expansion fee. We had that issue 25 years ago in our league, and we want to make sure that we’re able to avoid that so that expansion is done in a systematic way. U.S. Soccer is not going to be the one deciding that, but if people coming in the door want to be part of Division 2, they need to understand that this is a long-term play and that there are going to be some significant investments early on and aren’t counting on expansion proceeds in a year or two to reduce capital costs. The philosophy we’ve discussed with the leaders of these teams seems to be in line with that. People understand that for us the most important thing is stability, growth is right after that. But you can’t have growth without stability.”

So the question begs, how can we make D-2 pro soccer in North America successful? While suggestions are as plentiful as the teams that have come and gone, three basic concepts seem to be a common thread amongst those involved with the league:

1) A better vetting process
2) Running teams like small businesses instead of on future earning potential
3) Adding teams, regionalizing divisions and reducing travel costs

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A better vetting process – a stabilized future.

Last winter, US Soccer President Sunil Gulati spoke to the issue of the federation attempting to get better control of the many teams that have come and gone in D2 soccer.

“There are going to be some challenges, I’m not going to make any bones about that. Our goal is that the people who are going to be investing in teams and leagues understand what those challenges are and are realistic about what it’s going to take to make it work financially. If we see projections from a team or an applicant that says ‘I understand I’m going to have some losses but in the second year I’m going to make money,’ we are going to look at that very rigorously and make sure that we challenge those assumptions. The absolutely critical notion is that we need investors who understand that this is a long-term investment, a long-term business model. And what we’re seeing from the teams that are involved is that they understand that. We’re going to take some actions that are going to guarantee that we don’t have some of the issues we’ve had in the past. Raising the bar early helps us do that.”

Brian Remedi is the Chief Administrative Officer with the United States Soccer Federation (USSF). He works under Dan Flynn who is the CEO/Secretary General of the Federation. Flynn is also the chair of U.S. Soccer’s Professional League Task Force which also includes USSF board members Carlos Cordeiro and Mike Edwards. Through the work of that task force Remedi has been meeting with existing teams around the league.

“We are doing something that the Federation has never done in great detail before,” said Remedi in a May interview with IMS when he met with the NSC  Stars, Minnesota’s new D2 team. “We are getting out and looking at the teams in Division 2. In years past we left it up to the league administrators to ensure their clubs were meeting minimum standards and that games were run appropriately. Because we are running the league now we want to get out and make the house calls.”

“We are also looking under the hood from a marketing perspective, from a financial perspective, even from a ticketing perspective. Our goal is to ensure these teams are viable for the long term.

“It’s in our interest to make sure that there are division 2 markets that are going to be sustainable over the long haul. Not a short term 1-year or 2-year thing. We want these markets to be sustainable for long periods of time. So we are collecting information on the team and from the team and we will give some thought to that data and will be writing reports and giving it to our professional league task force who ultimately will make a recommendation to our board of directors. We assume that there will be at least one, two, possibly more entities applying for sanctioning for next year and we believe that the teams that will be part of that league will come out of the 12 teams that are in the USSF D-2 Pro League this year.

The USSF has called a meeting for the second week in August and have invited all teams currently involved with the USSF D2 Pro League. At that time, US Soccer will release their new standards that all current or future D2 teams will have to comply with. Expect the federation to require the future sanctioning league to require a more costly bond for each and every team involved with the league. It’s also said that they will have higher standards for stadiums and a more stringent litmus test for teams that want to join the USSF second division of soccer.

Tomorrow Part II – Running teams like small businesses instead of on future earning potential. Click here for Part 2.

The NSC Stars exhibition game against the Chicago Fire on Father’s Day, Sunday, June 20th at 5:00 p.m. has been cancelled.

The NSC released a press statement on Friday afternoon stating that the MLS Chicago Fire exhibition game has been cancelled due to the short promotional period that resulted in insufficient pre-game ticket sales.

“We apologize to our fans that we needed to make this late decision,” said Stars General Manager Kris Bjerkness. “We had a very short lead time to promote this game.”

According to NSC spokesperson Barclay Kruse, the Fire had initiated the contact and was looking for an exhibition during their MLS World Cup break. The low tickets sales caused the two teams to pull the plug. However, the NSC does feel that there would have been a good walk-up crowd for the game. He also stated that the two teams are still considering an exhibition at another time.

“We still believe there is sufficient interest here to support a professional soccer game of this magnitude, and we are definitely interested in working with the Fire to reschedule this game at some time in the future.”

Full refunds will be issued to all who purchased tickets.  Ticket buyers holding tickets can contact Stars Ticket Director Rich Zellmer at 763.792.7346, or rzellmer@nscminnesota.org.

US Soccer announced on Wednesday the possible scenarios for the third round of the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup Tournament.

Minnesota plays AC St. Louis at home next Tuesday, June 22. Should Minnesota win that game, US Soccer has scheduled the LA Galaxy of MLS to play the Stars on Tuesday, June 29th at the National Sports Center.

If AC St. Louis defeats Minnesota, they will have to travel to Los Angeles to play the Galaxy away the Home Depot Center.

Playing the LA Galaxy at home will be extra incentive for the Stars to get a favorable result against AC St. Louis. The Galaxy currently sit 1st in the Western Conference of Major League Soccer and hold the league’s best record at 10-2-1. The Galaxy under coach Bruce Arena have scored a league high 22 goals, tied with Real Salt Lake, and have allowed only 4 goals in 13 games. Nine of the team’s 22 goals have been scored by Edson Buddle. It’s highly unlikely that Buddle or Landon Donovon would make the trip even if the US don’t advance out of the 1st round of the World Cup.

Minnesota will be going into the AC St. Louis game with a streak of four games in 6 days. With Tuesday’s US Open Cup match it will be 5 games in 8 days. Should the Stars win Tuesday’s game, they would not have to play again until Saturday, June 26, away at Crystal Palace Baltimore.

The Galaxy last played on June 9th (1-0 loss to Real Salt Lake) and will not play again until Saturday, June 26 when they travel to BMO field to play Toronto FC. Major League Soccer took a World Cup break this year which will mean the Galaxy will have fresh legs no matter who they face, Minnesota or St. Louis.

2010 LAMAR HUNT U.S. OPEN CUP THIRD ROUND POSSIBLE MATCHES

The New Portland Timbers MLS Logo

The Portland Timbers unveiled their new rebranded MLS logo on Saturday at halftime of the US v England World Cup match. The revealing of the logo was done with a video much like the Vancouver Whitecaps unveiling of their new logo last week. However, things didn’t go as smoothly for the Timbers and rightly so. While the new Vancouver logo distanced itself from a cartoon looking badge by bringing in clean sleek lines and colors, the Timbers logo features an ax that is even more cartoonish looking then the current logo.

Timbers supporters had expressed concerns for some time that the new logo would not represent them well and would be too far removed from the old logo. “Merritt Paulson, owner of the Timbers had said on numerous occasions that with the new logo he was going to honor the legacy of the Timbers,” said Kip Kesgard, a long time Timbers Army supporter and soccer writer for Oregon Live.com

Merritt Paulson, owner of the team, had recently written a letter to supporters trying to calm their concerns.

I want to briefly clarify a discussion that took place yesterday between the Timbers Army and the front office reps concerning a new team logo for MLS.

At the outset, I would say that our logo in MLS should unequivocally not be exactly the same as it is in USL-1.  We are making a move to major league.  This is not simply a Championship League team being promoted to the EPL … The franchise is being elevated and significant change will be taking place (in a good way) on many levels.  A new logo is critical to represent that change.

However, the Portland Timbers are not the typical USL-1 team, our history is not the typical pro U.S. soccer team history and you are not the typical fans.  We recognize the need to pay significant homage to our past.

As this relates to logo/colors etc: simply expect evolution, not wholesale change.  We will not get this wrong. Trust me.

Merritt Paulson

Unfortunately Paulson and the front office of the Timbers did seem to get it wrong according to Kesgard. “I deeply believe he thought this was a way to honor the legacy of the Timbers crest,” said Kesgard. “I keep looking at it and think – cartoonish. The words end up disrupting the bottom of the logo. It takes attention away from the ax and chevrons. It just doesn’t seem that finished.”

“I had seen a leaked logo on Friday night,” said Kesgard. “Some kid on Twitter said he had picked up this shirt (with a logo on it). I didn’t want to believe it was true.”

Kesgard explained his reaction as well as the crowd’s reaction to the new logo. “I was stunned, I was absolutely stunned. I couldn’t believe this was the crest they had worked so hard upon for so many months and this was the end result. The reaction after the logo unveiling – I kind of would have expected more cheers but it was dead silent followed by boos. If it had been something we all expected we all would have said, wow! This just wasn’t it at all.”

Some supporters started singing Timbers Army songs while many in the audience booed which eventually turned into a rousing chant of “You f–ked up.” According to some reports, Paulson got into a shouting match with some vocal supporters. Oregon Live.com features a photo that shows Paulson being steered away from two supporters who are laughing. Paulson, who looks to be agitated, is saying something to the two and is clearly not amused.

“The guys who were singing are kind of the reverse coin of the Timbers Army,” said Kesgard. “They are the most passionate fans. They love their team and sometimes that energy gets a little misguided. I respect their right to say what they did, but it sure didn’t make us (Timbers Army) look good. Nor did the front office look very good in the sense that this got unveiled and it went over like a lead balloon.”

The Timbers current Division II logo

Kesgard says that Paulson has done a great job of including the Timbers Army in things like stadium setup, ticket prices, player updates and stadium construction. He didn’t know if he had included them in the logo design and said he has never heard of anyone being consulted.

Timbers Army supporters are so upset their discussion board is constantly growing with complaints while someone has started a Facebook page set up to protest the new logo. Some have even added their own designs, a few seem more attractive than the current new logo in question.

Tom Dunmore of Pitch Invasion reports that the design firm that created the logo is called Rare Design and “whose portfolio is remarkably extensive in its number of mediocre American sports team logo designs.”

Kesgard says he’d like to think the chances are pretty good that the Timbers will reconsider the logo. “There is a track record of MLS going back and making modifications,” said Kesgard. “It happened with the original Seattle name and also with the Houston 1896 name which got changed to the Dynamo. I know the front office has been deluged with comments. I hope that this is the impetus for them to really take a look at it and see that the people that are complaining about the logo are coming at it from a passionate and caring way. We care about the team, we care about the crest we wear. We just don’t feel that it meets the standards that it should.”

Video of the Portland Timbers Logo Unveiling