Ready Or Not, Another Pro Indoor Soccer League

The United Soccer Leagues (USL) will hold a press conference today in Rochester, New York to announce the start of yet another indoor soccer league. The name of this one won’t be the World Indoor Soccer League or Xtreme Soccer League or any of the other dozen or so names of indoor leagues that have come and gone. This one will be called the I-League presumably and obviously for “Indoor League”.

Francisco Marcos, founder of the USL, will be in attendance and in a sense you could say the United Soccer Leagues has come full circle. Marcos’ original league that would eventually become the USL was an indoor league.

Jeff DiVeronica of the Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester, NY reported this week that the Rochester franchise may be named after the old NASL Lancers. Sam Salvatore, a pizza shop franchise owner who was once involved with the Rhinos, will be leading the Rochester indoor USL franchise.

But as Kenn Tomasch pointed out several months ago, indoor soccer has been on the decrease since the mid 80′s. So you have to ask why a new indoor league and why now? I guess we will have to watch for the press release to see if we get any insights.

Meanwhile, IMS friend Tom Dunmore at the very well-written Pitch Invasion sums up all my thoughts about this new I-league. I highly recommend checking out his story.

The press conference will be streamed live at 2:00 p.m. CT today on www.usllive.com.