When you want to start a professional soccer team you need a league to play in. How do you go about choosing that league, and does it really matter? Today I’ll answer those questions and even though I could write a short essay about how each league sucks, that will be for another day.
The Building Paradise project officially started in 2019 when I walked into the USL headquarters in Tampa with my backpack and shorts saying I wanted to start a team. For some strange reason the expansion guys believed me. Guess I sold them pretty good.
At that time the USL was the only real option for us to play in. They had just announced USL League One, a third tier league which spoke to me for a couple of reasons;
1) The buy-in was significantly less than the alternative
2) Perfect level to develop players (which is basically the only thing I knew how to do back then), and
3) One day there will be promotion and relegation and we’ll be the first team promoted on merit. Hopefully.
In early 2020 the world as we know it changed. I had a flight booked from Sweden to Florida three days after the travel ban was enacted. We were going to sign with our primary investor and sign the franchise agreement. But now everything was upside down.
In the period of uncertainty things started happening on the league front. There was a technically professional (but not really) league called NISA that really went after us. The more I spoke to them the less I wanted anything to do with them.
There was also rumors about the MLS launching its own lower league and we had very early conversations with them. They really screwed up the launch and are now starting to find their identity.
The biggest question I asked myself in this time period is whether it really matters what league you are in. Everyone who works for a league would say yes of course.
But then you see teams such as Detroit City FC and Chattanooga FC who both escaped NISA to the USL and MLSNP respectively. They built their clubs and their fan bases despite being in a crappy league.
My thoughts are that as long as you build a great brand that resonates with your community and brings fans on board it doesn’t really matter. And for all of you soccer purists (who’d prefer me writing “football”), what tier you are on doesn’t matter at all for most folks as long as you’re not on the top level. In this country you’re either Major League or you're not.
People will support the local team for being local as long as you are competitive, beating your rivals and putting on a good time at the games. Not because you’re on tier 2 or tier 3.
With that said, promotion and relegation would bring a lot more interest and excitement to those two tiers. It would make our job a lot easier in creating exciting narratives for each game at the end of the season.
As a team operator, if you have solid crowds and are running a club that is financially sustainable (that’s the big if), you will always survive even if your league would fold. In the land of opportunity, creating a quality product will be rewarded over time. But why did we choose the USL?
There’s a lot of factors that makes it make sense for us. We are located an hour from their HQ which means we have slightly more access and can get support on short notice. The league is expanding rapidly and in a fairly sustainable way. They have a lot of great people in their office who have been around the soccer landscape on different levels and have a lot of experience.
One of the key things is that they have substantial experience when it comes to stadium development which is imperative for long term financial sustainability and something we will undertake in some shape or form. I guess you could also argue that the other leagues disqualified themselves through their conversations with me which made the decision super easy.
The fact that we have known each other for five years and come to trust each other is probably the most important factor for me personally. I value relationships highly in business as in life and believe that life’s too short to hang out with assholes.
What do you see as strengths and weaknesses with each league?
Where do you think we’ll end up in this country in 5 or 10 years?
Will we get promotion & relegation?
And do you agree with what I said a handful of years ago now: “At the end of the day, we’’ll all end up playing in the MLS pyramid”?
MW
