Since numerista is the starter for the top 6 threads, I thought it was time to break things up a bit, and start my first thread in a good long while.
The subject: I kept hearing that the PDL was rapidly (extraordinarily) expanding, while the PSL has dwindled into obscurity and the A-league is struggling to have enough teams for the West to not sink under prohibitive travel costs. So, I took an extremely rough look at change in the USL by looking at the growth, solely in terms of teams, of the three divisions.
I went back to 1996, which was when the USISL split its Pro League into a Premier league (future A-league) and a Pro League (future PSL). The Premier League merged with the 8-team A-league in 1997, I counted teams in both for 1996. Teams that changed names were counted as the same team, but teams that were moved to different markets were counted as separate.
I used the American Soccer History Archives (http://www.sover.net/~spectrum/) for most of this - the site is invaluable.
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
A-lg. Total 28 24 28 30 25 21 18 19 16
In X 8 7 7 1 2 2 2 3
Out X 12 3 5 6 6 5 1 6
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
PSL Total 27 39 39 26 22 17 18 13 12
In X 20 10 3 3 3 6 0 3
Out X 8 10 16 7 8 5 5 4
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
PDL Total 34 30 33 43 44 45 47 51 54
In X 13 14 23 15 13 14 13 11
Out X 17 11 14 13 12 12 9 8
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
Total Total 89 93 100 99 91 83 83 83 82
In X 41 31 33 19 18 22 15 17
Out X 37 24 35 26 26 22 15 18
Total league In/Out numbers don't match the other because of within-division movement.
Probably several things merit discussion here, but I've only got a few. One, net change, both in and out of the league, have steadily declined since 1996. I'm guessing it's because over time teams have settled down in more and more suitable markets, making fewer locations available, but there's so many potential markets still untapped, especially for the PDL, I'm not totally convinced.
The PDL has grown every single year except one, despite the fact that it has never lost fewer than 8 teams in a season. I have no explanation for this. It's baffling.
The A-league has consistently found new franchisees, despite a heavy attrition rate each year. The PSL meanwhile seems to have made a living by picking up the A-league's scraps. I'm not really convinced that it has much of a future anymore - the league has declined every year since 1998.
Total USL teams have stayed pretty much the same for the last four years, but they must be losing revenues, as more and more teams settle into the cheapest possible division.
etc. etc.
Because it's the only level of USL soccer where the finances make sense.
Sorry I didn't concede in the PSL thread, kenn, I can only assume that you're right - I'm sure you know far more about the financial aspect of USL teams than me.
Besides the former professional teams who self-relegate (check how many of those there have been), startups are frequent because even if it tanks, it doesn't tank on the scale of an Edmonton tank.
You can conceivably run a PDL team, given a favorable geographic placement in relation to other franchises, for under $50k. And if you're someone like Chris Keenan in Kalamazoo, you can do quite well for yourself.
Could you elaborate? How well is he doing?
You've checked the quantity, Chris, now check the actual teams and where they're coming from - self-relegation or complete startup?
Sure thing, I just went back to 1999, I'll do the rest if you like, it's a little bit labor intensive:
2003
Ajax Orlando Prospects
Carolina Dynamo
Cleveland Internationals
Colorado Springs Blizzard
DFW Tornados
El Paso Patriots
Indiana Blast
Lafayette Swamp Cats
Laredo Heat
New Jersey Stallions
Reading Rage
3 PSL (Carolina, NJ, Reading), 2 A-league (El P, Indiana), 6 startup.
2002
Abbotsford Rangers
Albany Blackwatch Highlanders
BYU Cougars
Fort Wayne Fever
Fresno Fuego
Nevada Wonders
New Orleans Shell Shockers
South Jersey Barons
St. Louis Strikers
Toledo Slayers
West Virginia Chaos
Columbus Shooting Stars
Jersey Shore
0 A-league, 1 PSL (SJ Barons), 12 startup (wow)
2001
Austin Lightning
Memphis Express
Nashville Metros
Raleigh CASL Elite
Rhode Island Stingrays
Richmond Kickers Future
Williamsburg Legacy
Wisconsin Rebels
Greenville Lions Premier
Houston Toros
Worcester Kings
Chico Rooks
San Fernando Vallley Heroes
Santa Barbara Sharks
1 A-league (Nashville), 2 PSL (Chico, RI), 11 startup
2001
Cape Cod Crusaders
Chesapeake Dragons
Chicago Fire Reserves
Jersey Falcons
Orange County Blue Star
Sioux Falls Spitfire
Southern California Seahorses
Calgary Storm Select
Texas Spurs
Chicago Eagles Reserves
Lafayette Lightning
Okanagan Predators
West Dallas Kings
2000
Cape Cod Crusaders
Chesapeake Dragons
Chicago Fire Reserves
Jersey Falcons
Orange County Blue Star
Sioux Falls Spitfire
Southern California Seahorses
Calgary Storm Select
Texas Spurs
Chicago Eagles Reserves
Lafayette Lightning
Okanagan Predators
West Dallas Kings
1 PSL (Cape Cod), 12 startup
1999
Boulder Rapids Reserve
Palm Beach Pumas
Thunder Bay Chill
Louisiana Outlaws
Dayton Gemini
Tampa Bay Hawks
Colorado Springs Ascent
New York Freedoms
North Jersey Imperials
Twin Cities Phoenix
Wichita Jets
Alabama Saints
Broward County Wolfpack
New Brunswick Brigade
South Florida Future
1 PSL (North Jersey), 14 startup
1998
Brooklyn Knights
Central Florida Kraze
Vermont Voltage
Seattle Sounders Select
Miami Strike Force
San Fernando Valley Heroes
Westchester Flames
Central Jersey Riptide
Chicago Sockers
Lexington Bluegrass Bandits
Nevada Zephyrs
Rockford Raptors
Willamette Valley Firebirds
Clarksville Gunners
Colorado Springs Stampede
New York Freedom
NY Capital District Shockers
Orlando Nighthawks
Sioux Falls Breeze
Team St. Louis
Tucson Amigos
Wichita Blues
5 PSL (Vermont, Central Jersey, Rockford, NY Capital, Orlando, 17 startup
I'm pretty sure I got these right, but if somebody would double check a random year, I'd appreciate it. For the record, there were way fewer self-relegations thatn I expected.
(FSW started broadcasting A-league games in 2003, if that helps regarding the Blast)
The PDL has grown every single year except one, despite the fact that it has never lost fewer than 8 teams in a season. I have no explanation for this. It's baffling.
Because it's the only level of USL soccer where the finances make sense.
Besides the former professional teams who self-relegate (check how many of those there have been), startups are frequent because even if it tanks, it doesn't tank on the scale of an Edmonton tank.
You can conceivably run a PDL team, given a favorable geographic placement in relation to other franchises, for under $50k. And if you're someone like Chris Keenan in Kalamazoo, you can do quite well for yourself.
You've checked the quantity, Chris, now check the actual teams and where they're coming from - self-relegation or complete startup?
Of course, there are a host of other reasons that Des Moines is able to outdraw Pittsburgh, Wilmington, etc. I think it's clear Mutinywxgirl was never suggesting that simply being professional is enough to outdraw PDL competition.
Then what's the "huge advantage?"
Not having competition is a huge advantage to many of the PDL teams. If you notice, there are a lot located in smaller markets where they are probably the only thing in town, outside college sports.
PSL makes sense, especially in the Northeast, where the competition is fierce. Why should people pay to come see an amateur team in PDL when they can go to the local city facility for free and see a higher level of competition, especially in the metropolitan areas, where the influx of foreigners is huge? That's why PSL works up here. It's much easier to market a professional team, than an amateur one.
Many PDL teams do operate right around the 50K mark, as Kenn said. Once you hit PSL, that goes up to at least 200K. It is a huge increase, but one that is well worth it to be able to field a professional team. Budgets in A-League can run in the 500K range.
I hope that helps to shed a little light on USL.
Thanks for the reply, I really appreciate the figures. If you don't mind my asking, is this perceived advantage the reason that Westchester is in the PSL? It doesn't seem to me that, for a team averaging only a few hundred fans per game, the additional investment is really worth it - are there, as kenn suggests, political reasons that keep teams in the PSL more than simply economic ones (Harrisburg is there, e.g., because it's the highest level they can reasonably play at, not necessarily the most profitable)?
Hey Kenn,
Here's a somewhat related question ... looking at your A-League attendance database, a lot of teams at that level had (relatively) promising starts, followed by a steady slide. The Indiana Blast didn't get off to a fast start attendance-wise (not a terribly slow one, either), but they did manage a steady build ... why were they able to do that, when so few other teams have?
Thx.
They made up the numbers, mostly. :)
That's an exaggeration. I think most teams do.
All I can speak of is from the time that I was there - they put no emphasis on ticket sales for the first couple years of the franchise (either the original owner - who was out before the first season was over - or the subsequent ones). They figured if they advertised and did mass mailings, people would come out.
Eventually, I was able to convince them to at least try - and the one time we had a dedicated ticket sales guy, he and I worked together to set (then) franchise records for season ticket revenue and group ticket revenue.
I forget what year it was - 2002? When they had the Fox Sports World game at home against Rochester? And they had like 4,000+ or something - anyway, it was the largest crowd ever. They (from what I understand) did everything you're supposed to do - right out of the Jon Spoelstra playbook for that one game to make sure there was a great crowd. And there was.
But as far as I know, they never put that level of effort into it again, never followed up on it, and next thing you know, they're in the PDL and the franchise gets revoked because they put someone in charge who - stop me if you've heard this one before - didn't know anything about ticket sales. Or about generating any kind of revenue.
Some of Indiana's perceived build was made up. Some of it was real. But the real part of it wasn't nearly enough to save them - they had been bleeding money for years, and only the ego of the owner, who, to my knowledge, has never admitted in his life that he might have gone about something the wrong way, kept them around as long as they were around.
No, FSW has broadcasted games before 2003. This is at least the third year of the deal.
Indiana had one FSW broadcast and then the next year they had two (one against Minnesota). This year, obviously, they had none. That's at least three years of the deal.
The A-League was doing TV well before that, just not on FSW.
As for Kalamazoo, the fact he's still in business is one clue. But back when we were in D3 and there were crossover games, we played them in Kalamazoo and Chris had a nice little setup. They were getting good crowds in a nice little yard, had a great camp program, and were fortunate enough to get some trickle down MLS cash from some guys who had played for him in the PDL and went on to stick in MLS (which I lobbied against, but they weren't listening to me - it seemed stupid to me that a PDL team would get the same amount of trickle-down cash from MLS for paying a player no money to play for a couple of months in the summer as an A-League team got for actually paying the player for an entire season and basing marketing around him and whatnot).
Now I understand they have their own complex and perhaps an indoor thing. He and his wife run the show (they had a W-League team for a while as well, but I don't think they still do). Chris is sharp - he knows how to set things up so that he can turn a buck, and he provides a quality product in a market that doesn't have a heck of a lot of competition.
So, I've been meaning to do this for a while, but hadn't gotten around to it. Here's a chart illustrating the percentage of PDL teams that survive into year x, separated by the year they were founded. So, e.g., of the teams that joined the PDL in 1998 (13), 38% (5) survived into the team's third year (2000). These big charts usually don't get any responses, but I'm going to persevere.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1996 1 0.53 0.32 0.37 0.32 0.21 0.21 0.16 0.16
1997 1 0.62 0.38 0.31 0.23 0.15 0.15 0.15
1998 1 0.46 0.38 0.31 0.31 0.23 0.23
1999 1 0.63 0.37 0.26 0.21 0.21
2000 1 0.83 0.5 0.33 0.25
2001 1 0.77 0.69 0.54
2002 1 0.75 0.5
2003 1 0.85
Total 1 0.67 0.44 0.35 0.26 0.20 0.20 0.16 0.16
There's a couple of clearly visible trends here. One, obviously, PDL teams don't exactly last a long time. There were 34 PDL teams in 1996 - 7 played in 2004 (of course, those teams are quite robust - Kalamazoo, Michigan, Spokane, Nashville, Cocoa, Des Moines, West Michigan Edge). The other teams averaged a 2.15 year lifespan in the PDL.
Second, there looks to be a pretty significant difference coming around 2000 - in the four years before that, 56% of teams survived into their second years, 36% into their third - since then, 80% have survived into year 2, 57% into year 3.
Below are the team numbers (rather than percentages) for the above chart:
Raw 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1996 19 10 6 7 6 4 4 3 3
1997 13 8 5 4 3 2 2 2
1998 13 6 5 4 4 3 3
1999 19 12 7 5 4 4
2000 12 10 6 4 3
2001 13 10 9 7 0
2002 12 9 6
2003 13 11
2004 11
And yet despite the obvious lack of competition, many PDL teams can't get more than a few hundred people to their games, if that.
That doesn't strike me as a huge financial advantage.
Meanwhile, Des Moines, which does have competition from a fairly successful AAA baseball team in a nice ballpark, outdraws a lot of PSL teams.
Of course, there are a host of other reasons that Des Moines is able to outdraw Pittsburgh, Wilmington, etc. I think it's clear Mutinywxgirl was never suggesting that simply being professional is enough to outdraw PDL competition.
They had like 4,000+ or something - anyway, it was the largest crowd ever. They (from what I understand) did everything you're supposed to do - right out of the Jon Spoelstra playbook for that one game to make sure there was a great crowd. And there was.
Very nice ... I was going to say that this reminded me of Peter Wilt's comment about the MLS newcomers in Salt Lake (that they need to realize selling MLS tickets isn't like selling NBA tickets).
Then I looked up Jon Spoelstra (Portland Trailblazers, New Jersey Nets) -- oops!
Not having competition is a huge advantage to many of the PDL teams. If you notice, there are a lot located in smaller markets where they are probably the only thing in town, outside college sports.
PSL makes sense, especially in the Northeast, where the competition is fierce. Why should people pay to come see an amateur team in PDL when they can go to the local city facility for free and see a higher level of competition, especially in the metropolitan areas, where the influx of foreigners is huge? That's why PSL works up here. It's much easier to market a professional team, than an amateur one.
Many PDL teams do operate right around the 50K mark, as Kenn said. Once you hit PSL, that goes up to at least 200K. It is a huge increase, but one that is well worth it to be able to field a professional team. Budgets in A-League can run in the 500K range.
I hope that helps to shed a little light on USL.
Not having competition is a huge advantage to many of the PDL teams. If you notice, there are a lot located in smaller markets where they are probably the only thing in town, outside college sports.
And yet despite the obvious lack of competition, many PDL teams can't get more than a few hundred people to their games, if that.
That doesn't strike me as a huge financial advantage.
Meanwhile, Des Moines, which does have competition from a fairly successful AAA baseball team in a nice ballpark, outdraws a lot of PSL teams.
 Walking/Running Puppy - Advise needed
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USL Teams History