MPLS City's Return to the USOC

March 05, 2020 by Dan Vaughn

When the Uncorporate soccer club rolls into town, it brings with it a host of expectations both on and off the field. With a carefully crafted social media strategy, the club has created a fan base around the world. Paired with their innovative approach to merchandise and marketing, those fans can sustain their love and pride of the club by dressing in some of the coolest kits and tshirts in the game. And all that off the field success is being paired with a club stocked with some of the best talent in the country, all from their home state of Minnesota.

Now the Uncorporate machine prepares to take on the largest and longest running domestic soccer competition, the US Open Cup. We sat down with head coach Matt VanBenschoten and club co-founder Dan Hoedeman to discuss the upcoming match and what we can expect when the Crows fly into Chicago.

It would be stupid if I didn’t ask about the last time MPLS City competed in the USOC, can you discuss what happened?

Dan: Back in 2017, we had qualified for the first round from the open qualifiers--first amateur team from Minnesota to do it near as we can tell--but we moved to the NPSL from the now-defunct PLA and USSF disqualified us from the tournament. You can't change leagues while in the tournament, though that only impacts amateur teams. For example, that same year Minnesota United moved from NASL to MLS and stayed in.

The next year, in 2018, we did the qualifier route as well. I was actually coaching the team for the qualifiers. We were drawn away to Sante Fe Wanderers in Kansas City but they had issues with international clearances for their players and forfeited. Then we were drawn away to Aurora Borealis in Chicago. We went there and won 3-2 in extra time. We really bossed the game, but knockouts are knockouts. Extra intense. And it's really hard to play away at this level, but our boys made it happen.

Then we had to travel to Rochester, NY. It was winter, snowing, we played on a park field, had an unheated bathroom as our "locker room" (but it wasn't open until the game started). Really frustrating because we had an indoor facility and an old NASL stadium lined up as options, but such was the draw. We scored in the first minute I think. Their goalie had an astonishingly good game and they had an excellent forward who hit us twice on the break. We had the run of play, but credit to Rochester. They did what they had to do. No surprise, that goalie ended up in USL Championship, he was fantastic. Anyway, win the game and we would have qualified but we missed out on the 2018 first round.

Did you take any lessons from your previous experience?

Dan: Traveling at this level is really, really hard--especially in the qualifiers or in March when you're dealing with proper amateurs with day jobs (and not college kids). Inevitably, some guys have to work or otherwise can't make it. The travel schedule has to account for their day jobs and not just the perfect travel experience. Pregame and all that happens in inexpensive hotels and often the pre-game kickaround is in the hotel parking lot, that's just how it is at that level. We have learned a lot about how to manage logistics, scheduling, players, and pre-game prep.

It's still a tall ask to win away in general and even moreso at this level, but we won't make the same mistakes we made in 2018.

The club has been very successful in the NPSL, so what does success look like in the USOC?

Dan: This tournament is a little bit of a blank slate because of when it starts. We're building our tournament roster right now and it hinges on who is available. Our college guys are out. We also have guys checking their work schedules too and trying to plan for that. Our team is in flux.

Our scouting is in flux, too. Who will Chicago FC United play? It won't be their typical USL2 roster. Will they rely on their (very successful) academy? Chicago is full of elite ballers. Will they pull from them? We're not even sure what team we're playing.

It's hard to know what to expect.

I can tell you that the guys who were there in 2017 when we were kicked out feel like there is unfinished business they have with the tournament. We're keen to get a win and move on. The dream is to face a pro team. Can you imagine us, say, hosting Forward Madison? Or playing Minnesota United at the Allianz? We can. Not saying we expect it! But this tournament is about dreaming a little bit and those are our dreams.

Matt: Success in the Open Cup for us is to make a run into the 2nd or 3rd rounds. It’s incredibly ambitious, but what every person in this club understands is that being part of MPLS City is a sacrifice and a privilege. It’s a bond that few other teams have. When you look around and know that every single person you see next to you is giving something up to be there with you fighting for the same thing, it’s indescribable. We will certainly play teams that are more talented than us, but they won’t have that same passion/dedication that I see on a weekly basis from our players.

Round 1 you’ll be facing a USL2 side in Chicago FC United. Thoughts?

Matt: It’s definitely an intriguing draw. Chicago FC United has a very good reputation throughout the soccer community and if you look at their results the past few years, they are one of the best USL-2 teams. The biggest wildcard for all of these first round matchups is what non-college players will each team be able to field. Since US soccer made the ruling that all current college players can no longer participate in the Open Cup, it will have a drastic impact on how teams form their rosters.

Dan: Top to bottom, Chicago are a great organization in a city full of top players. Again, not sure what their team will look like given the time of year, but facing a top opponent is the point of the tournament. They're a top opponent.

How will you approach the match?

Matt: To be blunt, our approach is to prepare well and go win. There’s a history with MPLS City and the Open Cup. Given who we are and our propensity to ruffle feathers (no pun intended), we have to prove it on the field otherwise no one will take you seriously. It’s arguably the biggest game we’ve had as a club in our small history, therefore we’ll be preparing as such.

Do you feel like you have something to prove in this match?

Street art from last year’s MPLS City-coordinated visit from Dutch street artists, Kamp Seedorf

Dan: At our best, we're this traveling circus that likes to play soccer. We just want to have fun and play good teams. Our attitude is not that we have anything to prove.

That said, Minnesota isn't a big soccer state, this is our first run in the cup proper, we all remember 2017... We're punching up against Chicago. We're used to that, though, to punching above our weight-on-field and off. It's part of the fun.

You'll be playing in an MLS stadium, excited about that experience?

Dan: It's fantastic to play at a stadium of that quality.

We played our 2017 qualifier against Oakland County at the National Sports Center when Minnesota United had just moved out of it but before it had been converted. Playing on an NASL-qualify surface is something the guys all enjoy. And our fans loved being back at the NSC, it was nostalgic. But this is going to be a level up, and it's a dream scenario. We spend a lot of time playing in high school stadiums, so are we excited about playing in an MLS stadium? Hard to express how excited we actually are.

Any thoughts on the change to the USOC schedule by shifting round 1 matchups earlier? How will it affect your roster/potential players?

Matt: In years past this would have had a much bigger impact on us. As we’ve evolved as a club, we’ve had to rely less and less on college players or guys who are out of town. In year 5 we now have a solid core of very talented players who are all local guys. Players like Max Stiegwardt, Shae Bottum, Myles Norville and Justin Oliver (just to name a few) have all spent time in and around MLS/USL teams. So we know we have the pedigree to compete at a very high level.

Overall, what do you think about the USOC? Should it be more important to the average American soccer fan?

Dan: I have had a bumpy relationship with the U.S. Open Cup over the years, but I love it. I wish it was bigger, I think it has March Madness potential. It definitely has potential to encourage the growth of lower division clubs. I actually think that the structural changes made this year are positive. I wish it didn't start quite so early, but that's a Minnesota weather issue, not a college player issue. The calendar time between rounds, the ESPN+ deal, the number of "tier four" teams still in the tournament, and when the pro and MLS teams come into the tournament are all moves I've liked. If nothing else, USSF paying attention to and trying to improve the cup is a big thing. I like that it seems to matter to the Federation.

Personally, I like the lower divisions and the underdog stories. I always watch the early rounds of March Madness but haven't seen the Final Four games in maybe 15 years. Part of that is my alma mater does not threaten to make the Final Four, but the other part is the games matter in a different way earlier and I love that David vs Goliath thing. I can watch a league game whenever I want. This is something different.

MPLS City heads to Chicago to take on Chicago FC United March 24th in their first round US Open Cup match. Follow them on twitter for updates and information.

- Dan Vaughn

Protagonist Club of the Year Nominee (6).png

Club of the Year Nominee: Minneapolis City SC

December 18, 2019 by Dan Vaughn

Sometimes we take things for granted. Not because they aren’t important, but because they become such a part of our everyday routine that they blend into the background: your favorite pair of shoes, the pillow that you’ve used enough to fit perfectly to your head, the handle of your front door. The things that just fit. The things that work. They are the things that make life normal when things are great, and make life bearable when things are falling apart. We rely on these things to the point that we ignore their craftsmanship, excellence, and perfection. Why? Because we see it every day, like a security guard standing next to a Van Gogh, it loses its meaning. But every once in a while, maybe we should stop and admire the beauty of that thing we take for granted.

If you open the back of a 19th century watch, you can watch the tiny gears click back and forth, the interlocking switches and pulls, the mechanism that tirelessly pulls the hands around the dial, doing its job without complaint or protest. The machine works not because it was easy to construct, though it might lead an uninformed person to think that. It’s actually the opposite, it takes hours of planning, years of practice, and centuries of accumulated knowledge to construct that tiny watch you hold in your hand. Nothing you hold was done by accident, it took trial and error to eliminate any needless movement that might throw things out of balance. Without previous models you couldn’t hold a piece of functional perfection. And of course it’s easy to take it all for granted, because the past fades in memory till we forget it ever was different than it is now. But there was once a time when people looked into the sky and tried to guess how much daylight was left.

The reality is that great clubs require a tremendous amount of effort to exist and then, to overcome the real hurdle, keep existing. We can take it for granted, but the heavy lifting must continue under the surface for the club to maintain their social media, to compete this season, and to be back next season. That effort should be recognized and no club embodies this effort more than Minneapolis City SC.

The list of accomplishments for MPLS City this year is ridiculous: opened a physical club shop, revealed some of the hottest kits in grassroots soccer, clinched their second straight conference title, won a playoff match, had street artists Kamp Seedorf (Amsterdam) create team murals (and a slick one of Prince, as well) all over the city, announced the creation of UPSL side to foster the development of their youth players, maintained one of the best social media presences in the game, released complete financials to allow clubs to mirror their success, this list is insane. But when I asked Dan Hoedeman, club co-founder, what he was most proud of this year, this was his response:

“I take the most pride in the response when Isaac "Goose" Friendt was injured playing in a game for DePaul University this fall and then, due to complications with his surgery, he almost lost his leg. It is terrible what happened. But when we found out, we rallied (with the soccer community across the country) to help raise money for his family. He's been involved with the club in a staff role. The players, volunteers, and everyone closed ranks--as they should have. And he is fighting every day, re-learning to walk, getting mobility in his leg again. He was a fantastic player. Probably our first fan favorite. I'm proud that he's a Crow and hope that if I ever face the adversity that he has and is facing that I will respond the same way, with his strength--and that I will have people around me who close ranks around me the same way, too.” That is the sort of person Dan is and it’s the kind of thing that makes MPLS City such a great club. The fundraiser is still ongoing.

The ties between the club and the city are so strong because of a particular and unique approach taken in staffing the team. “We set out to start a community soccer club. As former players, we saw the soccer scene from that perspective and we saw a huge issue facing American, and especially Minnesotan, players (because of no Division 1 soccer program here, for example): very limited chances as you got older to play in a high-performance environment. Creating a high-performance environment for local kids is something we set out to do. So if, like NAIA and NCAA (and other top NPSL and USL2) teams are now doing, we instead brought in a bunch of academy rejects from Europe and South America then we wouldn't be fulfilling our mission. Potential wins aren't worth abandoning the chance to do something meaningful. Personally, I am completely baffled by the idea of a community team that doesn't include its own community.” In true Dan fashion, he offered a caveat, to be sure no one misunderstood. “In this politically charged climate, I like to make explicit that by "local kid" we merely mean someone who is here in Minnesota without us recruiting them here (and housing or otherwise financially supporting them being here). Doesn't matter when, how, or why you got here as long as the why isn't ‘just to play for Mpls City.’ We love when people move here--half of our founding group are transplants--and we want to be suitably open while also serving the community.”

I won’t lie, when I read the way Dan talks about his club, I think they deserve your vote. There’s something to be said for a club that focuses on taking care of its own community, that strives to embrace the changes of the world without compromising its beliefs, that never takes its attention from the players it develops. That’s the approach MPLS City has taken and whether you take them for granted or not, they will be there next season because of all the moving parts, pulling together to complete the task at hand.

“I think the fact that we have a mission beyond wins and losses matters. We are here to do something good--for local players and to help the community. That is where the value really is. So when I see a former player launch his post-soccer career and know it was helped by the network he got from Mpls City and know that someone in the club was a reference, an example I use because it just happened, that is really meaningful to me and to the volunteer crew. Nobody is in this for the money. Nobody makes any money, we're all-volunteer. We do it for the mission and that keep us going.’

‘Also, and this matters too, we're super ridiculous and it's a lot of fun. It has to be fun.”

Vote for MPLS City because we shouldn’t ignore something just because it works like clockwork.

- Dan Vaughn

MPLS City Financial Review 2019

October 13, 2019 by Dan Vaughn

Editor’s Introduction

It is easy to believe in a fairytale, where everything ends in sunshine, rainbows, a handsome prince/beautiful princess, and a happily ever after, but the reality of lower league soccer doesn’t allow for that type of thinking. Instead, it is a battle to survive and the road is rocky. Those who walk this path do it because they love the game. Those who walk this path for long must have a vision and a hell of a thick skin.

Dan Hoedeman and MPLS City have walked this path for 4 years and have done it with the type of passion that the rest of grassroots soccer can only envy. They are the model club at their level: creative marketing, fantastic merch, and a rising lineup full of talented homegrown players. We could use a lot more MPLS City’s, regardless of what club you root for.

Every year, Dan and his board put together their financials and put them online for the world to see. It’s the epitome of grassroots and we love it. Dan approached our site about us publishing it and I will be 100% honest in saying that I was honored and ecstatic. The Crows are everything we love about soccer and we’re humbled to present their 2019 financial review for you to read. Keep fighting the fight.

- Dan Vaughn

Minneapolis City Financial Review 2019

Minneapolis City is about to reach a milestone: next season will be its fifth season as a club.

Every season, for reasons sincere and probably naïve, we have published our financial results with a short, often heavily footnoted (1), write-up to give context to the numbers.

Like many things we do, releasing all of this information doesn’t make a lot of sense. It’s unclear that doing so has inspired anyone to buy a season ticket or check out our merchandise and more than one concerned reader has told us that now our competitors know more about us than they should. It’s (probably) largely useless and (might be) competitively irrational.

It’s (almost certainly) fair criticism.

This club is a business and in many parts of business, rationalism and effectiveness are closely correlated. We are rational in budgeting, as an example, and we do rational things like get multiple bids from kit partners. But being rational isn’t everything and certainly not in what is, inherently, an irrational business.

Did you know that the median lifespan of an NPSL club is 2 years? In the league, only 18.7% of clubs have ever made it to their fifth season. (2)

It’s a fundamentally irrational project that reasonable people shy away from.

And yet, lower division soccer is one of those spheres of human activity, like Twitter or Mom’s lasagna, where people just can’t help themselves.

We certainly couldn’t.

The advantages of illogical behavior.

The marketing benefit of illogical behavior is that it is unexpected.

When you have done something as irrational as start a lower division soccer club, and done it in so illogical a place as a city with franchises in every major pro sport, two other NPSL clubs, and a bunch of WPSL, UPSL, and well-supported minor league teams, then doing the unexpected is the only way to get noticed.

Another benefit of illogical behavior is that people tend to like it.

Economically, it’s rational to fall in love with a scrawny, hoodie-wearing Silicon Valley-type coder. And yet, you don’t see male strippers adopting that look. Some things can’t be rationalized.

In the midst of so much that is illogical, there are two very logical things clubs at this level need to do to stick around: keep their funding and keep the interest of the funders.

How we did this year.

NotGreatBob.gif (3)

But first, the good news!

We planned to operate on an approximately $100,000 annual budget. We outperformed our plans.

We sold more tickets, sold more merchandise, and received more generous donations than we planned. Our fiscal year revenue of $105,382 continues our history of revenue growth.

We are especially pleased with this continued revenue growth given the loss of one of our largest sponsors mere weeks before our first game despite having reached a verbal agreement.

Unfortunately, our spending also outpaced our budget.

Much of the over budget spending came from our decision to make a bet on increased advertising. The advertising may have helped drive our attendance increase. It contributed to our increased costs as well.

Additionally, our travel costs increased. Between NPSL playoffs and the aggressive schedule of our U23s—we wanted to get them good, competitive games and that required travel—we went over budget.

First, some additional context:

This covers our fiscal year, which is September-August (as it best represents a single season of operation).
We’re straight cash accounting, homie #WuTangFinancial. Everything you see is cash in hand. Or out of hand, which was the case this year.
There are non-cash benefits from our sponsorships that are not reflected above.
Facilities covers stadium rental and training facilities.
Gameday includes costs for Member Packs, tickets, and streaming video.
League fees includes league dues, player registration fees, and referee payments.
Mktg & Misc is primarily marketing and advertising but there are a number of operations miscellaneous items: website hosting, G-Suite for email and docs, photography, and the tent with walls we had to buy for the playoff game.

When we knew for sure that one of our larger sponsors was not going to come through on the verbal agreement, we made spending adjustments. However, we weren’t able to quite adjust enough and ended the fiscal year with a loss of $3,257.

Checking in with a legitimate loss is not great. Even though we’re talking about a relatively small sum, it’s still real money and we still have to find a way to get out of the red. We will. But the margins at this level are fine.

The disadvantage of not being enormously wealthy.

Most other sports teams are funded by extremely wealthy owners. At the highest levels, these teams are massive moneymakers. The owner may decide to manage them to spin cash or as an investment asset (for stadium land, franchise value, or similar), but no matter how they are run major American pro sports teams are incredibly profitable businesses for incredibly rich people.

At the lower levels most owners can call on significant personal wealth to fund the team. Even in the NPSL, club owners include the founder of a major cable network, founder of a famous tech start-up, Sting’s son (for real) (4), and others who have done very well for themselves. A second set of owners are youth soccer clubs which, if you do the math on player dues over thousands of players to figure their revenue, shows that they are damn well funded too.

Minneapolis City, on the other hand, is funded by a bunch of regular people who buy Memberships and tickets (and our loyal sponsors).

Our budget reflects that reality.

And that reality is reflected in the wider world.

It creates a major disadvantage: Quick, which Midwest club is best known for its pink jerseys, cheeky Twitter presence, and lovably ramshackle minor league feel?

No matter how charmingly illogical and powerfully unexpected the brand and its marketing are, wealthier competitors can “borrow” what is working for us and just swamp us because they have the money to be everywhere, the channels to get their message all over, and the glamor, for lack of a better term, to get casuals to notice them.

It’s a scenario that isn’t unique to sports. It happens in every category and in real life, too. Maybe you have had an idea at work that a senior muckety-muck overheard and then brought up in a meeting. Too bad you got swamped, it was a good idea.

Anyway.

We live and die by our ability to get people to support us by buying tickets and merchandise. And we do so in a world where our competitors, funded by TV money, fat sponsorships, and personal wealth, can, and do, massively outspend us. (5)

It really is an irrational business that we’re in.

Being illogical costs money.

This year alone, we:

Opened a physical retail store for an NPSL team
Did an ad campaign on the crazy back page of the City Pages with…
…an 800 number we set-up to Rick Roll that team up I-35
Had a promotion where we sold match tickets (and a bandana) to dogs
Brought over a bunch of Dutch street artists to do some semi-permanent murals

One of the reasons I was excited about getting involved with Minneapolis City was to test a belief. Over the years, I have seen the ideology of rationality take over business decision making. Like any ideology, it distorts thinking. The current trendy distortion is turning everything into a problem that can be modeled on a spreadsheet and attributed to textbook-rational causes: optimization, economies of scale, test-and-learn, or any one of those MBA buzzwords.

Since it’s all the same management consultants advising all the same companies, they all end up doing the same things. In the name of competition, they’ve homogenized themselves around the same best practices and key metrics. (6)

This isn’t the set-up to make fun of MLS for giving all the teams the same white jerseys. It’s a larger and completely serious point: I believe that Minneapolis City will be successful and sustainable long term because companies are treating sports as a rational, corporate business while love—which is what sports are all about—is fundamentally irrational and human.

People want to fall in love with a community, not be a brand ambassador for a corporation.

The issue is that corporations think in rational, measurable, fit-it-on-a-spreadsheet ways. For example, there is no ROI-based business case to be made for flying Kamp Seedorf out to do murals for our players.

We did it because we love our players, want to celebrate them, and think street art is cool. We hope that it got noticed. We hope that it showed what this club is all about and acted as a sort of beacon to people who share our values. We hope it did a lot of great things, but we did it because it was awesome and we fell in love with the idea, not because it was an efficient marketing expense.

Love can’t be measured in terms of efficiency. The very concept is ridiculous. An efficiency mindset would tell you to buy fresh flowers on February 15. However, despite the obvious savings, it is not smart to buy your sweetheart flowers the day after Valentine’s Day.

I have no doubt that flash TV ads and $10,000/month billboards on major highways are surely more efficient than silly back page City Pages ads and street art murals. It’s just that it’s hard to fall in love with efficiency and, even if it’s nicely packaged by a top tier ad agency. The whole efficiency marketing apparatus creates a level of distance. It’s similar to when you were a kid and your grandma told you that for Christmas she didn’t need a present and just wanted you to make her a card. She didn’t need a flashy gift because the point is love. (7)

Love is a bunch of soccer fans building the club we always wanted.

And, especially in soccer, where supporters are typically independent-minded, with a visceral dislike of manufactured hype and a stubborn unwillingness to defer to corporate authority, Minneapolis City is an interesting value proposition for people who want to get DIY as well.

It would be nice to have a bigger budget, though.

The downfall of passion projects.

If humans made sense, placebos wouldn’t work.

If people made economically rational decisions, Minneapolis City wouldn’t exist.

This club, like all lower division clubs in our closed league system, is a passion project. And, like all passion projects, even if the club is financially sustainable (and we are) the concern is that eventually everyone gets tired.

People have limited energy and even the most driven and passionate of people will have a limit in what they can give, be it time, effort, emotion, or, most of all, money.

Loss of passion, more often than not, is the reason that clubs below MLS fold.

We have kept that in mind from the beginning and, though we’ve persisted more out of stubbornness than anything else, we’re striving to build a functioning community of club volunteers and to have enough of them that the emotional labor we’re asking for is manageable over the long term.

We don’t have an army of employees and interns like others do. We don’t have a budget to pay anyone on a salary.

But we do have a mission that’s pretty compelling.

Build something.

Where do we go from here? My accountant (8) tells me that I should talk to the Pohlad’s. Or maybe the Wilf’s (9). You know, big hitters with political influence and financial means. It’s a perfectly rational thing to do.

But this is not a rational project.

So, with delightful illogic, we’re not looking for the rich and powerful. We’re looking for regular people with shared values who want to build something.

The best thing about our project is that it doesn’t take millions of dollars or continent-spanning celebrity to make a difference. Everyday actions make a huge impact: a t-shirt or a Membership makes a big difference to us. You can see that in our budget numbers. Volunteers make a big difference for us. You can see that in our website, done for fun by a new volunteer. Simple things like spreading the word about the club makes a huge difference for us. We don’t have the money our competitors have. But social media means that we don’t necessarily need it if people are talking about uncorporate soccer.

We started Minneapolis City thinking that a group of regular people could build something worth falling in love with.

Want to build it with us?

Footnotes

1. But not this year! JK lol.

2. SocTakes reported this: https://www.soctakes.com/2018/09/21/npsl-clubs-median-survival-rate-2-years/

3. On the field though, where we won the conference again and added a U23 trophy for good measure, it was more GreatBob.gif (which doesn’t exist but it should).

4. "His music, I don’t really listen to it. But the fact that he’s there. I respect that.” – Hansel. Also, it’s completely true and par for the course in the weird, wild, wonderful NPSL: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/dec/22/city-of-angels-mls-soccer-sting-joe-sumner

5. To put the budget differences in perspective (and explain our own marketing limitations), one month of that big billboard on I-94 by Snelling is approximately our entire year’s marketing budget.

6. Doing this helps the incumbent leader, because they’re not going to fear companies that are copying them, and helps businesspeople trying to keep their heads down in a large organization, because nobody is going to fire them for implementing a “best practice” from the market leader. So, of course, this is how American business works.

7. Yes, the implication is that back page City Pages ads and street art is what love is. With that information, would it surprise you to know that my 10th wedding anniversary is coming up this year?

8. I don’t really have an accountant. But my Dad, who is an accountant, said this to me as a joke so it’s true enough for journalism.

9. For readers who aren’t from Minnesota, the Pohlad family own the Twins and part of other pro sports franchises in town and managed to get taxpayer money to build a stadium in Minneapolis and the Wilf’s own the Vikings and somehow managed to get taxpayer money ($500 million!) to build a stadium in Minneapolis.

The Young Crows Find A New Perch

October 04, 2019 by Dan Vaughn

Few clubs at the grassroots level can claim the kind of brand management success of Minneapolis club MPLS City. With a slick approach to social media, merchandise creation, and successful cross-promotional relationships, City has become one of the loudest and most-respected voices in lower league soccer. Their approach is inspiring many of the new faces in the game to rethink their approach to social media and embrace that method for connecting with their potential fanbases.

MPLS City was founded in 2016 and joined the NPSL the following year. Since founding, the club has stuck to a roster building approach that focuses only on Minnesotan players. And while that approach flies in the face of many other clubs’ style, it hasn’t cost the club points in the standings. In three seasons, the Crows have only lost 7 matches and been to the regional semifinals twice. Homegrown talent is paying off and the club took the next step last week.

The Crows announced their U23 side, would be rebranded as MPLS City 2 and would be joining the UPSL next year. We sat down with club co-founder and president, Dan Hoedeman, to discuss the big move into the UPSL and what else might be brewing up north.

UPSL has to be thrilled with the addition of such an established brand.

So why the UPSL over other regional leagues?

The primary reason for putting our U23 team, now called Mpls City 2, into a league was because the players wanted it: they wanted competitive games, they wanted to fight for a trophy, and they wanted the structure and focus that a league brings. They also didn't want the level of travel we had been doing while playing an independent schedule.

The UPSL in this area provides a compact geographical footprint for competition, which is valuable to young players who don't want to spend all weekend on the road to small and midsized upper Midwestern towns (even though it builds character).

Also, more prosaically, there isn't an established regional league with a footprint near us. We worked with some of the clubs that were trying to set-up the Great Plains Premier League, and it's a great group of clubs, but it wasn't quite coming together on the timeline we needed. I do hope it works though, the regional league network idea is a strong one.

How much crossover in the roster will occur between the NPSL side and the UPSL side?

The idea is that every MC2 player will be rostered with the NPSL side so there is maximum ability to call players in to that team. We saw that work successfully, and critically, last season. Guys like Eli Goldman, Mike Riley, and Noah Senn were called in to the NPSL team and played really important roles in last season's conference title. We want even more of that.

Will the UPSL side have completely different coaching staff/support staff/branding?

From a coaching standpoint we consider it two branches of the same tree (what is it about sports that brings out the lame analogies?). MC2 will a head coach, Ryan Nichols, who has been with the club for the past two seasons as an assistant. He knows the club. He knows the players. He knows the other coaches, and has a great relationship with NPSL head coach Matt vanBenschoten as the two are Bethel University alums who have worked together at Fusion Soccer Club and other clubs before. They will each lead their team and each have their own set of assistants, but will work together. That will include how we structure training, with some combined time and some separate time as part of each week's training plan.

As for branding, we're all one club. The team will get its time in the limelight, have its section of the website, and have its own hashtags (#YouthMovement #MC2), but this is Minneapolis City #OneMurder.

Any specific plans for a themed shirt or a different kit?

Because we are one, single club the idea is that we will wear the same kit and have the same gear.

However, we also can't help ourselves when it comes to kit design so...

Will the UPSL side be playing both seasons?

We will just be playing over the summer. It's Minnesota, so starting earlier than May is impossible and winter starts pretty early.

In theory could both of these men's sides make the Open Cup?

Theoretically, yes. The NPSL could qualify via the league while the UPSL side could qualify through regional qualifiers. However, given that our primary focus will be youth (college and high school-aged players) for the UPSL team it's hard to see how the fall qualifiers will be contestable.

And it's just double the teams to get kicked out anyway..

[if you’d like more information on the incident Dan referred to, we’d recommend 551’s article.]

Can you explain the thinking of including access for NPSL season holders?

We have some really passionate, really engaged supporters. We're better because of it. So the idea of adding on extra fees and pricing wasn't really something that seemed right.

Also, we want to make sure that we are executing well. This first year will be a learning experience for us--it's double the events we have to execute in some form or another and that's a strain on an all-volunteer organization. Better to be confident that we can nail it first.

The club’s branding includes the use of a brick and mortar store font for their merchandise.

Any future plans for a women's side?

We have been thinking hard about this for a while now.

The key for us is that we execute it as well as we do the men's side. That means that we need to get the budget, the facilities, the coaches--all of the elements together and at a high standard. The budget piece has so far been the toughest part. But we're not willing to operate a women's team as a second fiddle.

We have a woman leading the charge in framing up the women's side opportunity for the Front Office and Member Board to consider. A great player in her day, she worked with my mild mannered alter ego Dan the Ad Agency Guy for years, and is the right blend of knowledgeable and passionate about the sport and razor sharp and business minded. She'll be working with the broader team to see what a roadmap looks like to make it happen. No promises on timing, but we're going after it.

- Dan Vaughn