Yesterday, NISA announced the home openers for its spring 2020 season. Some thoughts:

It’s nice to see they are naming the competition a “season”. Last year, the league went out of its way to not call the fall series of games either a season or bunch of exhibitions. They branded it a Showcase and, throughout the fall, tip-toed a fine marketing line between making it seem important enough to be a season but not *that* important.
Where’s the full schedule? Home openers are great, but it feels like the league needed to get something out there even though they have a lot of things still up in the air.
Where’s 1904 FC’s home opener? LA Force is hosting the first game of the season at historic TBD Oval and they even have a home opener scheduled.
Full schedule is promised to be “revealed” in a couple weeks “featuring its full roster of clubs.” I read that as there are more clubs involved in the spring season than those listed in the home opener media release. If so, again, a bit troubling, that “clubs to be named later” is still a thing when the league announces its home openers and only six weeks before the season starts. Who are these unnamed clubs? Why aren’t they listed in any of the home openers?
Philadelphia Fury and/or Atlanta S.C. are still prominently featured on NISA’s site at the time of the media release. Philly folded after playing one NISA Showcase match in the Fall. Atlanta has been holding tryouts per its Twitter account but it’s gone silent as of December 27 and the team’s website is gone. Neither club is listed on the new NISA standings page.
Are they still in the mix? To be honest, it’s worrying if they are and worrying if they aren’t. If they are, it doesn’t feel like the clubs and league have their act together this close to the new season. If they aren’t then, it’s a bit shady to hint at other clubs. Even if there are other clubs about to join, the practical logistics of getting pro teams up and running in such a short time does the league, the other clubs and their fans a disservice.
A quick historical aside: a big reason why the old American Soccer League collapsed in 1983 was because the league rules allowed a club to let its league franchise go dormant while still having member voting power in league matters. This gave a lot of power to a number of members who no longer had active teams in the league. Those members still held franchise rights over numerous territories and were able to get financially advantageous decisions for themselves to the detriment of the league. I’m hoping that a similar situation isn’t at work with NISA.
NISA is touting the spring season as a single table format. Now, while I think that’s the best format for any league, I’m concerned that’s going to create a lot of cross country travel. And, that’s going to mean a huge travel bill for each club. That’s costly for any top-level sports team. But, it’s a ton of weight for any Division 3 operation to bear. I would have prefered the league split into two regions with each region playing a single table round robin. There are historical concerns showing that new pro leagues, and especially the clubs in those leagues, buckle and fail due to the amount of expenses necessary to play nationally.
The playoffs are fine, but Cal United gets the #1 seed because they won the West playoff game last fall? That’s a big benefit for winning a playoff game during a competition that won’t be nearly as tough as the spring season itself. Plus, if Cal United sucks in the Spring, the #4 seed ends up getting a better seeding than top two spring teams. US soccer fans hate when uneven playoffs negate a regular season.
Bottom line, the NISA home opener release is fine. But, I expect more and NISA has a lot to prove. I want the league to do well and, even more than that, I want the clubs to do well. The league has a duty to take care of the great clubs now taking part in its competition. Because of that, I’m going to continue holding them to a high standard that the US soccer community deserves.
- Dan Creel