Money Talks

There’s been something eating at me for a while and I was finally able to put it together in this article. This could probably be classified as a whole “Angry Man Yells at Cloud” piece but everything I have to say is, in my opinion, true.

$1,025,000,000…. One billion and two hundred and fifty million dollars. Yes, you read that right. ONE BILLION DOLLARS! That’s the combined amount paid in reported expansion fees for the last five expansion MLS teams (excluding Austin). When I read that, my jaw hit the proverbial floor. While I wish this were just a blip on the screen, it really isn’t. This has become the modus operandi for as long as Major League Soccer has been around. Couple that with a perceived serious conflict of interest among the ranks of US Soccer and you begin to see a pattern.

However, attacking US Soccer and MLS is not where I’m trying to head with this article. Instead, I want to focus on what that one billion dollars could do if it were pumped into the entire structure of US Soccer.

Let’s begin with the actual pyramid itself. As it stands now, there isn’t a traditional soccer pyramid. The reasoning given by an overwhelming majority of MLS fans and higher ups is that owners wouldn’t want to risk their investment into something that could diminish in value should the team be relegated. If that were the case, why has there been such a large influx of American owners in European clubs that run a higher risk of relegation than clubs like Arsenal, Manchester United or Liverpool? 

Admittedly, I understand why fans and higher ups say this kind of stuff. They have all focused on the wrong part of what happens in a relegation. They’ve focused on the lost revenue and lower attendances due to being down a level. However, what they either don’t look at or willfully ignore is the fact that there are positives to being relegated. Yeah, hard to believe, but hear me out.

The first positive is that while there may be lost revenue, parachute payments help offset that loss. If you don’t know what parachute payments are, they are payments made to relegated clubs to soften the drop to the next division. In the Premier League (where this is most evident), the first year payment is 55% of the broadcasting slice each club receives. Year two sees another 45% go to the club unless they make promotion again. While I understand this may be a difficult thing to introduce, I think it could potentially be welcomed in by the owners. By taking a portion of that one billion dollars and putting it toward these payments, it would keep teams from essentially dying off should promotion/relegation ever occur.

The other positive of relegation is that it allows for clubs/teams to reorganize themselves to allow for a better future business path. Without the threat of relegation, clubs often fall into bad habits and faulty approaches. It’s not hard to see that sometimes reorganization and restructuring is a necessary evil within a business, so the same could be said about a soccer organization. Relegation would allow for a hard reset for clubs on the wrong path.

Granted, most of this article has focused on things at the top of the pyramid but what about the bottom of it? Well, the influx of a sizable portion of that money would improve the quality of a lot of clubs as well as incentivize them to keep pushing for bigger things.

As I stated previously, if promotion/relegation were to occur clubs would die off if they were relegated (or so say the anti-pro/rel crowd). However, over the last five years alone, there has been a large amount of clubs in the amateur levels close up shop due to the ever-rising costs put on them via the Federation or leagues they’re in. By providing these clubs with the funds to cover these costs, it would allow for them to maintain a level of sustainability for a longer period of time.

In addition to this, it would give clubs the opportunity to buy land and build small stadiums instead of getting gouged by local public parks organizations. And for those clubs lucky enough to own their own ground, this money would allow for necessary upgrades to be done to keep the fan experience at the highest level possible. We have often pointed out the lack of soccer infrastructure, particularly in the lower levels, and this helps rectify this situation.

Another pressing need that the money could be put toward is fanwear. Most amateur clubs currently outside of USL League 2 or NPSL don’t have much apparel to sell. This shortage is due to the clubs trying to keep costs low in order to carry over to the next year. There are some clubs that buck that trend from my point of view, like Providence City FC, but those are few and far between. Having clubs get a portion of money that can be spent on shirts/scarves/replica jerseys would allow owners to stress less and focus more on putting together a solid product on the field.

I also feel that putting some of this money into the coaching and referee programs will help elevate the level of knowledge and improve performance in both areas. I mean, when we watch soccer in this country, what do we see generally? Constant long balls down the pitch. Rarely do we see different tactics brought in to a team. I’m not saying that there is an underlying issue in the social paradigm but when you see a team playing a “Tiki Taka”, possession-based style, how many people bash it because of their preconceived notions? It’s ridiculous and needs to stop because, to put it simply, most people enjoy watching clubs like Barcelona or Manchester City or Bayern Munich and guess what? All three of those were/are coached by a man whose system and ideas are based in possession and Tiki Taka, but I digress. That’s something for another discussion completely. However, the underlying point is that investing money in programs that help develop creative coaches would yield great results for the entire pyramid and the players that fill every level.

Lastly, but probably most importantly, by taking that billion dollars and putting it into the lower leagues, those clubs would be able to found youth academies and help open the game to those who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford it. Yes, that’s a shot at the current pay to play scheme we have in this country but it’s a necessary one. It’s beyond time we have a youth setup that isn’t catered solely to the suburban kids. The amount of talent being ignored simply because those kids live in the inner city or whose parents can’t afford the ever rising costs is astronomical. I understand other countries still have some type of pay to play in their youth set up but it in no way approaches the level of costs that our setup demands.

I admit I tend to live with my head in the clouds with this type of stuff but I needed to get it off my chest. And while this may sound like the rant of someone who is unhappy with the entire setup in this country (which is true), these are also things people need to understand could come from the influx of over a billion dollars that was paid to Major League Soccer. And the biggest group that NEED to hear this are MLS fans If we want to become a soccer powerhouse on the international level, we have to invest money into the pyramid from top to bottom. We can be better but we have to get out of our own way if we want to move forward.

- Shawn Laird

The American Pyramid: The Problem with Our Geography

When we imagine a country’s soccer pyramid, the top few levels are leagues that are national in scope. Below that are the levels with leagues that are regional in scope and further down are the leagues that are local and community-based. In the U.S., we don’t have a pyramid, so much as an inverted four-sided die balancing on top of constantly churning mass.

The U.S. soccer system has never been in good shape. The lack of organization is apparent throughout history and currently, except for the very top, is not conducive to the growth of a stable, equitable club game especially at the lower levels. We need something akin to a theory of change where we strategize about the long-term goals of the sport and then map the pathway backward to define action steps on how to move forward.

One piece of that plan is the need to formally create levels below the current ones. As of right now, the USSF only sanctions the three national professional Divisions. Every other league and club is sanctioned via the amateur USASA. That creates a practical gulf for aspirational clubs with no room to easily grow from an amateur or semi-pro organization into a full professional one.

How many levels are needed between the amateur and pro game is up for debate. Some might see a hard break between the amateur and pro levels. Some might see a more transitional division where there is some mixture of pro, semi-pro, and amateur clubs. What is truly vital, though, is that there is at least one formally sanctioned level where clubs can grow from amateur/semi-pro to professional.

One important part of that “transitional” Division is that the leagues within it would not be national in scope. From competitive, financial and social bases, such amateur or semi-pro teams should play against local or nearby rivals and not have to travel far. Travel costs are a major factor for sports teams and expecting lower level clubs to travel vast distances will have a detrimental effect on those clubs. It is one thing if an individual club can’t compete due to resources. It is another if a league’s short-sightedness creates anti-competitive outcomes itself.

What such a Division of regional leagues would look like is an excellent question. How many of these leagues would be necessary? To begin to get a handle on this question, I took a look at the English system. For most U.S. soccer fans, the English football pyramid is the blueprint for which the American system should be based.

The National League is the fifth step in their pyramid and is lowest nationwide league in the English system. The National League is made up of mostly pro teams with some semi-pro teams, while the two leagues below, which make up tier six, are mostly semi-pro. So, in England, a top semi-pro team might be expected to travel the entire nation.

From the top of England to the bottom is roughly 300 miles. I took that as my starting point from what a similar semi-pro club in the U.S. should be expected to travel in a regional league if we used England as our blueprint. For the sake of argument, if the USSF creates a new “transitional” level it would currently be Division IV (below the fully pro, national Division III). The classic pyramid system has 16 leagues at level four.

As such, I took the largest 16 metropolitan areas in the U.S. and roughly mapped areas 300 miles across on top of them. In theory, these would be where the most soccer players and clubs would form, so it would roughly constitute the regions of these 16 Division IV leagues.

Two things immediately jump out: how much of the U.S. is left out of these regional leagues; and how little travel is necessary for English clubs even at the top levels. Four of the metro areas are found grouped together in the northeast. That leads to their regions overlapping, hence the additional colors where they do.

We will be sorely disappointed if we try to restrict the future travel budgets of U.S. semi-pro clubs to an English standard. English clubs have an immense advantage due to the compact size of their country. U.S. clubs and leagues don’t have that luxury. A theory of change that relies on such a travel restriction would have the effect of leaving all clubs in an immense swath of the country on the outside.

I next took a look at the Germany, French and Spanish systems. Those countries are slightly bigger than England and the maximum distance a semi-pro team might travel when in the lowest nationwide league would be roughly 600 miles. I mapped those areas as on the prior map.

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Now those 16 theoretical regional leagues with a travel restriction of 600 miles cover most of the contiguous 48 states. Adding only a few more leagues would cover the rest of that area.

From a travel standpoint, clubs in those regions would only have to travel 600 at most in the top division of that region. A similar exercise would happen as lower tiers are added within a region.

This is obviously a theoretical exercise. The number and placement of these “transitional” Division IV leagues would differ greatly from the simple breakdown I’ve outlined. But, whatever the makeup of such regional leagues, it should not be overlooked how important it would be that every year, clubs would know how much to expect in travel-based expenses.

Perhaps more significantly, a league would know, again from a travel distance standpoint, if they should, or more critically could, admit a new club. Currently, when a good club from a relatively far distance wants to join a league, the league allows it more often than not. And that honestly makes sense. Leagues and other clubs want good opponents to raise the level of the league. But, the travel distance of a relatively distant club puts a strain not only on that club, but also the other clubs who now have to spend more on their travel budget. It would be more advantageous if the system was one where a good club had a good league available that contained other clubs a reasonable distance away.

Those brown and tan areas on the maps are also important to note. Those are where regions overlap. That allows leagues for those regions to find the best place for those clubs to land. A club might go to one league or the other based on a combination of league needs, distance to other clubs, rivalries with other clubs, and community engagement.

It is important that the organizations in those regions and communities to have a say over the organization and management of their leagues and regions. And, since all of these regions would have interactions with their neighboring leagues and Division colleagues it is vital that partnerships be created between them.

I’ll be writing more about partnerships in Part II.

- Dan Creel

Re-Aligning the American Pyramid: Joshua Duder

Managing a club’s message and image is a very important aspect of running a soccer team at any level. However, mismanagement at the lower levels could kill a club, and sometimes that can happen before they even get started. Between the NPSL, UPSL and USL League Two, there are approximately 178 clubs in operation at what is generally considered the fourth tier in US Soccer. There are another 8 “markets” listed by NISA, but who knows what’s happening there. Other leagues come and go, some are absorbed into the previously mentioned leagues and yet others combine their forces for good and morph into larger regional leagues. Within all of that, hundreds of clubs come into existence - some flourish, others persist, and often, many simply fade away. This fading away is part of a performance issue at this level of soccer; if a club fails to plan then it might as well plan on failing.

At the root of the conversation are two slightly different, but related issues; clubs listed on league websites but anonymous in social media and clubs who talk a mean game but are all over the place, without a road map, and need to reel it in. There’s a lot that comes with joining a league, even one at the bottom of the figurative American Pyramid: communicating with players and families is priority number one, connecting with potential supporters second, and keeping in touch with any media who may be poking around for a story. That may be the least important reason to have a social media presence, but it’s a reason nonetheless. Of course, this article’s focus and point doesn’t apply to every club, there are clubs who have social media communications all dialed-in and won’t need to read this. Additionally, there are clubs who are financially sound, don’t need the hype, and have a first team in one of these aforementioned leagues merely to provide a place to their players who are coming through their developmental funnels. But this article is definitely for two types of clubs:

Silently Deadly - When we take a closer look at the sheer number of clubs, mentioned above, it’s staggering to see how many of them are seemingly devoid of any social media communication. No bragging about recent results, no flashing their hot new scarves or kits, not even listing any upcoming matches with times and locations—those last two bits are pretty important in getting friends, family and even curious supporters out to watch a match. This is all pretty indicting when we see these same clubs disappear a year or two after they join any given league. We assume the worst about their organization and maybe give it a little “pfft” as a mark of judgement. If they failed for financial reasons, maybe they could have reached out to our little bubble of lower league support and asked for our $2.00 to buy a sticker—maybe they could have given away tickets just to get twenty or thirty people out to a match and, once excited about the club, pick up a scarf or a t-shirt. If they wanted to make it, they need to be like the louder clubs in the system. There is truth in the old adage, “The squeaky wheels get the grease.” So squeak!

Annoyingly Obvious - Those boisterous clubs - you know the type - always showing off beautiful fan art, custom jerseys, posting clever gifs and otherwise making themselves known by any means necessary are doing things right. Right? Being active isn’t always good (at least over a certain point), being braggadocious is probably not endearing and slagging off your players on social media is straight up unlikeable. The need for attention has to be coupled with common sense, otherwise you are eventually ignored by your audience. This social media approach makes all those absentee clubs look really good by comparison. Another phrase comes to mind, “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.”

What’s at stake here, for both extremes, is professionalism. Clubs who want to wade into higher profile regional leagues, national leagues, or even into the US Open Cup ought to plan on upping their efforts at communication. Likewise, organizations who mostly have a grasp on how the Twitter-machine, Facebook and Instagram work, need to mellow out a bit on edgy content.

There are resources available to help build a communications plan, and that’s where this is all going. Clubs who are newly-minted would do well to map out roles and responsibilities before a single blog post, flashy gif or snarky meme is posted. Clubs who don’t have this already sussed out, should probably stop for a day and figure out who is the least emotional and most engaging personality for expressing the team’s perspective—this may not end up being the person who wants to do it, rather, the person who is most well-suited to handle the responsibility. Want to express your discontent about player turnout to training or to your matches? Upset about an opponent showing up late and the refs not pushing the first kick time back to accommodate? Just found out a player who promised to play for you found a different place to play? All valid things to be upset about, just don’t take to social media on the team’s account to talk about it.

Once you have your social media maestro picked out, here are some additional steps to developing a social media and communications plan. Remember, the advantage to building this goes to the most thoughtful, not necessarily to the most invested. Actually, when done correctly, a successful plan is marked by its ability to engage and convert at a minimal cost. The very first step is to Set Goals—both short term and long-term goals will help you find the pace for posts and timing between events. Growing a following, converting followers to customers, or simply getting family, friends and volunteers more involved are some examples of goals to set. Knowing your Audience—will directly relate to setting your goals, are demographics important? Do you understand how to tie-in to other regional interests? Are your players and their families primarily coming from a collegiate background or are you drawing players and supporters from raw local talent? Conversely, Knowing your Competitors is just as important. You might not believe it, but if a neighboring team competing to sign your players away from you is not a concern, then a NBA, NHL, MLB, MLS or NWSL team being on television or playing a game simultaneously just might be. Or maybe even an annual arts and wine fair in your neighborhood. Whatever it is, know what is competing for the time and attention of your players and potential fans; schedule accordingly and generate ways to sway some of that attention back your way.

A couple other really important aspects are Picking your Platforms—where you take a deep look into those demographics and figure out how they prefer to receive meaningful chunks of information. There are the few previously mentioned, but maybe LinkedIn works for your organization if you’re helping build your players into professionals who self-advocate. Perhaps Reddit… though I don’t know why anybody still uses it. Also consider your technical capabilities; for example, can you generate video? Does YouTube work for your club? Or maybe you can add MyCujoo to your resources and make your matches available for consumption. Sure, friends and family can watch, but more importantly, it gives scouts from larger clubs a chance to see your players and potentially give them a shout out on their SnapChat account. Lastly, Strategizing your Campaign—taking all of these key points into consideration and building out a schedule, legible graphics, personalized gifs, non-offensive but playful club-specific memes, and player information. There’s so much that goes into this, which includes the possibility of backtracking on planned materials and posts. If the response to something doesn’t go as planned, analyze it, figure out if it was appropriately addressing your goals and don’t be afraid to revise.

As I said before, some clubs are already doing this well, some clubs aren’t doing so well, and others aren’t doing a thing—that could be for a reason outside of our scope of understanding. There are a ton of much more insightful and rich resources in the google universe and I encourage anybody seeking to grow their organization to do some deep digging into social media marketing, search engine optimization and utilizing free sites like Survey Monkey and Campaign Monitor to collect and distribute club information. There are so many leagues and clubs out there, not all of the tools here are applicable to every organization’s specific situation and if your team is doing really well with this, or if I missed something that other clubs might find useful, don’t hesitate to reach out and share the tools you use.

- Joshua Duder

Re-Aligning the American Pyramid: Dan Creel

The biggest problem within the U.S. soccer league system (aka the “pyramid”) is the lack of an open, entry-level professional level. The U.S. Soccer Federation currently only sanctions three levels of professional soccer leagues. And, the Federation’s professional league standards set a very high financial test for men’s and women’s clubs who want to join a Division III league.

Obviously, these standards directly lock out smaller professional clubs and leagues from sanctioned play. But, more importantly, it stifles grassroots, community-based pro soccer from gaining traction, ultimately hobbling the growth of U.S. soccer in general. If a club or league wants to operate professionally at a lower level, their only options are to play as an unsanctioned organization or to be sanctioned by the U.S. Adult Soccer Association.

The structural and organizational difficulties for lower level soccer organizations under these constraints are unmistakable. If Division III is unavailable or undesired, clubs and leagues must join an amateur organization and play as “semi-pro” at best. The gulf between USASA and Division III is so wide that it makes it practically impossible for organizations to survive in the liminal space between them. The current structure creates a Catch-22 where lower level professional soccer is unviable. How can lower level pro soccer grow without the space to do so?

The U.S. soccer league system needs a Division IV professional level. It should be an “open” division with no or nominal financial barriers. And, it should go without saying, that there should be a Division IV for both women’s and men’s leagues. These Division IV leagues should have regional geographic reach at best. With the size of the country, travel costs are a huge issue that is always important to recognize. It is necessary to understand that a professional league does not need to be national in scope to still be important and valued.

All Division IV clubs should enter the U.S. Open Cup First Round and not need to enter via the qualification rounds. As professional concerns, they should practically not need to “prove” themselves both from a competitive and financial standpoint as much as amateur clubs should. The USOC is a great way to develop lower level soccer. It gives a showcase to clubs who would get zero media coverage otherwise and provides an additional aspirational goal for lower level clubs. Adding prize money based on each round a club takes part would make the tournament more desirable and help the bottom line of every club who enters.

If the USSF is uncomfortable managing such an operation or believe such an endeavor is beyond their scope then it should authorize another organization to have the jurisdiction over such levels lower than Division III. Currently, the authority over such leagues and clubs is managed by the USASA. The USASA regulates amateur soccer in the US and is the only amateur soccer organization sanctioned by the USSF.

Because the mission of the USASA is overseeing amateur soccer, the lower level professional game isn’t and shouldn’t be a priority for them. And, it shows. For the average U.S. soccer fan, the lower levels of soccer are a confused mixture of leagues and clubs. In fact, it is difficult to know what is going on even for the more proactive, engaged fans.

There are a massive number of soccer players and fans in this country but the connection between them and local clubs is severely broken. It takes an effort to connect an individual to a club in their community and attendance shows that. A huge part of the problem of such a needlessly complicated system is that soccer fans don’t know what is going on in league soccer in their communities. And, if clubs aren’t being supported then it makes it difficult for their officials to justify keeping them going. The current state of structural benign neglect doesn’t just allow the cycle to continue, it lays the foundation for it.

Lower level professional soccer needs a support system. Grassroots clubs are passionate about soccer but need financial and organizational resources to survive. Without such a stable environment lower level clubs and leagues usually find it impossible to continue during difficult times. This is the norm for soccer in the U.S. rather than an aberration. We need to lay a foundation that cultivates and empowers lower level organizations.

It is understandable why the USSF might be squeamish about not having such a tight financial control over professional soccer leagues and clubs. An ongoing lesson in U.S. soccer is that the history of the professional game is littered with fly-by-night organizations. But, holding the reins too tight makes things ultimately run poorly. Soccer needs to loosen the reins to allow clubs and leagues some relief from the self-imposed restrictions, which will allow lower level soccer communities to relax and begin to invest more and grow the professional game.

- Dan Creel