By Tony Edwards – San Jose, CA (Dec 23, 2014) US Soccer Players – In two paragraphs, we find all the positives and problems encapsulated for the NASL. From the Jacksonville Armada’s website:

“All 10 of the Armada FC’s regular season matches in the spring season, home and away, will be broadcast live on CW17 with home and select road matches also broadcast live on SportsRadio 930-AM. “The NASL will announce the fall part of the 2015 schedule in early January.”

The biggest positive is that the team is launching on schedule and in the Spring season (like the Indy 11 and unlike the Cosmos). They’ve seemingly avoided the usual minor league soccer issues that still plague the game in this country (location, stadium, capital, capital, and capital).

Also positive is that another minor league soccer team (like Indy, again) has a local television contract. Too often we’ve seen franchises and leagues push away from making it easy for an audience to find them. I concur with the idea that your local audience is the most important audience for any minor league sports franchise. We’ve known since the 1940s that television and broadcast can help grow the audience.

The market itself might also be a positive. Jacksonville has the Jaguars of the NFL, but the rest of the market is minor league baseball, arena football, rugby, the American Basketball Association, and two Division I universities you probably haven’t heard of (Jacksonville and the University of North Florida). I don’t believe in low-hanging fruit when it comes to selling tickets for soccer in this country (unless Manchester United or FC Barcelona are involved), but there is the chance to build here in a market that has had minor league baseball for a while.

With all respect to Jacksonville, with MLS coming to Orlando and Atlanta we’re not going to see that market move to the first division. David Beckham’s group is not going to suddenly cast their eyes on this market and dump their Miami plans. However, there’s no reason that, with the proper resources, this can’t be a great NASL city. Until, of course, we discover the reasons.

I’d add when the schedule starts as a positive also. What we do know is that the second division starts their 10-game Spring season a month after MLS starts their 2015 schedule. The NASL games begin in early April rather than in early March. For a league with franchises in Edmonton and Ottawa, it would be asking a lot to start much earlier. Even then, Edmonton has three of its first four games at home, which seems odd. Still, this gives the team a chance to sell.

The other side of the ledger starts with the Spring/Fall season split. Five home games in the Spring isn’t a season, it’s barely a warm-up. Instead, these 10-games have unfair weight placed on them. The 1st-place team gets a spot in the playoffs, presuming the NASL keeps the same playoff format this coming season. A bad game or two and all of a sudden what is supposed to be a glamour team is looking at their US Open Cup schedule.

Because teams can’t afford to drop points early in the Spring season, what we’ve seen is that instead of playing to win on the road, teams are trying to grind out a result. The NASL doesn’t need a bunch of 1-1 results or home teams faced with two banks of four sitting deep and trying to hit on the counter. Too often there is the mentality of one point gained rather than two points missed.

This doesn’t help. I’ve argued for a while that this United States, and certainly the second division, is not a mature soccer market. When you are a team at the highest level of the number one, established sport in a league with a huge international TV contract, yeah, staying in the Premier League or the Bundesliga by almost any means necessary is understandable. If Jozy Altidore’s Sunderland could guarantee their place at the top of the league pyramid next season by being tough to break down, well, that’s the other side of the revolution, isn’t it? Games where teams play to survive so they can collect the broadcast money.

That doesn’t apply in MLS, USL-Pro, or the NASL. Soccer in the US is entertainment and up against a lot of competition for people’s dollars. The NASL has to give people reasons to spend their money and watch their games. In this case, I’d argue the old NASL had it at least partially right by awarding points in the standings for goals. That’s never going to fly now, so it’s up to the league to find ways to discourage teams from looking to grind it out.

What we have are a lot of positives (local-ish rivalries with Ft Lauderdale, Tampa, and Atlanta), a market that looks ripe for growth, and a competitive but not overwhelming league. The old questions remain whenever we talk about minor league soccer trying to take hold in a market, but Jacksonville looks to be starting things the right way.

Tony Edwards is a soccer writer from the Bay Area.

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