by JAKE NUTTING

NASL Beat Writer

In a weekend that Minnesota United sat out with a bye – perhaps providing a snapshot of the NASL’s future without the Loons – the league enjoyed record numbers at the gate, particularly from their newest expansion side and a club that had been on life support for years.

Two of the three Florida based teams set new attendance records. Expansion side Jacksonville Armada FC had 16,164 supporters fill the stands at EverBank Field for their 3-1 win over FC Edmonton, breaking Ottawa Fury FC’s previous single match NASL record of 14,593. The club had been targeting the record for weeks beforehand, launching a social media campaign #SetTheRecordJax and holding multiple rallies leading up to the match.

It didn’t take the Armada long to reward the record setting crowd. Twelve seconds into the match, Jemal Johnson spotted Edmonton goalkeeper Matt Van Oekel out of position and decided to rip a shot that found the back of the net – the quickest goal ever recorded in the NASL. With 5,000 Armada season tickets already sold, Johnson’s early goal serves as a microcosm of the incredible fast start the club is off to in its home market.

Down in south Florida, the Fort Lauderdale Strikers were not as boisterous in their marketing ahead of the season opener, but their efforts were more than successful. The match against the New York Cosmos ended in a narrow 1-0 defeat but the crowd of 11,691 faithful shattered the previous modern day Strikers record of 7,653.

Saturday’s number is a tremendous beginning for the Strikers’ new Brazilian ownership group who took over from Traffic Sports USA at the end of the 2014 season. Fans of the Strikers were understandably concerned with the lack of marketing under Traffic and it showed in the stands – last year the club was next to last in average attendance with under 4,000 a game. Actual dollars going into marketing and adding a celebrity owner like Ronaldo into the mix may finally have one of the league’s chronically under-performing clubs on track for sustainable success.

Overall, the first weekend of NASL action was a record one for the young league as 44,479 fans showed up to root on the home squads – a record for attendance in a single week for the modern era NASL.

Obviously, the future of a league cannot be determined from one weekend, but with so many questions swirling about the NASL this winter, the robust numbers are difficult to ignore.