By Jason Davis – WASHINGTON, DC (Sep 12, 2014) US Soccer Players – For Orlando City Soccer Club and their fellow MLS expansion team New York City Football Club, the next step in the process has finally arrived.

On Wednesday, MLS will hold a priority draft between the two unfinished teams. The draft determines who will get first choice in a myriad of MLS player-acquisition mechanisms. Which club grabs which top spot might matter to the way they fill out their rosters ahead of their first MLS campaign next season. Ultimately, however, the process is just another of the unique ways in which North American soccer creates new clubs. Nowhere else on the planet do new soccer clubs come into being quite this way.

This really is the ridiculousness of the MLS rulebook crystallized in one strange afternoon. A draft of drafts, featuring a cheeky (unintentional) meta acknowledgement of all the hoops that American and Canadian top-level teams must leap through just to sign a player they like.

Having the wherewithal (i.e., the money) to do so is just one small part of the equation. The balance (or semblance, at the very least) of parity must be maintained. There is even parity within the exercise of the priority draft, since an easy alternative would be to flip a coin for each of the eight areas of player acquisition on the list. Parity inside parity. The priority draft is the Russian nesting doll of MLS operations.

MLS will stream the event on its website in the interest of transparency. This is without question a public statement of intent after the “controversy” surrounding the allocation of Jermaine Jones to the New England Revolution via a draw no one outside of the MLS offices and the two competing clubs (the other being the Chicago Fire) witnessed. Commissioner Don Garber admitted that MLS needs to be more open with the application of its rules, a reaction to the surprising uproar over the Jones signing.

For most of its history, and particularly in recent years when the ins and outs of the league are of more interest than ever, MLS has operated behind a cloak of passive secrecy. Over a decade plus, “transparency” wasn’t necessary as an operating directive because so few cared. As MLS has grown, so has the scrutiny on how it administers those sacrifices to the gods of fair and balanced competition.

This again, however, looks like MLS getting it its own way. Parity prevails because it guarantees a greater number of engaged fans over a greater portion of the season, at least in theory. However, the opaque labyrinth of rules and regulations frustrate the average fans. It shouldn’t take this much effort to understand how MLS builds their expansion teams. By extension, why does MLS choose to make it so hard for fans to understand how their teams might get better?

Webcasting the process of two new teams burning through their selections of the various player acquisition mechanisms will not actually clarify anything, even if the exercise is important for appearances.

When the draft of drafts is over, NYCFC and Orlando will each know their positions in the Expansion Draft, the SuperDraft, the Allocation Rankings, the Discovery Rankings, etc. It will still require an MLS adept to make sense of how any of those choices will impact how strong a team either will have in 2015 for waiting fan bases.

Anyone who says they can predict how good New York or Orlando based on Wednesday’s event is lying or fooling themselves. The overall effect will be minimal at best, especially when compared against the further business of identifying which players to sign/draft/acquire via the drafted mechanisms.

Still, the “MLS Expansion Priority Draft” does represent a milestone for the expansion teams. The new franchises will have their names listed among the established MLS teams. They’re part of the same process, full participants in the sometimes odd world of Major League Soccer. There are still months to go, but that day creeps a little closer, and seems a little more real, than ever before.

The waiting goes on, but the preparations continue. Opening day means presenting a fully formed product, ready to take its place among teams that have a 19-year head start. For both expansion teams, year one looms with all the issues and problems that will undoubtedly arise. First, they have to fill out their squad sheet.

Wednesday’s conference call is a lot of bluster with little substance. Additionally, it is excuse for MLS to prove its newfound commitment to transparency. For NYCFC and Orlando City’s coaches and executives, it’s another step.

Jason Davis is the founder of MatchFitUSA.com and the co-host of The Best Soccer Show. Contact him: matchfitusa@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter:http://twitter.com/davisjsn.

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