Since it has started today, I was wondering if anyone had any new information to pass along about league or team developments that have come to light?

Who IS attending or who's NOT attending? Any new or positive developments to pass along? Thanks for the updates!

(As someone posted elsewhere...does anyone know if Allison has made the trek down to Florida again to report on the AGM?)

I checked the Portland forum and she says she is:

link to Portland forum thread

I am here in Tampa for the AGM again, and the meetings start tomorrow morning though at this point I don't know exactly what I will be attending tomorrow.

But I will have a report up tomorrow night on uslfans.com.

Here is my report on Day 1 of the AGM:

http://www.uslfans.com/Andrews/2008AGMDay1.shtml

And a shot of the new USL ball for 2008:

almost looks like the old Tango balls that were THE thing back when I was playing travel league.

Seattle Wolves report from the AGM as they look to join a future USL-2 'West.'

http://goalseattle2.blogspot.com/2008/11/wolves-at-usl-meetings-first-report.html

Apparently Cleveland is moving up to the first division for next year

Dear Allison: Thank you for the AGM updates. I really appreciate the coverage and look forward to reading your reports. Robert Routson Member #52

That would be awesome if true.

I have posted my comments about Day 2, in addition to some more photos from Day 1.

http://www.uslfans.com/Andrews/2008AGMDay2.shtml

Side story from the AGM ---

http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/sports/story.html?id=ec02001e-f74c-4ba1-9242-7a34cf0a3eaf

"Learning about how to connect with the local media"

I guess everybody figures they're going gangbusters with that already, based on the number of people in that seminar.

Most of the teams represented in there were new teams, or teams moving to different leagues, so it's not surprising that there weren't a great number of teams represented, though it did fill in a bit after I took the picture.

But it was also apparent that teams do need to learn to deal with the media better, so I think more seminars like this one are definitely needed.

Sure. But people have to attend. And share best practices. And all that.

One of the problems with soccer at all levels in this country is that too many people think they're the experts and have everything figured out, when it's obvious from 30,000 feet that not a lot of them do.

Sure seems like the USL front office closed up shop since the AGM....no announcements and no updates on the website.

Allison, any chance of posting your report(s) beyond the second day? Thanks for your efforts!

Most soccer people in charge have the attitude of "This is soccer; that won't work for us," when nothing could be further from the truth. The USL needs to take a hint from Minor League baseball, whose marketing and merchandising deals have basically raised the minor leagues from the dead. What has worked for them will work for soccer.

I have just posted a very long article on my blog about this very subject that I've been working on for about a week now. That is, the lack of info coming from the USL, particularly concerning the USL Owners Association and how they are unhappy with their lack of control and the USL's lack of responsiveness in trying to compete with MLS. I will have part 2 tomorrow. (Click on the link below)

With that said, I will tell you that Jeff DiVeronica of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. He interview Tim Holt right after the AGM's. DiVeronica has made a few comments since then concerning that interview and a conversation he had with the Rhinos owner. DiVeronica will be filling a report with ESPN Soccernet soon concerning this article. For now you will have to read his blog and what I have to say on my blog.

Cleveland will be announcing there move up to USL-1 tomorrow and the MN Thunder will be having a press conference tomorrow as well.

The big question as I see it, and as I wrote in my article, is why isn't Holt and USL being more forthcoming about this information and using it for their benefit instead of seeing it as bad press?

Two reasons I can think of; USL is waiting to get all their ducks in order, or the info is nothing more than a rehash of previous proclamations that never came to fruition.

You're daft. You can't do cutesy marketing and merchandising and overcome the intrinsic non-interest in the sport.

Minor league baseball was on the decline at the time the National Association figured out in the early 1990s that they'd better do something about the ballpark experience. Ballparks were in bad shape and changes had to come.

But baseball itself, as a spectator sport and as a part of the American DNA, was already way popular, it just needed a nudge. It wasn't going away, it was just stagnating.

Americans don't have that level of interest in soccer, may never have that level of interest, and sure as hell aren't going to have an interest sparked by frigging marketing and merchandising deals and cute nicknames and mascots like Mudcats.

I disagree Bernie. In this country as a whole and in most every individual market more youth play soccer than any other sport - in most areas more play soccer than all other sports combined. The struggle has been translating enthusiasm for youth soccer all the way to the professional level. Certainly there is a high school shift of athletes from soccer, there are elements of shortcomings in the organizational structures and perceived politics of clubs, development of referees. Many soccer "elitists" abandon all American soccer to follow the "stars" and superstar clubs in foreign leagues to the detrimant of our own leagues. The enthusiasm is there rooted like a love for baseball is an ever increasing army of people who played the game as a youth - just looking to be guided to how they can support and love their local team. We all have to be better at communicating the information and hooking people into the communities of soccer teams - without disparaging the differences or fans of other sports.

Players don't always become fans.

Youth players are even more notoriously fickle.

There is no correlation between youth soccer participation and professional soccer attendance in this country. Else Cincinnati and Kansas City would be kicking as at the turnstiles.

Those people aren't going to be enthralled with the game itself because of cutesy marketing gimmicks the way they like baseball. And you're only going to piss off the people who actually like the sport.

So, seriously...give it a try your way if you like. But it's been done. And it hasn't worked.

Sometimes it can actually have an adverse affect. People (both parents & kids) are so tired of running around to all the kids soccers games, practices, and such that the last thing they want to do is go watch even more soccer, even if it is professional.

(I'm not saying that's the case with ALL youth soccer players but I know for a fact that it does happen. Or even if they still want to go see a pro game they sometimes can't because of schedule conflict)

Marketing doesn't have to be gimmicky, but it does need to be consistent and targeted appropriately. You also can't look just at current youth soccer registration, but over time (decades) high participation which include increasing and developing opportunities in coaching, refereeing, clubs, level of play, and interest in higher leagues combined with good marketing absolutely will lead to more people at the turnstile. It doesn't happen in a year - but given consistent effort throughout the growing soccer community - it does happen - and it is happening which is why the sport is continuing to grow.

Oh, I'm not talking about cute, kitsch, and gimmicks; I'm talking about marketing, period.

Soccer in the US is notoriously smug about getting the product in people's faces. The only team I can think of who actually did it "right" was the Atlanta Beat (gads, I still hate that name). They began a year before the first kickoff with radio and TV ads. The team went out to shopping malls and soccer fields. They made sure that people knew who they were. Thus, they were one of the better teams in the WUSA in terms of attendance and support, and it wasn't just the kids; it was everybody. They were perceived as "major league," and the people showed up.

That's what soccer has to do on every level. Sure, a PDL/NPSL team won't have the advertising budget that an MLS team has, but they can do what they can.

The USL as a league could join forces with an ad agency, and they could have a centralized marketing campaign, which would also be tailored to each market (national as well as local). All teams would pay into it, and each get a piece of the pie. They could do the same thing with merchandising.

That's not "cute," that's common sense. It's all about being visible.

I agree...

Originally posted by DavidP:
Oh, I'm not talking about cute, kitsch, and gimmicks; I'm talking about marketing, period.

Soccer in the US is notoriously smug about getting the product in people's faces. The only team I can think of who actually did it "right" was the Atlanta Beat (gads, I still hate that name). They began a year before the first kickoff with radio and TV ads. The team went out to shopping malls and soccer fields. They made sure that people knew who they were. Thus, they were one of the better teams in the WUSA in terms of attendance and support, and it wasn't just the kids; it was everybody. They were perceived as "major league," and the people showed up.

[b]That's what soccer has to do on every level. Sure, a PDL/NPSL team won't have the advertising budget that an MLS team has, but they can do what they can.

The USL as a league could join forces with an ad agency, and they could have a centralized marketing campaign, which would also be tailored to each market (national as well as local). All teams would pay into it, and each get a piece of the pie. They could do the same thing with merchandising.

That's not "cute," that's common sense. It's all about being visible. [/b][/QUOTE]


I agree it's common sense... Get the product out there for people to see. When the game is played on a good field and with a possession style fans will enjoy the game, and come again, it's happening right now all over the world.

Also, (Bernie) when I grew up baseball was not all that popular in my area. More people went to the MN Kicks NASL games on a Wednesday night then went to the MN Twins games back then...

If it's fun, "they will come". Remember the movie, that was marketing... And it did work.

Then minor league baseball wasn't the best example to use.

Baseball has this little advantage in that Americans love the game. And, yes, the minor league baseball "marketing" you are on about was largely (a) building acceptable stadiums to enhance the fan experience and (b) the Carolina Mudcats and Las Vegas 51s and the other mascot- and t-shirt-friendly names and logos.

And how'd that work out for them?

Perhaps what minor league baseball did is not a good example, but that wasn't what I was talking about anyway; how they went about it was what I was talking about (centralized marketing & advertising).

As for the Beat, it worked out great (they did a heck of a lot better than the Silverbacks ever did). It was the league itself that failed.

Yeah, and after a great inaugural game and first year average bolstered because of it, their attendance dropped in a big way in 2002 and was flat in 2003.

You think they didn't lose tons of money?

Oh, I'm sure they did; don't most teams? The thing is, they got their name out, and people put faces to the name. It's up to the sports spectating public to actually show up, but at least if they know you're there, your team has a chance.

So any updates? I heard the league was supposed to do something BIG to compete with MLS

I think you heard wrong. Right now a couple USL teams are trying to buy into MLS (Vancouver and Portland) and others are deciding when to fold to get out of the way of MLS (Atlanta and Miami). Rochester just avoided possibly losing its owner as some stadium funds finally came through. The collection of small and medium markets like Charleston and Cary (Raleigh) are in no position to compete with MLS and their $100million+ stadiums in most of the top 10 markets.

Tim Holt had a Q&A session. Actually he stated in Part Two of the Q&A that the league was supposed to do something BIG in 2009

I suppose the hope is that Nike after buying UMBRO and thus the USL league office (but not the individual teams) will put up cash to help the league rival Adidas backed MLS. It hasn't happened, there has been little talk about it lately, and I doubt it'll ever happen.

Other than that I can't really imagine what "big" move would be in the works, at least regarding rivaling MLS. Some teams wanted to require a buy-out fee for any team leaving for MLS but that didn't happen this offseason. Teams could step up and outpay MLS for 2nd tier guys coming out of college (the late 2nd and early 3rd round draft picks - the Jay Needham's) but I'm not sure that'd be "big". Something big would require a large amount of new money coming into the league.