Mehh - To say soccer is boring just means you don’t understand the game. Fine, it’s not for everyone.
I kind of feel the same about baseball. If you don’t follow it or know the rules, it’s mostly just players standing around for several hours, with a few burst of actions every know and then. But if you know all the rules and strategies, it gets way more interesting.
I used to watch / follow MLB fairly regularly growing up, but I lost interest during the strikes & the roids in the 90’s, and never got back into it again. Now I find it mostly boring.
Everyone has their opinions. However, baseball is also a southern American tradition. Major League soccer doesn’t ring bells for most Americans. Sorry. Soccer just doesn’t. Raleigh is mediocre enough and we need MLB asap!
i enjoyed hackcy sack and beer. i didnt follow MLB greatly because NC didnt have its own team…..11th largest GDP in the Republic now…Atlanta and DC didnt motivate me to watch as a Raleigh native.
This whole 2nd soccer league at the top level strikes me as being a reach. Why is the thinking this will work with soccer when its never been done successfully before in any other sport? Seems highly unlikely this league is anything other than MLS red headed stepchild no?
MLS is an outlier in the soccer world for not allowing relegation and promotion. The hope is that this new league can bring about the excitement of many of the European leagues that are some of the largest sports leagues in the world.
There’s really no getting this one out of the spin zone. They shut down the team and fired everybody. The only way it’s coming back is if (1) they get picked for a new USL Division One team solely on the basis of the Triangle as a growth market, and (2) they can pull a 15,000 seat stadium out of a hat before then, which is one of the listed conditions to get a USL Division One team.
Is there a reason why NCFC can’t enter the new pyramid at a lower tier? Get into division 2 or 3 with the current team, management, and facilities and build up from there and hopefully get promoted? Probably a moot point by now, but shutting down the whole team to prep to maybe get into the top tier of a brand new system feels really shortsighted.
I think it is a bit of a reach, but not impossible. MLS uses the pay for play model, like other American sport leagues, you have to buy your way into the league. And I personally think the Apple TV deal is an anchor as far as trying to grow fan support within the league. USL’s key will be to make the promotion / relegation system work. If they succeed with that, I think they have a shot to be successful. But it’s far from a sure thing.
Agreed 100% Seems like a better strategy would be to keep the team together, stay in the USL Championship division, and then work your way into USL Division One through the promotion system. Might take a bit longer. Malik is going for the moon shot, but if it fails, not sure he’ll reform the team again at the lower level.
Explain to me how a relegation system also has a 15,000 seat minimum for a stadium. Are the second tier teams going to need that before getting promoted?
That is one of the type of detail that needs to be figured out by USL as they implement this. I don’t think anything has been announced yet.
Pro / Rel should be based on results on the field. Maybe they give a grace period for teams that get promoted time to fund / build / expand their stadiums. I have no idea.
Another part of Malik’s risk is: say NCFC gets picked as one of the initial Division One teams, he builds a stadium and has a team start playing, they do horrible and get relegated down. NCFC ends up right back where they are now.
In Malik and potentially NCFC Youth’s defense, the on field product is generally not a problem. At the very least in your scenario, we’d get a new stadium!
The courage need a new stadium if they’re going to stay here. I have no doubt that they can average over 10k during the stadium if they didn’t play in a temporary looking stadium surrounded by more fields and train tracks.
I do think it’s possible, I don’t know if Malik is the guy but he’s obviously looking to sell after the failed takeover last year. Maybe that new owner will come in and spend the realistically non-crazy amount to build a 15k seater for the courage. Maybe that new owner will also want another tenant and move forward with the USL 1 application.
That’s my hope as someone that has been a fan of NCFC (railhawks) since they were founded.
On a side note- NCFC plays at home in the eastern semifinals this Saturday. They are the highest ranked team left on the East so there’s a chance this could be their best season in the USL championship. Which would objectively be the funniest way to go out.
With the hiatus and move to “downtown” Raleigh I would think this would be a perfect opportunity for a rebrand to a Raleigh named team instead of North Carolina FC. I’ve always been partial to “Raleigh Oak City”
Bringing this thread full circle… 4,983 posts and 2,702 days later… I still kinda like the idea of a 15,000-seat soccer stadium next to the Iron Works / Salvage Yard area. Served by both BRT Midtown and BRT North routes. Accessible from Beltline, Six Forks Rd, Atlantic Ave, Wake Forest Rd, Capital Blvd. On the greenway. Could be the anchor for several 20-story projects to kickoff (I think I count rumors of 5-6 here?)
You are ignoring the fact that Steve Malik OWNS NCFC/NCCourage AND he OWNS the land in Downtown South…AND is PARTNERED with KANE. RIW has no relation to any of these “OWNERS”. Why would Steve push for a stadium not on land he already owns & can develop himself?
You would think if they were sticking with that plan then they would’ve said something about it in their statements? Or given some sort of update. I’m not so sure that Steve Malik isn’t just trying to get the process started and angling to sell the team and plan and idea and get out altogether.
