It must be spring, because Bill Peterson is again making asinine comments about how fast the league is growing. As I pointed out last year, the pace of the league’s growth has been glacial from its inception, and it hasn’t gotten any faster.
Last season, we had eleven clubs. Two dropped out after the season ended: the Atlanta Silverbacks (who will field an NPSL side this year) and the San Antonio Scorpions. Two teams are joining at the beginning of the 2016 season: Rayo OKC and Miami FC. Puerto Rico FC will join mid-way through the season.
From eleven teams to eleven and two-thirds. Peterson says this is growing the league, “[A]t a pace that is very fast but manageable.”
This is not manageable growth. It is stagnation due to mis-management. Allowing a team to join in mid-season was a bad idea when they let the Cosmos do it, and it’s a bad idea now. That’s aside from the questionable decision to add a team that will drastically increase the travel budgets for every team in the league, including some that barely made payroll last season. Meanwhile, we still don’t have the west-coast team that US Soccer requires, and Minnesota United will leave for MLS after this season.
Peterson was Traffic Sports’ pick for commissioner. I’d hoped that after it divested itself of its last team in the NASL, that the NASL owners would jettison the buffoon. Why do they keep this guy around?
Sam Falco 