Avoiding the Drop

Yesterday, I did a very brief write up on the Ohio Vortex and the PASL indoor soccer league. This post inspired commenter Kevin to do some digging; his much-appreciated research covers not only the PASL, but also the XSL and the current iteration of the MISL. Read on to hear what he found out about each of the three different indoor soccer leagues in the U.S.; we thank Kevin for his contribution and hope to hear more from him in the future! – MH

Yesterday’s post (“Hey, Look! An Indoor League!”) sent  me off on one of those Internet search journeys where you find out a whole lot more than you bargained for at the beginning. I am now an indoor soccer guru and here is my “all-knowing” summary regarding the current state of indoor soccer in the USA.

First, there are at least three indoor leagues that appear to be competing  for dominance since the dissolution of the “old” MISL (Major Indoor  Soccer League). Those who have watched Fox Soccer for awhile might remember some of these MISL games being shown late at night on Fridays.

The three leagues are the Premier Arena Soccer League (PASL), which Mags wrote about yesterday;  the “new” MISL which until they recently purchase the MISL trademark was the National Indoor Soccer League (NISL); and the Xtreme Soccer League. I will review the leagues in reverse order than I introduced them for reasons that I hope will be clear after the reviews.

Xtreme Soccer League is technically on hiatus according the last headline available on their website. The press release is dated July 3, 2009 and makes mention of a possible comeback for the 2010-2011 season. Before the hiatus, they had four teams in the league: Detroit Ignition, New Jersey Ironmen, Milwaukee Wave, and Chicago Storm. Since the hiatus, only Chicago and Milwaukee have games schedule for this season. Chicago is currently playing in the Ultimate Soccer League, a Midwestern/Chicago area regional league. Milwaukee has moved to the “new” MISL/NISL .

Major Indoor Soccer League is an active league of five teams: Milwaukee Wave, Rockford Rampage, Baltimore Blast, Philadelphia KiXX, and Monterrey La RaZa. Their inaugural season was last year (2008/2009) and are the league is a member of the United State Soccer Federation. Their current schedule began on November 13, 2009 and runs through March 21, 2010. This schedule means that teams play each other 4 or 5 times each over the season. I am not sure how this will affect attendance and interest over time, especially if the table becomes widely separated. On the WAY COOL  side, it appears that most of the MISL games are available live via internet streaming for FREE!

Premier Arena Soccer League is also an active league which according to their website actually has a history dating back to 1997. They also began their  professional league in 2008. They are as yesterday’s article indicated a member of FIFRA, which has associations throughout both North and South America. FIFRA’s website is entirely in Spanish, and unfortunately my Spanish is not good enough to provide too much more information. (Although FIFRA does have a BIMBO logo (sponsorship?) if that means anything.)  The league appears to have a heavy Latin influence as their schedule is divided into a Winter League and a Summer League. PASL is divided into four development stages. At the “bottom” is the Premier Youth League, above that is the Premier Men and Premier Women, and at the top is the Professional League.

They currently have the largest league with nine PRO teams divided into two divisions by regions which they refer to as “Flight”. Flight A is Midwestern teams: 1790 Cincinnati Express, St. Louis Illusion, Louisville Lightning, Detroit Waza, and Ohio Vortex. Flight B is “West of the Mississippi”: San Diego Sockers, Texas Outlaws, California Cougars, and Denver Dynamite. There is also a Flight C of  five Canadian teams, and a Flight F which is made up of ten teams from all across the US.

There are some quirks to the Pro league that make it unclear as to which games matter. Each team has a page with their team schedule and next to their schedule is a table that ranks all the teams from each of the four Pro Flights.  Each team plays against the other teams in their Flight two times and has various games against non-Flight opponents. However, it is not clear what the non-Flight games count for. For example the San Diego Sockers (Flight B) played the Las Vegas Knights (Flight F) last week, yet that result (15-2 victory for San Diego) doesn’t show up in the full table rankings or as points for the Sockers.

Overall, the PASL-PRO looks to have the best structure for long term success and stability because they started solely as a development league and every team that plays at the PRO level has at least one Premier team association.  They have the largest team base, appear to be looking for solid steady growth, even if it slow, and the regional structure of the Flights should help to foster some genuine rivalries over time. Lastly, they sponsor a FA Cup style tournament for indoor soccer called the US Open Arena Soccer Championship which is open to any indoor soccer team from any level. The round of 16 begins this month. Like the FA Cup, all games in this championship occur during the course of the regular season.

Since I live in Las Vegas, I checked out the Knights website and team roster. I actually know a couple of the players on their roster, and they both have “day jobs” However, since they play Flight F, this seems to make sense. As to Flight A and B players, the only salary information I could find for the PASL-PRO was in a reader post to bigsoccer.com. That post referenced a $2500 per team/per game salary; with a 16 man roster, that breaks down to $156.25 per game for each player.

Mags asked at the end of his article if the PASL was “a serious league or a glorified amateur league”. My answer to this question is this:

With the A and B Flights playing one game a week for 4 ½ months at a stretch plus practices plus any Indoor Championship games, perhaps a better description would be a “serious amateur league with potential”.