The North American Soccer League (NASL) was a professional men's soccer league based in the United States. The league was named for, but had no connection to, the original North American Soccer League. The later NASL was founded in 2009, and began play in 2011 with eight teams.
From 2013 through 2017, the NASL used a split-season schedule running from April to early November, with a four-week break in July. The spring and fall champions, along with the two teams with best combined spring/fall records met in a four-team single-elimination tournament known as The Championship. The winner of the final claimed the Soccer Bowl trophy. While there was no promotion and relegation with other leagues, former commissioner Bill Peterson repeatedly stated that the league had an interest in introducing promotion and relegation to the pyramid.
During its seven seasons of play from 2011 to 2017, it was sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation (U.S. Soccer) as a Division II league in the United States soccer league system. In 2017, the Division II status was made provisional, as the league was not meeting all of the sanctioning criteria. In 2018, U.S. Soccer denied the league Division II status for 2018, as the NASL had not demonstrated a plan for moving into compliance with required standards. The league first postponed and then cancelled its 2018 season, pushing back its potential return to the 2020 season. Its member clubs folded or moved to other leagues, and the NASL effectively became defunct in November 2018.
Overview
The league had no official tie to the former NASL that operated from 1968 to early 1985. Several of the modern NASL teams, however, operated in cities where the former NASL had teams. In particular, the Fort Lauderdale Strikers, Tampa Bay Rowdies, and New York Cosmos clubs shared the same names and similar jersey designs as their original-NASL predecessors. The league had expressed its affinity to the earlier league, in fact inviting participation from their AGM Phil Woosnam, who wrote them a letter wishing their success in the new league.
The NASL did not have a salary cap, limited active rosters to 30 players, and limited teams to seven foreign players. NASL teams occupied stadiums that were generally smaller than those of Major League Soccer.
Structure
The NASL was owned and operated by its member teams through the board of governors. The board consisted of a representative from each member team. The board oversaw the league rules and regulations, and governed the expansion and commercial strategy of the league. The NASL issued Class A and Class B stock. Each club owned Class A voting shares, while the majority of Class B shares were owned by Traffic Sports Marketing, as the primary investor in the league. Class B shares did not have voting rights but did give Traffic certain veto power over the league's decisions.
History
Founding
On August 27, 2009, multi-national sports company Nike agreed to sell its stake in the United Soccer Leagues (USL) to Rob Hoskins and Alec Papadakis of Atlanta-based NuRock Soccer Holdings, instead of to the USL Team Owner's Association (TOA), a group comprising the owners of several USL First Division clubs and St. Louis Soccer United. After the purchase, several prominent TOA members began to voice their concerns about the state of the league in general, its management structure and ownership model, the leadership of USL president Francisco Marcos, and about the sale of the league to NuRock, which the TOA felt was counter-productive and detrimental to the development of the league.
Within several weeks, a number of TOA member clubs threatened to break away from USL and start their own league. On November 10, 2009, six USL-1 clubs along with St. Louis applied for approval to create a new North American Division 2 league. On November 20, 2009, one team from both USL-1 and USL-2 announced their intentions to join the new league, taking the membership of the new league to nine teams.
The official name of the league was announced on November 23, 2009. According to the official press release, the NASL name was intended to "pay respect to the players, coaches and leaders who were pioneers for men's professional soccer in North America, many of whom remain involved and committed to the growth of the game in various capacities throughout the U.S. and Canada".
