Month: November 2017

USL thriving on the field, at the box office

By Scott Adamson
Adamsonmedia.com

Major League Soccer is top dog when it comes to the hierarchy of the sport in North America, but the United Soccer League has grown into a worthy member of the pack.

The USL, which serves as pro soccer’s primary second division in the United States and Canada, has doubled in size since 2014 and is adding three new teams (Nashville, Fresno and Las Vegas) in 2018.

Birmingham and Austin are set to join in 2019.

Once those expansion clubs are in the fold, the USL will feature 35 teams, and currently 22 USL squads have direct affiliations with MLS. All but one MLS franchise (Minnesota United FC) has a “feeder club” in the United Soccer League.

“We work with MLS and their clubs to evaluate their affiliation models to see what makes sense for the USL and what makes sense for MLS, and it’s not a one size fits all situation,” USL president Jake Edwards said during a conference call earlier today. “I think right now after a few years, on an annual basis they have to evaluate from a business point of view and technical point of view how those partnerships work.”

Farm club status notwithstanding, the USL had its most successful season this year.

“The 2017 season had been incredibly successful – not just for the league, but for all of our clubs,” Edwards said. “We surpassed 2 million fans in total attendance, setting a record for a second division league in North America.”

USL attendance in 2017 averaged 5,700 fans per game, a 23 percent increase over 2016. And several teams put up crowd numbers that would make an MLS franchise proud.

“Since 2011, total league attendance has grown at an annual rate of 36 percent,” Edwards said. “This season nine of the top 10-attended professional soccer markets outside of MLS were, in fact, from the USL. Of those, seven USL clubs drew more than 100,000 fans to their games this season.”

FC Cincinnati averaged 21,199 fans per match as the city continues to make a strong push to gain entry into MLS, while Sacramento Republic saw an average of 11,569 fans click the turnstiles for home matches.

Seven other teams averaged more than 5,000 fans per match.

In all, per game averages showed a marked increase over the 2016 average of 3,439.

“This significant increase is the result of several factors,” Edwards said. “It certainly includes the improved quality of play on the field, increased exposure we’ve received through USL Productions and new media partnerships, and a significant investment made by our first-class ownership through infrastructure and stadiums, and the fan experience.”

Edwards says that more than half of the league’s teams play in soccer-specific stadiums, with a league goal of having all of its franchises housed in stadiums designed primarily for soccer by 2020.

The USL was created as USL Pro in 2011, and formerly featured first and second divisions under the umbrella of United Soccer Leagues. A merger with the MLS Reserve League in 2013 led to one unified second division league.

“We’ll continue to attract top quality players for an even more competitive season (going forward),” Edwards said. “Our overall goal is to be one of the top Division 2 professional soccer leagues in the world.”

The 2017 USL Cup championship will be played Monday at 9 p.m. when Louisville City FC hosts Swope Park (Kansas City) Rangers.

ESPNU will televise the match.

It’s CFL playoff time, and I’m excited

It’s playoff time in the Canadian Football League and for some of you, that means absolutely nothing.

Out of Left Field is written by Scott Adamson. It appears weekly and sometimes more frequently if he gets up in the middle of the night and can’t go back to sleep. Follow him on Twitter @adamsonsl

You might be completely unaware of which teams are even in the playoffs. Shoot, you might not even know what teams are in the league.

But I’m gonna let you in on a little secret; the CFL might just be my favorite brand of tackle football.

And come playoff time, it gets a lot more of my attention than the NFL.

(Granted, being a New York Jets fan in November means it’s a pretty easy to look elsewhere for gridiron entertainment, but still).

I’ve been following the CFL since the 1970s and I’ll continue to cheer for it as long as it lasts, which will likely be much longer than I last.

In case you’re unfamiliar with it, Canadian football isn’t just football played north of the border.

It has its own rules and, ultimately, its own personality.

Teams have just three downs to make 10 yards and a first down; they play on a ginormous field (110 yards from goal line to goal line, 65 yards wide, end zones that are 20 yards deep); there are 12 players to a side instead of 11; all backs are allowed in motion toward the line of scrimmage; and a team can score a single point if its kickoff, punt or missed extra point is downed in the end zone.

You can even make an onside punt, which is about the coolest damn thing in sports.

And maybe what I like about it most is that it isn’t stocked with players who make seven figures.

I don’t begrudge NFL guys for their multi-million dollar contracts; more power to ‘em. But I like watching a league comprised of guys who really want to play for the (cliche alert) love of the game.

Certainly, the NFL has far more talent, but I couldn’t care less. I watch sports for entertainment, and the CFL has been entertaining me since I was a kid.

In the early days of my fandom I adopted the Hamilton Tiger-Cats as my team. There was no compelling reason, I just liked the nickname and thought black and yellow made for a great color combination.

But when the league experimented with expansion into the United States and granted my hometown of Birmingham, Ala., a franchise, I was thrilled.

Even though the southeastern US expansion team had a stupid nickname (there aren’t a lot of Barracudas in central Alabama), I snatched up as much apparel as I could find and was firmly convinced that I’d be watching the ‘Cudas for years.

After all, the CFL was stable (it was officially established under that acronym in 1958, although it existed years earlier as the Canadian Rugby Union) and I just assumed its American clubs would be stable, too.

I was wrong because, ultimately, the “American experiment” failed.

In 1995, the CFL had franchises in Baltimore, Birmingham, Memphis, San Antonio and Shreveport (it had previous stops in Sacramento and Las Vegas).

By 1996 it was strictly Canadian again; only Baltimore had a decent fan base among the expansion teams but – as the odd team out – the Stallions relocated to Montreal.

I was disappointed, of course, but I didn’t hold it against the league.

I resumed rooting for the Ti-Cats and continued to follow the CFL closely.

And that’s what I’ll do this weekend, even though there are no teams in the postseason I have traditionally cheered for.

The Ti-Cats didn’t make it, and even if they had, I’ve put them in “timeout.”

The organization fell out of favor with me during its attempt to hire disgraced former Baylor coach Art Briles, an astonishingly tone-deaf move that, fortunately, received so much backlash the offer was rescinded.

Still, that Hamilton had to be shamed into not hiring Briles still pisses me off.

That caused me to change my allegiance to the Montreal Alouettes, who were so terrible this season I just figured they needed my support.

No, the playoffs that start Sunday will feature Saskatchewan vs. Ottawa, with the winner playing Toronto a week later, and Edmonton vs. Winnipeg, whose survivor faces Calgary on Nov. 19.

The finalists compete in the CFL title game, the Grey Cup, on Nov. 26.

I’ll watch for the enjoyment of the games themselves, not necessarily caring who wins any of them.

But come next June – when a new CFL season gets under way – I’ll again rejoice in the fact that a great league is off and running.

I’m not sure if it’ll be Hamilton or Montreal who’ll be the main object of my affection, but I’m certain my love affair with the Canadian Football League will be as strong as ever.

 

 

Shopping with the Meanderthals

I have never, at any point in my life, “enjoyed” shopping.

Brain Farce is an alleged humor column written by Scott Adamson. It comes out basically whenever he feels like writing it. Follow him on Twitter @adamsonsl

All I’ve ever wanted to do is walk into a store, find what I need, buy it, and leave.
Today, however – after 57 years on the planet – I have reached a level of hatred for the ritual that I can’t put into words (although I’m gonna try).

Now, before I continue, I should probably clarify something.

Shopping online is fine. I have no issues with that method of commerce whatsoever. As long as I can find a mankini at a reasonable price, purchase it via PayPal and then have it delivered to my home in three to five business days, I’m cool with it.

But it’s the kind of shopping that involves interacting with other carbon-based life forms that I cannot abide.

Recently, I was tasked with buying sweatpants and vitamins, and the only place I’ve been able to find these particular vitamins is at the big box store near my house.

I won’t name it here, but you can probably figure it out.

(Here’s a hint: It’s not Target).

Every time I go into this particular store – for the purposes of this column, I’ll call it “Hellmart” – it’s jam-packed with people, many whom are barefoot and bereft of teeth.

I’m not trying to be a smart ass – there but by the grace of socks and a dental rider go I – but it just seems like “my” local Hellmart draws all the people who weren’t quite classy enough to join the cast of “Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo.”

And they tend to run in packs of three.

Just as I was entering the store, there were three mountain folk entering and three more exiting – and nary a one had been deprived of food.

Certainly, there’s nothing wrong with being plus-size. I’ve been playing tug-of-war with girth for years. However, when you’re plus-size and walking side-by-side with other plus-size people – and moving at the pace of a sloth dosed on Nyquil – that’s a problem for everyone of all shapes and sizes.

I call these people Meanderthals, because they are all over the damn aisle and completely unaware that maybe, just maybe, they’re impeding the progress of people like me who want to get the hell out of Hellmart as quickly as possible.

Fortunately, I had a game plan once I got there. I knew where the sweatpants were, found a pair in my size, then zipped over to the pharmacy and grabbed my vitamins.

In a perfect world, I could’ve gone to self-checkout and escaped with a minimum of emotional damage.

But the self-checkout line looked like a Duck Dynasty convention, and there was no way I was going to wait them out.

So … I scoped out all the checkout lines and found one that had only two customers besides me in it. Checking out first was a young woman who looked to be around 17, wearing blue jeans and a tee shirt that read, “Keep Calm and Fish.”

While she was being rung up she was talking on her cellphone and, while I don’t know who was on the other end of the call, I do know the person was “full of shit.”

Next in line was a 20-something barefoot woman with a toddler, who had a buggy with six to eight toddler-type items inside.

These items easily could’ve been scooped up and placed on the conveyer belt all at once.

Instead, Betty Barefoot was carefully picking up each one, gingerly removing it from the basket, and slowly placing it on the belt.

I was getting close to cursing out loud but I didn’t want her child to hear me because one, I love children and don’t want them to experience distress and two, this kid had gigantic ears and would’ve most certainly heard me even if I had uttered obscenities under my breath.

Finally, after eight hours or so Barefoot Betty and her elephant-eared kid were done so I was able to make my purchase and run screaming to the car.

Of course I couldn’t run unimpeded — there was a new pack of Meanderthals blocking my exit.