Month: January 2018

NISA has the right idea about American soccer

When it comes to association football in the United States, Major League Soccer is the 600-pound gorilla.

Scott Adamson writes columns about The Beautiful Game whenever the mood strikes. Follow him on Twitter @adamsonsl

What was formed as part of the deal to bring the World Cup to the U.S. in 1994 has flourished into a stable, thriving organization, and has cornered the market on top tier soccer in North America.

As a soccer fan, I’m glad there’s a big league to follow in the United States and Canada.

As a soccer purist, though, I wish we’d take a cue from the rest of the soccer-playing world.

I’d love to see a season that aligns with a European schedule, meaning league matches start in August and end in May.

I’d prefer the United States Soccer Federation be a little less beholden to MLS and Soccer United Marketing.

While the USSF is a non-profit, it has a big money rights deal with SUM through 2022, and SUM is owned by MLS.

And the white whale for many of us is a promotion/relegation system in American soccer. It’s a topic MLS commissioner Don Garber has zero interest in, and one the league owners have no desire to explore.

So why am I excited about a fledgling, independent Division III league that won’t even field teams until 2019?

Because the people running it have a real vision for how professional soccer can – and should – work here.

The National Independent Soccer Association wants to introduce pro/rel as well as create teams with real ties to the community, which is the model that has made soccer the world’s most popular sport.

Last week, NISA co-founder Peter Wilt announced an initiative that will allow fans to have an ownership stake in clubs throughout the country.

Wilt is working with Cutting Edge Capital, a crowd funding firm, to make it happen.

“This is a historic direction for an American professional sports league,” Wilt said during a town hall meeting for USSF presidential candidate Eric Wynalda. “It serves two important purposes. First, it creates the platform for new clubs to raise the seed capital needed to launch a new pro soccer club for their market. Second, and more importantly, this initiative will connect these clubs with the fabric of their community, build a foundation of support and ensure they never leave for a different city.”

As is the case with leagues in Europe, there are different ownership approaches, depending on the franchise.

NISA co-founder and general counsel Jack Cummins said at the same meeting fan ownership is simply an option.

“This isn’t for all clubs,” he said. “Some will still want to control 100 percent of their ownership.  However, for others, having fan ownership (ranging from 10 percent on up) will strengthen the connections to their communities. This is another important step to develop a league that conforms to what has worked time and again in the global game.”

According to the league website, it will serve as a Division III league in the U.S. pyramid.

MLS represents the first division, while the United Soccer League (and possibly the North American Soccer League, if it wins its appeal to retain second tier status) are second division.

The NISA plans to start with eight to 10 teams and reach up to 24 by its fourth season.

The plan, then, is to create a promotion/relegation system in which its top teams can move up to a second division. The hope is that there will then be room for a fourth division to send teams up to the third division of NISA.

Currently there are various amateur leagues that could fill that void.

“Eliminating entry fees and territorial restrictions, having fan ownership in teams, and promotion and relegation are NISA’s keys to revolutionizing soccer in the United States,” Cummins said.

Of course, that pro/rel thing is the tricky part.

With MLS wanting no part of it and USL having a cozy relationship with the top league, you have to wonder how this new circuit will pull it off.

Will the USSF even allow NISA to join the party?

And if so, can the independent organization get big enough (and bold enough) to become a major player in domestic soccer?

This is how things are explained on the league’s website:

Promotion and relegation is not complete if it does not include a first division. NISA’s vision for pro/rel is not limited to lower division leagues, but we recognize that pro/rel needs to start somewhere. It will likely take 3 to 4 years to fully populate NISA with 24 teams. At that point NISA can begin promoting teams to a second division league. Once that second division league is fully populated, it can begin relegating teams to NISA. There may be a few years that require NISA to bring on expansion teams to replace promoted teams until the second division is fully populated. Pro/Rel with a fourth division league will not happen until a fourth division league plays a full schedule. Connecting to an existing (MLS) or new first division league with pro/rel is something that requires a bit of faith and vision right now, but we believe NISA’s creation is an important piece of that vision.

The words that jumped out to me were “or new first division league,” which tells me the movers and shakers in NISA are prepared to play the long game.

And both Wilt and Cummins are hardly soccer novices.

Wilt has overseen the launch of seven pro teams, and was the founding GM and president of Major League Soccer’s Chicago Fire.

Cummins is a former owner (with Wilt) and general counsel for the Chicago Red Stars in Women’s Professional Soccer as well as the past chairman of the expansion and ownership committee for Women’s Professional Soccer.

Obviously any new league is a longshot, especially since MLS and USL seem to have taken command of the top two divisions in North America.

But the NISA is a great idea, and any push for pro/rel is a push I’ll enthusiastically support.

For more info on the league, go to www.nisaofficial.com.

Don’t be frightened because I’m a vegetarian

My name is Scott, and I’m a vegetarian.

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

I’m still amused by the reactions I get from some people when I share this fact. It’s as though I’ve revealed a secret that makes them slightly uncomfortable – and wary of me.

Why, I don’t know.

All it means is that I don’t eat meat. It doesn’t mean that if I see you eat meat, I’m going to start screaming or try to hit you in the head with a hammer. I’m not on a crusade.

Besides, I still enjoy eggs, which come from chickens, which count as animals even though many of the chickens I’ve met are complete assholes. Even so, I make sure that the eggs I eat are from free range, cage-free chickens who are self-sufficient and have access to the best schools.

Also, I get that eating meat is instinctual. That’s why humans have teeth designed for shredding flesh, and why there are so many Golden Corrals and Cracker Barrels in business.

I just choose not to eat meat because it’s the right decision for me. As George Bernard Shaw said, “Animals are my friends … and I don’t eat my friends.”

He also said a lot of other things, too, but that’s the line that applies directly to this column.

Anyway, I’ve only been a vegetarian for a decade, so that means the vast majority of my life was spent dining on roast beast. And sadly, that’s a dining desire that does not go away – at least it hasn’t for me. So while it seems mildly hypocritical, I do enjoy meat substitutes.

Remember the TV series “True Blood,” where nice vampires sustained themselves on a synthetic form of blood (called Tru Blood) so they didn’t have to feast on humans?

It’s kinda like that.

Or think of “Blade,” who was a vampire but was able to thwart his bloodlust due to a special serum that allowed him to become a “Day Walker” and fight other vampires.

Tell you what … forget all that weird vampire shit. I’ve gotten way off topic.

The point is, while I love vegetables and fruit and eat plenty of both (and always have), I still crave “meat.” And fortunately, there are plenty of soy and hemp-based products out there that mimic the flavor.

Tempeh is the most versatile, and that’s my every day, go-to substitute. Its uses run the gamut from sandwiches to main courses.

There is also hempeh, which is like tempeh, only hemp-based. It’s very good, and I imagine quite popular among beatniks and folk music enthusiasts who smoke marijuana cigarettes.

And sometimes I’ll have fake sausage (soysage) for breakfast, a treat I’ve developed quite a fondness for. When I first tried it, it tasted like regular sausage that had quit trying, but now I really don’t even notice the difference.

Or maybe I just don’t remember.

Fake hot dogs (also known as Not Dogs) have also become a staple of my diet. There are some brands that taste like absolute garbage, admittedly, but there is at least one (thank you, Morningstar Farms Veggie Dogs!) that’s really good.

Even my wife, who still eats meat on occasion, enjoys Not Dogs. It’s like eating a regular hot dog only without the sheep penises and rodent lips.

Of course my primary weakness is still bacon. Back in my carnivore days I couldn’t get enough of it, and it remains the meat I crave the most.

Sometimes to fight the urge, I’ll have to watch “Babe” to get my head (and heart) right.*

* And I’m referring to “Babe” the movie about the talking pig and not “The Babe” with John Goodman starring as George Herman Ruth. All that movie does is remind me that good sports-themed films are rare.

Sadly, I’ve yet to find a vegetarian replacement for bacon. Absolutely nothing tastes like the delicious, sizzling sliced hog, which creates an aroma so good I have actually searched the internet for bacon-scented candles.

That being said, I’m quite happy with my decision to become a vegetarian.

I feel like I’m much healthier than I was during my meat-eating days, and I no longer feel guilty when I drive down the interstate and wave at cows.

I still can’t look a pig in the eye, though.

With apologies to Mr. Shaw, it’s a friend I still want to eat.

For the second time, Alabama wins crown via the wildcard route

What does the 2017 University of Alabama football team and the 1980 Oakland Raiders have in common?

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

They are the first teams in their respective leagues to win championships via the wildcard route.

Oakland beat the Philadelphia Eagles, 27-10, in Super Bowl XV in New Orleans, and they did it the hard way. The Raiders finished 11-5 in the AFC East, which was good enough only for a second place finish in the division.

That meant the NFL squad had to win an extra game on its way to the Superdome – with two of those contests coming on the road.

As for Alabama, its 21-0 victory over LSU came after losing to the Tigers in the 2011 regular season but managing to get a do-over in the BCS National Championship Game.

Oh, you thought I was talking about Monday’s College Football Playoff National Championship?

We’ll get to that shortly.

The Crimson Tide’s first wildcard success – like its second – came with a bit of controversy.

LSU earned a spot in the BCS title game by finishing 13-0, complete with a 9-6 victory over Alabama in Tuscaloosa and a 42-10 thrashing of Georgia in the SEC Championship Game.

Thanks to some upsets during conference championship weekend, though, 11-1 Alabama ended the pre-bowl polling ranked No. 2 and got a shot at redemption in New Orleans.

There were many who thought one-loss Oklahoma State, which won the Big 12 title, deserved a berth in the championship game, but Alabama was voted in and made the most of its second chance.

Six seasons later, history kinda/sorta repeated itself.

The Crimson Tide’s 26-14 loss to Auburn back in November resulted in a second place finish in the SEC West and no chance at an SEC title.

But just like the 2011 “wildcard” season, that setback actually worked to the advantage of Nick Saban’s charges. In essence, it gave them an extra bye week to gear up for the College Football Playoff.

As expected, a debate raged over whether or not the Tide deserved to be in the four-team field. Again the point of contention was that it not only didn’t win its conference, it didn’t even finish atop its division.

But a 24-6 thumping of No. 1 Clemson in the Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Day was a “statement game,” setting up a winner-take-all showdown with Georgia in Atlanta.

And in a College Football Playoff Championship that was a dud until it suddenly wasn’t, Bama rose from the canvas in the second half behind freshman quarterback Tua Tagovailoa and knocked out the SEC champs in overtime, 26-23.

When it was done the team that calls Bryant-Denny Stadium home had made its case in front of 28.4 million people, the second-highest cable audience in history.

It was the 17th national championship claimed by the program, fourth since 2011 and 12th as awarded by a wire service.

So while 13-0 Central Florida celebrates a self-proclaimed national title – and no law prevents the Knights from doing that – the 13-1 Crimson Tide is hoisting the CFP trophy. More importantly, at least as far as the record books are concerned, it finishes the 2017-18 campaign ranked No. 1 by every recognized poll.

It’s Saban’s sixth national championship and fifth at Alabama – and two of the countrywide crowns came without an SEC Championship trophy to go with them.

You can call that last tidbit of info a quirk in the system (or even a glitch), but it doesn’t change the fact that Alabama now has another piece of hardware for the trophy room.

Nor does it dismiss the weirdness of the Football Bowl Subdivision, formerly known as Division 1A.

Unlike virtually every other sport (and every other level of NCAA football), it has spent most of its existence fighting like hell to avoid having a clear-cut champion.

The bowl system gave rise to a “mythical” national championship, one voted on by writers and/or coaches and often made next to impossible due to conference tie-ins to specific bowls.

Even the BCS and, before that, the Bowl Alliance, relied on polls and computers to manufacture the top two teams for its title clash.

And now we’re four years deep in the CFP, which is technically a playoff but one in which committee members determine who gets in and who gets left out.

So maybe attributing wildcard status to two of the Tide’s crowns is slightly misleading.

Oakland – and any other NFL team that makes the playoffs without winning its division – gets in based on won-loss records and, when needed, tiebreaker systems.

Those teams aren’t invited to the postseason, they simply play their way into the field.

In major college football, though, it’s what you do on the field and who you do it against – along with how impressive committee members think you look doing it.

You can love that system or hate it, but the team owning the two-foot tall, oblong trophy will tell you it works out just fine.

Wildcard or not, Alabama’s season still ended in a confetti shower.