The problem with indoor soccer in a nutshell

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nksports
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The problem with indoor soccer in a nutshell

Post by nksports » Fri Feb 06, 2015 1:26 am

http://www.wichitab52s.com/
Hit the link for ""The Rocket" Returns to the Playing Field"
So we've got two head coaches, who ended their playing days long ago suiting up for stunt casting.
Soccer has to start looking forwards. Indoor soccer is still looking backwards. It's glory days of the 80s and 90s have long gone.

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Post by suge night » Tue Feb 10, 2015 5:02 pm

NKSports, you are correct the so called gate keepers of the sport have continued to be unable to see what is right in front of their very noses. The small window of opportunity has just about closed to reinvent the sport sure there are a few markets where the sport can attract some 3 and 4 thousand fans , and if again the gate keepers loosely used just understood ,then there would be a very solid niche market to be had, but they see expand and bigger larger is the way, wrong way Charlie. And the second most important part is if soccer today is youth soccer then why attempt to build a league around aging players yes there is room for a couple but the league should stand on youth that shouldn't be relied upon for more than a couple of seasons, the model has changed but those out of the loop but think they are within it have failed to keep up... :(

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Post by Pounder » Tue Feb 10, 2015 9:10 pm

[quote=""suge night""]NKSports, you are correct the so called gate keepers of the sport have continued to be unable to see what is right in front of their very noses. The small window of opportunity has just about closed to reinvent the sport sure there are a few markets where the sport can attract some 3 and 4 thousand fans , and if again the gate keepers loosely used just understood ,then there would be a very solid niche market to be had, but they see expand and bigger larger is the way, wrong way Charlie. And the second most important part is if soccer today is youth soccer then why attempt to build a league around aging players yes there is room for a couple but the league should stand on youth that shouldn't be relied upon for more than a couple of seasons, the model has changed but those out of the loop but think they are within it have failed to keep up... :( [/quote]

What do you even see as a possible attractive reinvention?

While I know a bunch of cities have indoor soccer facilities these days, the numbers all point outdoors. Even the ones training indoors are preparing for outdoor, they're young, they're watching England and Spain and maybe Germany in the mornings, a larger group watches Liga Mexico in the evenings, and they're not geared to think indoor in the long run.

Furthermore, the MASL is a toxic mix anyway. Different scoring systems in the same league kind of immediately screams out that there's a real problem trying to get anyone on the same page. It's not a group prone to finding a consensus. My guess: the reason MISL teams even dropped in was to try to come out with a couple franchises that otherwise wouldn't budge, and/or chase away the rec rink members. I'm not sure I'm seeing owners giving that consideration right now.
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Post by suge night » Tue Feb 10, 2015 9:55 pm

Good point Pounder, I meant no large scale attempt can be made but the youth indoor soccer land is alive and well take that into account and place teams only in the markets where those numbers are valid enough, then you can have a successful niche market team youth soccer as a whole is the fastest growing sports bar none both outdoor and indoor the numbers are there. I'm completely in agreement with your outdoor comment ,while we still have some ways to go in the USA the soccer island has started to expand and the business of it is viable but there still is a lot of cash being lost as an owner at the highest level, but overall your point is well taken.

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Post by Sam Hill » Tue Feb 10, 2015 10:00 pm

Kids play.

The idea of turning them in to regular, reliable ticket-buyers, both when they are kids and potentially when they grow older, has been put forth for years and yet has never come to fruition.

Indoor soccer's time is done.
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Post by dmbishop » Tue Feb 10, 2015 11:38 pm

If the Futsal league planned for 2016 gains a foothold (pun intended), it will further erode Indoor Soccer. Futsal translates better to the outdoor game and will be more attractive to traditional Soccer fans. It is also a great off-season development sport for defenders and attackers (not so much mids and keepers).

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Post by Pounder » Tue Feb 10, 2015 11:57 pm

My apologies. I was halfway to a nice snarky response to Sam that would have been designed to trigger faux outrage, a faux angst, a faux rivalry, and GET OFF MY LAWN was going to be the punchline, but it never got more than half done. I couldn't finesse it.

Nor could I properly elucidate what I wrote in the first damn place. So I have to explain my own damn comments. Again, my most humble apologies.
There are kids in their 20s... says the guy who turns a fairly bigger round number this fall. Perspective.
Some of the people whom I call kids are already making purchasing decisions. They're not buying tickets to indoor soccer games.

Meanwhile, Sam's second paragraph was an argument I'd seen so long regarding the OUTDOOR game that my soccer-based PTSD kicked in. The language Sam used got me thinking that he lumped everything into one bag. However, he used enough coarse language that I feel a good rivalry coming on after an anniversary project gets finished, so no apology for that. I blame YOU! There will be faux blood!
The growth of the sport in this country owes a fair chunk to the growth of the youth scene.
A heck of a lot of years ago, when Paul Gardner was as senile then as he is now, he did make a point about MISL Commissioner of the time Earl Foreman (he of "I don't give two s***s about outdoor soccer" fame): whose kids were actually playing the indoor game? The entirety of the development of players for Foreman's league happened, a majority of the time, outdoors. They were drafting from colleges, not bringing kids through their own club systems.
Of course, alone, it didn't do much that the internet, the 657th TV channel, and changing national demographics didn't finish. But it was a start. There's even an argument out in the ether that says the participation numbers are what really fuel the latest MLS TV contract increase... since the ratings don't really merit it.
Those participation numbers... outdoors. Yup.

So if I go back to the question I posed to suge, there's the first hint of an answer: MLS has academies, but are struggling to really get them online in the way that the competition (namely the rest of the world) fares better. What can indoor do to train kids in the indoor game while MLS hypes more than they produce?

Of course, can MASL do that in 5 years and surpass MLS in the process? (I must, after all, account for the possibility that MLS will find a way to grow a brain.) I will actually defer to a coarse Sam answer on this. Then I'll chase him off my lawn.
Last edited by Pounder on Thu Feb 12, 2015 3:49 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Sam Hill
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Post by Sam Hill » Tue Feb 10, 2015 11:59 pm

Growth of the outdoor game.

Perspective, my ass. The return of outdoor soccer and its rise over the last 20 years helped kill indoor (when indoor wasn't doing stupid stuff to kill itself).

And there is zero chance the futsal league will be successful. Zero.
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Post by suge night » Wed Feb 11, 2015 4:07 pm

Sam, not calling you out or anything but the indoor game is alive and playing so killed off is a little extreme to state ,lets take your quote on ticket buyers as pounder stated those kids are adults for the most part and many of them played the indoor game in the 90's it takes about 3 generations to build a fan base within a fringe sport, my thought was that again the teams located in areas that have large support for the indoor game is where you should build an indoor soccer franchise it would already have the fan base to moderately support it. I stated that a nation wide league is out of the question, a solid 12 team league is viable and stay there for 5 too 10 years without expanding in that time. It then looks similar to either of the ABC indoor football leagues, I'm not saying it would ever become a huge money maker nor a marketing machine for the sport of soccer in general but the question was what was and is wrong with the indoor game by NKSPORTS there is not just one solution to this question but the sport is not 6 feet under just because we don't support it nor follow it ,that would not be true .

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Sam Hill
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Post by Sam Hill » Wed Feb 11, 2015 11:54 pm

Professional indoor soccer as a spectator sport is a dead man walking.

It has not progressed. It has regressed.

The current league is a joke. A sold 12-team league is a pipe dream, given there haven't been 12 solid teams at any one point in the history of the game.

Where, exactly, are "areas that have large support for the indoor game?" Baltimore, Milwaukee, St. Louis (maybe)? Where else? You're 9 markets short, there, big guy.

And where are you getting the "three generations to build a fan base" metric from?

The people who are buying indoor tickets now (the few, the proud) are a sliver of the people who played soccer 20 years ago. The effect of that is negligible.

Indoor can't attract investors, can't attract fans, can't attract sponsors, can't attract television interest, can't attract quality players and can't attract quality front-office people to make it work.

It's a dead. man. walking. Period.
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