Where we stand with NISA and elevating clubs to the pro level without a real run up

While people on the internet have a million solutions for most of hat ails Americans men’s pro soccer, many if not most suggestions are either impractical or wildly fantastic.

NISA announced Friday night that they will delay the start of their 2024 campaign by two weeks. Moreover their is a more troubling rumor from a credible source that we will dive into below.

The situation with NISA speaks to this, because in my experience the difficulty of either

1- Launching a completely new pro soccer team

2- Pulling amateur teams to pro

are extremely difficult. It’s even more difficult if the teams in scenario two aren’t in an optimum adult-amateur divisional setup to begin with (USL L2 or NPSL).

The Georgia Lions rumor

Dan Creel reports, and I believe based on my information, quite accurately that their are rumors about the Georgia Lions not playing its Open Cup First Round match with Apotheos FC. Remember the Lions are a NISA team announced in December to kick a ball in March and have already moved about 100 miles from DeKalb County up to Dalton, GA before even playing a game.

Unfortunately, the Lions not fulfilling its match would not shock me. The run up to launch a pro club should be in my opinion a MINIMUM of 15 months (with a detailed plan). Having worked for multiple professional clubs as well as a few amateur ones who had the dream (or maybe we should call it the delusion) of going pro, I realize the difficulty in doing this at all.

Ideally any transition period would be 18-21 months, and that would include not only a plan around how to enhance the club’s financial standing but also give time to secure any facility upgrades that would be needed. The club would play a final amateur season (or maybe even two) knowing full well they are making the move to the pro ranks the following year.