So you want to own a soccer club, Part One: NPSL

Maybe you are like me and have wondered or even fantasized about owning and running your own higher level soccer side. In the USA right now the opportunities to run a club on a budget have never been greater. In what is considered the 4th division there are three leagues to pick from: the USL's PDL, the NSSL and the NPSL.

I am planning "So you want to own a soccer club" as a three part series. I have heard from the NPSL and also the NSSL. Hopefully the USL will also provide information to complete the series.

I communicated with Christopher Keem of the NPSL (National Premier Soccer League), sending him the same questions I have also sent to the USL Premier Development League (PDL) and the National Star Soccer League (NSSL).

As you will see by Keem's comments at the end of this article, there are ill feelings on the part of the NPSL over the way the NSSL has established its league.

In part two tomorrow I speak with Dan Cortez, commissioner of the NSSL, about these and other issues.

Today we feature the National Premier Soccer League. Right now the league does not have much of a presence in the Northwest, with the only club being the Southern Oregon Fuego. However, the French Soccer Academy in Oak Harbor are scheduled to join the NPSL in 2011.

Visit: www.NationalPremierSoccerLeague.com

Here is my Q & A with Christopher Keem:

Who is the point of contact for joining your league?
Christopher Keem, Director of New Membership.

SSE: What are the estimated start-up (first year) costs for joining your league?
Christopher Keem: A team can run a budget on 20-45k per season. It costs $5,000 to become a league member, as we do not franchise. We believe in having an inclusive group of owners that are allowed to vote on everything involving the league play. After your first year of being in the league, clubs have the opportunity to become vested into the ownership of the league.

What are the combined yearly league fees?
$3,250

What are the minimum financial / market / field / stadium requirements?
500 seats, scoreboard, locker rooms with showers for both teams and officials, the attached document has a list.

Why is your league the best choice for starting a soccer franchise?
I think we offer something unique. We are a very competitive league, our players are now being scouted more heavily by MLS and other professional leagues. We have grown from 12 teams 4 years ago to 36 now, and the turnover in the past 2 years has been very minimal, teams aren’t going out of business because of finances. We think we have gotten the league to the point we can provide the best atmosphere financially; it should only get better for owners in the future with the projected growth of the league.

We offer rosters with no restrictions, it’s not a developmental league. We also are very open about who plays in our league, we promote our players and teams. There is no mystery as to whom teams are and we don’t give away territories either. Groups must come in now with business plans and go through a New Membership Committee and show that they have the ownership structure in place to be successful. I believe that is the major reason we didn’t lose anyone due to finances last season and looks to be that way again this year. If we can do that two years in a row, I think we might be the only minor league in US Soccer History to achieve that! We also allow teams to create their own schedules. We do not do their scheduling for them, we find it much easier to sit everyone in the Region down and they come with their stadium availability and do it themselves.

We assign the officials from our national assignor. We also have Marketing, P.R., Social Media, and League Administration people that work with teams to assist them in producing a professional product (there is a lot of talk from one of the other two leagues in this interview that we don’t do anything which justifies the fee’s they charge...)

We also have added an extended playing season, called the Winter Season. So we now have two seasons. Our Premier Season, which culminates in a National Final, is in the traditional US minor league season of April through August. Each Region of the US sends four representative to our National Final where we have the Semi-Finals, Third Place-Game, Pro-Combine and All-Star Game, and Final over a 3 day period. This upcoming year it will be in Huntsville, Alabama (it was this past year as well). The Winter Season has just been added, it’s starting with our Texas Conference, which is part of our Southeastern Region. We are going to expand it all over the country and we allow each region to create their own Winter Season. Some may look to play only in September through November (Northern groups) and the others like the Southeast, and West may want to play from September through March. All the teams in the Winter Season must play in our Premier Season, conversely the teams in the Premier Season do not have to play in the Winter Season. We wanted to offer the opportunity for groups to come in that weren’t based on college players, but still give those groups who are interested in college based players a place to play and this was the compromise.

Honestly the level of play between the PDL and NPSL is exactly the same. There are very talented clubs in both leagues, there are very well run clubs in both leagues (on the flip side there are bad teams in both, and not so fantastic ownership groups [although we have been weeding them out over the past 2 years as well to make us stronger]). When we play PDL teams in the US Open Cup, I think the record is pretty close (we might be ahead if the US Open Cup people that provide me stats are correct). They have been around for 30 years, they have lots of good qualities about them. We are a new upstart, this is our sixth year and we listen to people who follow both leagues and try to implement it. For the first 5 years of the league we were getting a lot of grief for a lot of things, but we have moved forward and it is amazing that the people who were so critical are now very complimentary. I think that is a massive statement, we are starting to win over groups. Look at Chattanooga FC, they average 3,100 people a match! We have a group in Allentown, PA who have a large following as well, and really do make this a typical minor league sport, lots of promotions, great game day experience, etc. We have the best stadium in the country for minor league soccer, All-High Stadium in Buffalo, built in 1928, it was used as Wrigley Field for the movie, The Natural. 4,000 seats, all covered, Ivy growing up the brick facade, Iron Wrought fencing, just an old school stadium and I dare anyone to find a better field (use it is field turf and has football lines, but other than that it’s the best!). New York Redbull and Chicago Fire have clubs in our league, we are speaking with more MLS clubs and look to have NASL groups come in as well. Chicago Fire have teams in both the PDL and NPSL, New York Redbull chose just us. Our Chicago Fire NPSL team won the US Amateur Championship this year as well! We have had many US Adult Amateur Champions from our league and we encourage our teams to participate in that competition as well.

As for the NSSL, they literally stole all over our documentation and created a league. They do everything on the secret side of things, only a few of the teams have websites if any at all. When I say they stole our information, literally they took everything I created word-for-word and changed it from NPSL to NSSL (I have the info, it made me laugh). I look forward to your article as to see why teams join their league. I think I know why, as they are all Hispanic-teams, and the owners of the league are also Hispanic, so they probably have played each other in Hispanic League tournaments all over and decided to use our framework for their league. It’s really too bad they don’t promote their players as one of the major problems in US Soccer is the identification of Latino players and maybe their league would fill that void and that is why they were approved to become a national league, I think.

View the 2011 NPSL New Club Presentation here.