The Xtreme Soccer League, based in Chicago, is disbanding after only one season of play and less than one full year of existence, it was first reported by Fox 6 Milwaukee on Tuesday. The XSL included the Chicago Storm, which plays professional indoor soccer at the Sears Centre Arena in Hoffman Estates.
The league's folding was confirmed Wednesday morning by multiple sources within the XSL to Examiner.com. According to a Fox 6 Milwaukee report Tuesday, Milwaukee Wave owner Charles Krause is stepping down. And after confirming with Fox 6's sports staff, their sources stated that the XSL will announce it is ceasing operations on Friday.
Based on Examiner.com's discussions with the various teams, Friday's announcement is essentially going to state that the XSL is taking a one-year hiatus. However, most employees are preparing for the termination of their employment.
With the Storm, only a select few are completing their commitments with the organization's summer camps program, with the rest of the staff cleaning out their desks. In Detroit, the same is occurring with the Ignition staff. The Wave employees have been let go. And several months back, the New Jersey Ironmen threatened to leave the league.
The XSL made its formal unveiling on Sept. 16, 2008, with a press conference in Milwaukee. Its main operations were located on the far east side of the Ukrainian Village neighborhood in Chicago. The league consisted of four teams in 2008-09: the Chicago Storm, Detroit Ignition, New Jersey Ironmen and the Milwaukee Wave organization, which recently completed its 25th season. The XSL included a 20-game season with no playoffs. The regular-season winner and champion was Detroit, led by former Storm goalkeeper Danny Waltman.
If the XSL's folding sounds all too familiar to those who follow indoor soccer, it is because the same four teams were involved in an identical situation last year. In June of 2008, the Major Indoor Soccer League folded so the indoor soccer platform could rid itself of stockholders from cities that no longer carried a franchise. The Storm, Ignition, Ironmen and Wave moved to the XSL under a single-entity business structure, while the Baltimore Blast, La Raza de Monterrey, Philadelphia KiXX and initially the Orlando Sharks joined the National Indoor Soccer League for 2008-09. The California Cougars (now the Stockton Cougars) joined the PASL-Pro.
Orlando did not play in 2008-09, however, because of lease issues with Amway Arena. The Rockford Rampage and Massachusetts Twisters moved from the American Indoor Soccer League to the NISL for 2008-09, with the Twisters being a last-second replacement for the Sharks to maintain a five-team league.
The XSL did manage some limited league partnerships with Pointstreak Pro, Cosa Sportswear, Brine and Web casts on B2 Networks. And just recently, the Storm and Wave held two beach soccer games - one at Montrose Beach and the other at Bradford Beach in Milwaukee - as part of the league's attempt to embrace the "Xtreme" motto with other forms of soccer.
But since the league's start, a major corporate sponsor never panned out, nor did any efforts to expand its four-team pool, especially when it was clear that New Jersey wanted out of the XSL. The players assigned with each squad are free agents during this off-season.
The XSL's folding makes the NISL the current active top-tier league for indoor soccer in the U.S.
Chicago Storm's future in serious jeopardy: Like the summer of 2008, the Storm organization states that it is planning to continue with its camps program for the time being. But with the news that most of the office is shut down, the possibility that the Storm will fold is quite high at the moment. It has been a rocky five seasons for the Storm, with low attendance figures being an issue since the team's inception in 2004.
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Charlie Corr is a freelance sports writer based in Chicago. In addition to his Chicago Sports Examiner duties, he is the Major League Soccer Examiner and the creator of a Chicago-based soccer Web site, SlideTackles.net.
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