Opinion: Omaha ready for high-level soccer
Photo credit: Unique Stone Concepts
OMAHA, Neb. — On a warm spring evening in Omaha, Neb., there were roughly 5,000 people in attendance at Creighton University’s Morrison Stadium, the site of the state soccer tournament. Creighton Prep defeated Kearney, and Westside High School beat Millard South to set up a very familiar rivalry dating back to the ’80s. These schools have a very deep soccer history, which started in the late ’60s and early ’70s. Omaha has supported soccer throughout that time, albeit at different levels.
Omaha is home to four programs supporting collegiate soccer: Creighton, a perennial NCAA top-20 power, and Nebraska, Omaha, a relative new arrival on the men’s D1 scene. Both schools also have women’s soccer programs as well. Additionally, Bellevue University has both men’s and women’s teams that compete in the NAIA along with the College of St. Mary that also carries a women’s NAIA soccer program.
The soccer scene in Omaha is vibrant, youth orientated and busy. All year long, whether it’s a spring high school season, a fall college season or a summer club season for kids, the sport is omnipresent at the youth level. What is missing is the next level — a recognized non-academic-aligned team. A club, a team, a franchise, whether amateur or professional, has yet to be seen.
Omaha has had teams at this level prior. The Omaha Flames played from 1996 through the 1998 season in the previous version of the PDL, when the league played both outdoor and indoor seasons. Also, as recently as 2010, Omaha was home to the Vipers, a team that played only one season in the MISL and then ran into lease and other issues.
Attendance
Can Omaha have its own next step in the soccer pyramid? It’s something that remains to be seen. There are many possibilities for investors. There is the high-end possibility that a USL side will call Omaha home. With the USL averaging 3,439 in 2016, those attendance figures seem easily obtainable. Since Creighton averaged the sixth-best NCAA attendance of 2,603 in 2016, it would be reasonable to assume those numbers would translate well into a professional D2 team.
Looking at the USL/NASL/PDL average attendance in 2016, Creighton attendance would fit between the PDL’s Des Moines Menace (2,856) and the USL’s Bethlehem Steel (2,573) to rank 58th overall.
Stadium
Does Omaha have room to build a new stadium to lure a USL team? Absolutely, with plenty of room south west of the city near the home of the Storm Chasers baseball team’s Werner Park. A smaller, cozier baseball stadium would seem to be a natural possibility. This also would leave the stadium very accessible to Interstate 80 and possibly closer to Lincoln, the second largest city in Nebraska, which is less than 40 miles away.
Now with Gary Green, majority owner of the Storm Chasers, leading the interest in possibly bringing a USL franchise to Omaha, the possibility of temporarily sharing Werner Park until a soccer-specific stadium could be built is very real. The confines of a baseball stadium are not the most inviting to soccer, but NYCFC has shown it can be accomplished at the MLS level, and Sporting Kansas City occupied a Single-A baseball park for 2 years while Children’s Mercy Park was being constructed.
Creighton’s Morrison Stadium and UNO’s Caniglia Field can seat at least 5,000 fans easily. Morrison has club boxes and plenty of parking since it is in Downtown Omaha, and it’s accessible. UNO has good parking options. Caniglia Field was just recently converted into a soccer-specific field from an American football stadium. Also in the city is the centrally located prior home to the Creighton men’s soccer team, Tranquility Field, that is a natural turf field that can comfortably seat 2,500 fans. Both Creighton and UNO’s fields aren’t natural turf.
What’s the best league for Omaha?
What type of team would best suit Omaha? USL? NASL? Possibly a better thought may be the new USL D3 league, PDL or NPSL. With a good base of attendance at the college level today, a PDL or USL 3 side would give a complementary season to the current college season, and Omaha could see common names from their college teams possibly playing for one of these developmental leagues. While USL and NASL both would be a significant step up in competition, a USL 3, PDL or NPSL team would be more of a complement to existing teams.
Currently, on the Des Moines Menace’s PDL roster there are three players from Creighton, two from UNO, one from Bellevue University and one from Hastings College. These players would have more of a “hometown” ring to them if retained on a D3 team in Omaha, similar to how two other players on the Menace play at Drake University.
“American Soccer’s Next Cincinnati is… Omaha?” @PeterWilt1 surveys open markets for soccer in this country: https://t.co/CPi7rTeYSh pic.twitter.com/mXl7fdnGKm
— Howler Magazine (@whatahowler) October 13, 2016
Startup costs and salaries
Omaha got behind the now-defunct USL American football team, the Omaha Nighthawks, and as that team and league were such upstarts, the casual sports fan in Omaha will be more apprehensive of another upstart team and league. Both the PDL and NPSL have fairly cheap startup costs. At a range of $96K-$197K for the PDL, or approximately $50K-$150K for an NPSL side in startup costs, Omaha, with its cost of living one of the best in the United States, probably would realize costs in the lower range than in the upper range for either league. Much lower salary expenses would be experienced in either league since the players in both leagues are retaining their amateur statuses. One would expect that the startup and salary costs would be similar in the USL 3.
Wages for a USL side can range from $260K-$530K per season, and this does not factor in higher startup costs and expansion fees as well. NASL would be higher, considering the expansion San Francisco Deltas’ payroll is in the $1.2 million range.
Travel
With travel a very formidable hurdle to overcome, when looking at all of the established leagues, the NASL’s closest team is currently in Indianapolis. All travel would be required to be air based. Omaha would have fairly decent options, but with the travel to Edmonton, San Francisco, New York and Puerto Rico, affordable travel would be a challenge.
USL offers more. With regional destinations like Kansas City, Oklahoma City and Colorado Springs all within at the most an eight-hour bus trip, there still would be the challenge of the larger Western Conference cities, again requiring expensive air trips.
This is where either the PDL or NPSL offers a very much more affordable regional schedule. With the PDL having a natural rival in Des Moines, St. Louis and Chicago would be the closest cities in the Heartland Conference. Thunder Bay, Ontario, is a difficult 12-hour bus ride and Winnipeg is another 10-hour ride. Currently, Des Moines performs this, and has some of the best attendance in the whole PDL.
The NPSL offers teams in Minnesota and Wisconsin, as well as South Dakota and North Dakota. Both of these leagues show possible alternatives and regional rivalries. Planting a team in Omaha may also inspire teams in Lincoln and the Hastings/Grand Island/Kearney Triangle region to look into investing. The USHL basically occurred in this manner for youth hockey, and the nearby town of Hastings is the home to the NAIA men’s soccer powerhouse Hastings College.
Competition for the entertainment dollar
Omaha has multiple opportunities at its disposal, and the possibility to once again blaze a trail to establish the next level of soccer in the state and region. There is no doubt Omaha is a sports town, with the city trending toward a younger age and multiple facilities able to host soccer. The concern becomes: Can more teams exist?
With the NASL and USL seasons spanning from March or April through October, match-day overlap may occur, and could quite honestly hurt established college programs. With the PDL and NPSL playing basically complementary seasons to the college schedule, there would be less competition for attendance dollars. Colleges would also have the recruiting advantage of having a PDL/NPSL/USL 3 side in town to possibly draw students to stay year-round instead of having to go to another city or state to continue playing in the summer.
Whatever the possibility for Omaha, the future is bright. Omaha is becoming a soccer town, and interest in the next level of competition is there.
You can follow Jeff on Twitter @jkuhns1.
Soc Takes is now on Patreon. Support the staff while getting access to patron-only Soc Takes Pod episodes, exclusive written content and tier rewards. Click here to become a patron today.
