Project 50/50: Part I

Photo credit: Visit Anchorage

Right now, the American soccer landscape is in the best shape it has ever been. We have a thriving top-flight league in MLS, two growing Division 2 leagues and two newly announced Division 3 professional leagues in the USL D3 and NISA.

With new leagues come new markets, and today I’ll begin looking at some of the best markets for expansion in our two new D3 leagues. This series will cover all 50 states, shortlisting three cities in each one and making a case for the best new soccer city in every single state. Each post will cover five states, for a total of 20 of these posts. Yes, I’m including Alaska and Hawaii. Every market I describe will have a D3-compliant venue with a minimum seating capacity of 1,000, as per the 2014 USSF Professional League Standards.

Welcome to Project 50/50.

ALABAMA

The first state alphabetically, Alabama is historically dominated by college football. Home to the Alabama Crimson Tide and Auburn Tigers, there’s been a notable lack of soccer until the recent semi-pro teams and announcement of the USL expanding to Birmingham. However, let’s take a look at the next best market for pro soccer.

Mobile
-Metro population: 615,234
-AFC Mobile in GCPL
-Averaging 1,564 in Double-A baseball

Mobile is the largest metro area in south Alabama, and has played host to a number of minor league sports over the years. The demographics are trending younger, with a rising household income, and there are several nearby universities. Mobile has a team in the new Gulf Coast Premier League, and the team has been built by crowdfunding and local support. This is a promising, if so far untested, market.

Other markets considered were Tuscaloosa, Montgomery, and Huntsville, but as Mobile is the only city outside Birmingham with any membership in the soccer pyramid, it seems like a pretty solid choice. AFC Mobile is also demolishing attendance records in the GCPL, so no problems there either.

As for the branding and stadium, they’re already D2 compliant with their venue, and their branding is absolutely gorgeous. Honestly, they’re a few investors away from fully professional.

ALASKA

Alaska currently is without professional sports for the first time since the 1980s, and that’s a goddamn shame. Alaska is all too often ignored and passed over by leagues, and this annoys me. The big question here is what league would an Alaska team join? The new D3 leagues are likely going to be too regional, making travel difficult. And D2 might be too costly at first. So, I propose an interesting idea: put an Alaska team in the Canadian Premier League. It’s much closer travel, taking only three hours to fly from Anchorage to Vancouver.

Anchorage
-Metro population: 401,635
-Averaged 3,623 in ECHL final season

Anchorage is really the only logical choice for a soccer team in Alaska. While Juneau and Fairbanks have the demographics, they’re way too small for USSF regulations. But Anchorage, they’re just about perfect for an expansion team. Population is growing and trending younger, and there’s no competition to speak of anymore. There’s no college football or college soccer in Alaska, so they could easily be the biggest show in town. There’s also quite a solid youth soccer foundation in Anchorage with the Alaska Rush and Anchorage Youth Soccer Club.

For a venue, they could easily play at the Anchorage Football Stadium, a 4,500 seat football/soccer/track stadium that doesn’t have any major full-time tenants other than high schools. And the stadium has plenty of space for seating expansion. It’s not D2 ready, but it should work for any D3 or CPL requirements.

As for my thoughts on branding, they should play to the strengths of the state flag and the Anchorage city seal. Blue and yellow work well.

ARIZONA

Arizona is the youngest state in the mainland, and yet they already have a long history of professional sports. We even see Phoenix Rising in USL bidding to join MLS. But outside of the Phoenix metro area, there are only two professional teams in the remainder of the state: the Tucson Roadrunners in the American Hockey League and the Northern Arizona Suns of the NBA G League. And those, coincidentally, are the two markets we’ll be considering today.

Tucson
-Metro population: 1,010,025
-Averaging 4,211 in AHL hockey

Tucson is such a great potential soccer market. And we already see how successful FC Tucson has been, averaging well over a thousand per game in the PDL. Phoenix Rising has taken notice, and purchased the team to serve as their PDL affiliate a few weeks ago. The team recently wrapped up their fourth-consecutive regular season title. The Tucson metro area is growing, the team has some excellent ties to the community and the organization is very professionally run. This is another easy pick, as I’m confident that FC Tucson would shine in USLD3 with very few changes. Their stadium will work at the D3 level, and thanks to Phoenix Rising, they definitely have the cash.

2017 Mountain Division Champions @FCTucson have been acquired by @USL club @PHXRisingFC.#Path2Pro | https://t.co/IOxCfrkvKx pic.twitter.com/nnJRF6RqKm

— USL PDL (@USLPDL) October 11, 2017

Also considered is Flagstaff, with a metro population of 139,097 and home to Northern Arizona University. The city is steadily growing, along with (relatively) nearby Prescott Valley, and the Northern Arizona region seems like it could support professional soccer pretty well. I’ve found that places with good college sports support tend to also do well with professional soccer, as there’s a good bit of overlap of interests and target demographics, and this could be another promising place.

ARKANSAS

Ah, Arkansas, my adopted second home. I spent three years in Fayetteville at the University of Arkansas, and I absolutely love that city and the state as a whole. Arkansans are ridiculously passionate sports fans, and the whole state gets behind their Hogs year after year, even when they’re consistently the okayest SEC team. Anyway, back to soccer.

Little Rock
-Metro Population: 724,385
-Averaged 4,975 in Double-A baseball

So many people that I’ve met shit on Little Rock, and that really irritates me. I love this wonderful little city. The city somehow only has minor league baseball for pro sports, but it feels like they could have so much more. And I’m clearly not alone, as the Little Rock Rangers have been going strong for two years now. This is another one of those “here’s a well-run amateur team, let’s make them professional” sections, but whatever.

The Rangers are already playing in the NPSL and WPSL, have a strong and growing list of sponsors, are well supported and even have an academy running already. They currently play in the massive, cavernous War Memorial Stadium, and because of that, a good crowd of 2,500 is dwarfed by more than 50,000 empty seats. We’ll want to change that. I’m thinking either use Quigley-Cox Stadium with a bit of a renovation, or possibly even the Arkansas Travelers’ ballpark, Dickey-Stephens Field. Both feature a much nicer capacity for D3 soccer.

Also considered was the Fayetteville/Springdale metro area, with a population of 461,966. The northwest corner of the state is constantly growing thanks to the University of Arkansas and Walmart. The area has minor league baseball and a new NPSL team, Ozark FC. With the number of students who live in Fayetteville year round, and the thousands who end up working locally after graduating, this could be another great soccer town. The Razorbacks soccer team routinely fills its 1,500-seat stadium, and that little venue would be perfect for the USL D3.

CALIFORNIA

California is goddamn massive. Like, seriously, I’m Texan and I think that place is fucking huge. Also, there are two massive metro areas that dominate professional sports in California, and for this exercise I think it’s best if we just ignore all of Los Angeles and the Bay Area when searching for a new market. So, with San Diego possibly maybe sort of joining the NASL in 2018 — or the USL if the NASL dies — and Fresno joining the USL in 2018 along with Sacramento still supporting the Republic, we need something different.

Bakersfield
-Metro population: 839,631
-Averaging 4,504 in AHL

Bakersfield is the ninth-largest city in California and one of the largest independent markets. The city is home to Cal State Bakersfield in NCAA D1, and host the Bakersfield Condors in the American Hockey League. The fact that the Condors have played continuously since 1995, with consistently solid attendance, gives me confidence in the potential success for professional soccer. As for a stadium, I like the Cal State Bakersfield Main Soccer Field with a capacity of 2,000, or the more ambitious and slightly aged Memorial Stadium that seats 20,000. The latter could use a bit of love and money to get it a bit shinier, but it’s a nice-looking stadium with plenty of room to grow nonetheless. And if this theoretical Bakersfield team were to market and operate like Sacramento’s, they could fill that thing.

That’s all for Part I of Project 50/50. I hope you enjoyed this sprawling wall of text that really doesn’t mean much other than speculation and maybe a bit of attention calling to some teams. But I enjoyed it.

Part II is our next group of five states: Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida and Georgia.

Follow John on Twitter: @JohnMLTX.

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