Whether it’s the economy or a reaction to last year’s shakeup or just a sign of the end of the line, indoor soccer attendance is way down this winter.

Quick recap: from 2002 on, we had (basically) one main indoor soccer league (the second coming of the MISL). In the summer of 2008, some folks decided they couldn’t play nice together, so last winter we had two leagues, the National Indoor Soccer League (NISL) and the Xtreme Soccer League (XSL). Neither one was even as strong as the previous league had been. Then, this past summer, the XSL went belly-up, one of its teams (barely) survived (Milwaukee) and joined the NISL, which then re-took the name MISL two weeks before it began its 2009-2010 season.

Anyway, that season is coming to an end in two weeks, and attendance is down everywhere:

Team	G	Total	Average	2008-09	Diff
Baltimore	9	55,348	6,150	7,534	-18.4%
Milwaukee	9	33,253	3,695	4,151	-11.0%
Monterrey	9	25,153	2,795	3,491	-19.9%
Philadelphia	5	23,974	4,795	6,377	-24.8%
Rockford	10	11,120	1,112	1,242	-10.5%
MISL TOTAL	42	148,848	3,544	4,163	-14.9%

Notes:

• Rockford only had nine home games last year, they had 10 this year. The “2008-2009″ column is their full-season average from last year. Everybody else’s comparison column reflects the same number of home games as a year ago. Milwaukee’s numbers were in the XSL. And the “league total” comparison was for all 41 reported numbers in the NISL last year - four Massachusetts games were never reported (hint: they were crap crowds), so the NISL’s true average a year ago was well below the 4,163 that goes in the books. Therefore, the year-to-year drop is slightly less than 15%.
• Philadelphia moved from the (former) Spectrum to a smaller arena at Temple University, where they were unable to get 10 home dates (and one they did get was snowed out and rescheduled for Milwaukee, so the KiXX will only have seven home games this year).
• Rockford’s still a mess. My man Jeff Kraft is doing the best he can there, but it’s just tough.
• Baltimore, long a bastion of indoor soccer, is on pace to have its worst year, average attendance-wise, since 2004-2005.
• Milwaukee’s announced attendance figures are down (like everybody else’s), but, from what I understand, they’ve been able to maintain their ticket pricing integrity better and may actually be generating more ticket revenue than a year ago. The Wave (which was left for dead last summer) may finish first in the regular season and host the league title game on April 4.

I love indoor, but it’s not at all a well cat. I know we’re never going back to the glory days of the mid-1980s, but I didn’t think we’d be looking back at the early 1990s and thinking those were halcyon days, too.

Just because…here’s a look at the current attendance figures for the 80 teams in the five current minor hockey leagues:

Team	League	G	Total	Average
Hershey Bears	American	33	309,178	9,369
Fort Wayne Komets	International	26	205,048	7,886
Manitoba Moose	American	32	248,377	7,762
Chicago Wolves	American	32	245,140	7,661
Grand Rapids Griffins	American	35	239,770	6,851
Providence Bruins	American	34	214,418	6,306
W-B/Scranton Penguins	American	32	198,969	6,218
Toledo Walleye	ECHL	33	205,135	6,216
Ontario Reign	ECHL	30	184,721	6,157
Milwaukee Admirals	American	30	180,562	6,019
Lake Erie Monsters	American	35	209,303	5,980
Stockton Thunder	ECHL	28	166,134	5,933
Houston Aeros	American	32	179,932	5,623
Syracuse Crunch	American	29	157,119	5,418
Bakersfield Condors	ECHL	28	149,409	5,336
Gwinnett Gladiators	ECHL	27	143,887	5,329
Colorado Eagles	Central	30	158,670	5,289
Florida Everblades	ECHL	32	168,577	5,268
Texas Stars	American	33	173,644	5,262
Charlotte Checkers	ECHL	27	139,488	5,166
Manchester Monarchs	American	33	169,444	5,135
Missouri Mavericks	Central	30	146,335	4,877
San Antonio Rampage	American	30	144,921	4,831
Tulsa Oilers	Central	32	154,376	4,824
Wichita Thunder	Central	29	139,846	4,822
Rapid City Rush	Central	28	133,593	4,771
Reading Royals	ECHL	31	147,462	4,757
South Carolina Stingrays	ECHL	32	151,248	4,727
RG Valley Killer Bees	Central	28	130,132	4,647
Alaska Aces	ECHL	29	133,963	4,619
Hamilton Bulldogs	American	33	145,712	4,416
Peoria Rivermen	American	34	145,736	4,286
Las Vegas Wranglers	ECHL	27	112,784	4,177
Portland Pirates	American	30	125,260	4,175
Victoria Salmon Kings	ECHL	30	124,626	4,154
Adirondack Phantoms	American	31	127,674	4,119
Rochester Americans	American	34	138,308	4,068
Hartford Wolf Pack	American	30	121,644	4,055
Laredo Bucks	Central	28	111,975	3,999
Bridgeport Sound Tigers	American	34	135,564	3,987
Utah Grizzlies	ECHL	30	119,070	3,969
Idaho Steelheads	ECHL	31	121,461	3,918
Quad City Mallards	International	30	117,377	3,912
Toronto Marlies	American	33	125,766	3,811
Rockford IceHogs	American	33	125,593	3,806
Norfolk Admirals	American	30	113,846	3,795
Abbotsford Heat	American	32	120,226	3,757
Fayetteville FireAntz	Southern	25	93,877	3,755
Elmira Jackals	ECHL	29	107,915	3,721
Allen Americans	Central	29	106,887	3,685
Cincinnati Cyclones	ECHL	31	113,183	3,651
Binghamton Senators	American	33	119,578	3,624
Albany River Rats	American	34	122,020	3,589
Huntsville Havoc	Southern	25	87,322	3,492
Worcester Sharks	American	33	113,951	3,453
Springfield Falcons	American	34	116,827	3,436
Kalamazoo Wings	ECHL	30	102,162	3,405
Boss.-Shreveport Mudbugs	Central	28	93,953	3,355
Pensacola Ice Flyers	Southern	24	77,725	3,238
Knoxville Ice Bears	Southern	23	73,163	3,181
Mississippi RiverKings	Central	28	88,035	3,144
Odessa Jackalopes	Central	29	85,817	2,959
Corpus Christi IceRays	Central	29	84,440	2,911
Muskegon Lumberjacks	International	31	88,032	2,839
Columbus Cottonmouths	Southern	23	64,530	2,805
Arizona Sundogs	Central	29	76,996	2,655
Bloomington Prairie Thunder	International	30	78,440	2,614
Wheeling Nailers	ECHL	30	77,386	2,580
Mississippi Surge	Southern	23	56,393	2,451
Lowell Devils	American	30	71,595	2,387
Trenton Devils	ECHL	29	67,755	2,336
Texas Brahmas	Central	29	64,217	2,214
Johnstown Chiefs	ECHL	30	58,034	1,934
Flint Generals	International	28	52,886	1,888
Amarillo Gorillas	Central	28	47,582	1,699
Port Huron Icehawks	International	28	46,076	1,645
Louisiana IceGators	Southern	26	40,957	1,575
Dayton Gems	International	29	37,728	1,300
American Hockey League		938	4,640,077	4,947
ECHL		594	2,594,400	4,368
Central Hockey League		434	1,622,854	3,739
International Hockey League		202	625,587	3,096
Southern Hockey League		169	493,967	2,922
MINOR LEAGUE TOTAL		2,337	9,976,885	4,269

My best friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who’s going with the girl who says the Coyotes are moving back to Winnipeg. I guess it’s pretty serious.

Anyone who grew up on pro football of the late 1960s and 1970s or who has seen classic NFL Films knows the “Voice of God,” John Facenda. His legendary pipes narrated the chronicles of professional football from 1965 until his death in 1984 (and he lives on thanks to the NFL Network).

But in 1975, the Tampa Bay Rowdies of the North American Soccer League had Facenda voice their highlight film. I’ve just received a copy of this long-lost treasure from my man Dave Wasser (from whom you can get tons of old NASL games on video). Besides the fun of seeing my old heroes come to life again and seeing the still-under-construction Tampa Stadium where I spent so much time as a youth, it was fun to hear Facenda lending the same gravitas to the proceedings that was normally reserved for Vince Lombardi and the Doomsday Defense.

I won’t give away the ending, but it turns out pretty well for the guys from Tampa.

21st century journalism is about getting it first, not getting it right. Case in point, the Tampa Tribune:

First story, 11:14am: The Tampa Bay Bucs have “huge interest” in free agent defensive end Aaron Kampman, late of the Packers, according to a report in the National Football Post.

Second story, 4:10pm: Maybe not, according to WDAE radio.

Note that at no point does the Trib do any of its own reporting on this. Well done.

EDIT: Kampman signed with Jacksonville. So there you are.

We know that our current domestic soccer league is far more American-ized than its predecessor, but by how much?

About 60% of those on the current list of MLS players are American-born. I wondered how that compared to the NASL. Taking a quick snapshot of three specific seasons in NASL history (each five years apart), I came up with the following quick chart:

Nationality	1974	1979	1984
USA	59 (20%)	102 (19%)	39 (21%)
Canada	10 (3%)	32 (6%)	25 (13%)
UK	103 (35%)	162 (30%)	49 (26%)
Other	120 (41%)	239 (45%)	76 (40%)

The percentage of American players (and I used American-born when possible - the NASL had a fairly-significant number of naturalized US citizens as well, as we’ll see in a minute) remained fairly constant in those snapshots at around 20%. But the percentage of Canadian players went from 3% in 1974 to 13% a decade later (with two teams in Canada in both of those years - Toronto and Vancouver). It may not be a coincidence that Canada qualified for its only World Cup in 1986, as 17 of the 22 players on that squad played in the NASL.

Anyone who followed the NASL knows there was significant UK (especially English) representation (basically the reason we play in the summer is because of the number of players we needed to import during Europe’s off-season just to fill out rosters). That percentage dropped a bit over the course of this quick study, from 35% in 1974 to just 26% in 1984. Meanwhile, the percentage of players from elsewhere (South America, substantially) remained fairly constant.

That was just a quick snapshot based on pure numbers of rostered players, but I wanted to go a little bit deeper. The 1982 NASL season is one for which I have minutes played stats for everybody, so I wanted to check to see if Americans were just tokens or if they were playing substantial roles (keep in mind the NASL had fluctuating requirements for how many North Americans had to be on the field at all times, but there was always a requirement of at least a handful).

Looking at it by minutes played, the 1982 NASL season broke down thusly (with teams ranked by their percentage of minutes played by US-born players):

Team	#	USA Min	Total Min	USA Pct.
Chicago	8	8,715	32,095	27.2%
Seattle	5	8,236	32,342	25.5%
Jacksonville	5	8,306	32,772	25.3%
Tulsa	6	7,192	30,494	23.6%
San Jose	7	6,675	31,615	21.1%
Cosmos	5	6,593	31,993	20.6%
Ft. Lauderdale	2	4,565	32,151	14.2%
Portland	3	3,851	31,234	12.3%
San Diego	2	2,021	32,391	6.2%
Vancouver	1	1,899	32,521	5.8%
Montreal	1	1,311	32,533	4.0%
Tampa Bay	3	1,296	32,418	4.0%
Edmonton	1	566	31,252	1.8%
Toronto	0	0	31,126	0.0%
NASL	44	61,226	446,937	13.7%

(The team totals of US-born players add to 49, but five players spent time with more than one team. There were only 44 American-born players in the NASL in 1982, though there were another 22 who were naturalized citizens.)

So, in all, about 14% of the available minutes went to American-born players.

Chicago led the way with eight American-born players, but only three were regulars (Rudy Glenn, Mark Simanton and Charlie Fajkus).

The Tulsa Roughnecks had six Yanks, including three who played substantial roles in goalkeeper Winston DuBose, forward Tim Twellman - Taylor’s dad -and defender Don Droege. Twellman actually ended up in Chicago via a midseason trade.

And here were the top 10 American-born players in terms of minutes played:

Top 10 American-Born Players, NASL, 1982
Rk	Player	Pos	Team	Age	Minutes
1	Winston DuBose	G	Tulsa	26	2,961
2	Mike Hunter	D	San Jose	23	2,817
3	Glenn Myernick	D	Portland	27	2,756
4	Mark Peterson	F	Seattle	22	2,707
5	Jeff Stock	M	Seattle	21	2,491
6	Rudy Glenn	M	Chicago	23	2,449
7	Poll Garcia	F	Jacksonville	24	2,391
8	Bruce Savage	D	Ft. Lauderdale	21	2,325
9	Dan Cantner	D	Ft. Lauderdale	20	2,240
10	Mark Simanton	M	Chicago	23	2,232

You have to remember two things - had the NASL not had a quota system (which varied from year to year, but was gradually increasing, in general) mandating a certain number of North Americans on the field at all times, the numbers would probably be lower. We didn’t have a lot of guys who could actually play. And MLS has gone the other way - limiting the number of foreign players (without green cards) who can be on a roster, which tends to boost the numbers.

Are there more quality American players now than in 1982? No question (there’d better be, after nearly 30 years of development). Is MLS too Americanized? That’s for you to decide, I guess.

United Soccer Leagues announced today they’ll put an expansion team in Orlando, Florida for the 2011 season. USL (then the USISL) last had a team in the Central Florida city in 1997, the first year of the merged A-League, but the Orlando SunDogs went 12-16 and averaged 1,514 fans per game in the cavernous Citrus Bowl.

NASLnews.com, which posted this anonymous editorial excoriating USL for letting Steve Donner (whose past is checkered, to say the least) be president of the new team, later posted a series of Tweets following up on the official news:

@naslnews: The USL/Orlando release boldly proclaims USL-1 will return next season. So much for the USSF calming the rhetoric.

Actually, the release says “United Soccer Leagues is planning to re-establish the USL First Division in 2011.”

Which, you’re right, is so much bolder than the statement on the bottom of every NASL press release. But, hey, NASLNews.com is an “Independent News Site Covering the North American Soccer League¹.” Okay, sure. (BTW, that release didn’t go out without USSF seeing it, I’m told.)

But that’s a digression. Clearly what USL hopes to do is bolster its roster of teams (they’ve already bolstered their front office, clearly in response to the concerns raised by the teams that broke away and caused all this ruckus in the first place) in hopes of getting to eight and gaining USSF sanction for 2011.

But Orlando?

I can’t agree with this guy (”Bleacher Report.” Hah.) who says that Orlando should have an MLS team (there’s a reason they don’t have anything but the Magic…I mean, they don’t even have a WNBA team anymore²). I don’t know where they’re going to play (the Citrus Bowl is way too big…even UCF’s football stadium is probably too big.) I can’t come up with a really good reason why this should be successful (or why you’d put a guy in charge about whom you’re going to have to constantly answer some pretty tough questions). (Yes, I got federal stimulus funds to buy more parentheses.)

Donner’s currently running the Orlando Titans indoor lacrosse team (which moved from New York and is currently averaging 7,985 fans a game in a league that averaged 10k a game last year). He says they’ll use the same staff for both teams:

“We looked at several different options, including indoor soccer and hockey, but in the end, professional outdoor soccer made the most sense in terms of being able to utilize our staff on a year-round basis without a lot of overlap in the seasons.”

That’s nice in theory, but few have been able to pull it off. My man Peter Wilt has written that it’s tough to always have your staff in “operations mode” year-round, rather than giving them an actual off-season for planning and sales.

So, no, I’m not optimistic right now. I grew up in Florida and I’m not one of those who has the “pro sports won’t work in Florida, Florida fans suck” mantra on macro. I think it’s more about the particular market, the product and the people running it. But right now, I’d have to be convinced that this has a good shot of working.

1 - Clearly it’s not. A soccer executive friend of mine has a theory that someone employed by the NASL is behind it, which may or may not be true.
2 - I’m still waiting for the Orlando Sharks to come back. I was assured they’d be coming back. Really.

Two things I thought when I read this story in the Boston Globe about the ongoing collective bargaining negotiations between Major League Soccer and its players:

• Did MLS Commissioner Don Garber actually refer to his league as “the MLS?” Or was that just the way the quote was altered by an English reporter who was at the conference in Manchester?
• Why wasn’t it pointed out that, yes, Chris Tierney of the New England Revolution did sign a $12,000 developmental contract as a rookie, but got a 183% raise last year to $34,000? That’s what happens with these players that some people think have to be paid more because of some moral imperative or because “they’re Division I athletes:” They move up or they move on. You make crap wages because players like you keep signing crap contracts. Most of those bottom-feeding guys either prove themselves (and get better contracts) or go sell insurance. Now, let’s not pretend that $34,000 in Boston is livin’ large, but if you went to the University of Virginia and played soccer for four years and majored in psychology, exactly what did you expect to be doing with your life at 24? $34,000 is a hell of a lot more than I made at 24. Of course, when I was 24, it was Confederate money, so maybe that had something to do with it.

To their credit, after the shells lobbed a couple of weeks back, both sides have been fairly civil and quiet, at least in the press. The regular season begins three weeks from tomorrow with a game at sold-out Qwest Field in Seattle.

Thanks to whoever YouTubed it and thanks to Ian Morris‘ Rowdies Appreciation Blog for turning me on to it.

Things in my head this Tuesday:

• We’re 100 days from the World Cup. And Sepp Blatter continues to tell us that South Africa will be ready, no problems. This was just such a bad choice of host countries on so many levels.
• USA/Canada in the gold medal hockey game Sunday averaged 27.6 million viewers on NBC, the third-highest hockey broadcast rating ever in this country. Good for them, good for the sport. Great game, terrific broadcast. I’m skeptical about the impact on the NHL, though. NHL attendance and interest saw only marginal gains after Lake Placid (and Wayne Gretzky was just breaking out at that point). The 2002 gold medal game (also broadcast on NBC on the last Sunday of the Salt Lake games) between the US and Canada got about 11.3 million viewers, and I think we can all agree there wasn’t much of a bump from that.
• Apple is no fun at all.
• The new cast of Dancing With The Stars is abysmal. Just chock full of people who are either unlikeable or of no real consequence. And supposedly ESPN’s Erin Andrews “wavered for weeks, worried about her credibility as a journalist.” I’m thinking that went out the window with this and this, so I wouldn’t worry too much about that. (That said, I do applaud the notion that she wants to have some fun in her life and raise awareness of the legal issues surrounding her situation.)
• So much for Saturday mail. I’m not sure the United States Postal Service will exist in 2025.
• End Times. I’m telling you, End Times.
• Another American soccer voice has been silenced as FC Dallas has cut ties with Brad Sham in what has to be a cost-cutting measure. Has to be. Sham - a consummate pro who’s been doing soccer for nearly 40 years - will be replaced by former Dallas player Bobby Rhine, who has one year of experience doing color commentary on FCD games.
• Did you know the PASL-Pro season was heading towards an exciting conclusion? The San Diego Sockers will host the championship tournament next weekend with the title game on Saturday, March 13.
• Also in indoor soccer, the Rockford Rampage released a bunch of players over the weekend. I wonder what that’s about. They’re in last place in the Major (chuckle) Indoor Soccer League, but only four games out and still have an outside chance to make the playoffs (the top three teams advance).