The large crowds the NASL and MLS Sounders drew over the years never surprised Frank MacDonald.
FORBES: E Pluribus Sounders (Part 1): Immigrant & NASL Roots
The Sounders qualified for the NASL playoffs every year except one between 1975 and 1982.
FORBES: E Pluribus Sounders (Part 1): Immigrant & NASL Roots
The Sounders would continue to draw great crowds throughout nearly their entire NASL existence.
FORBES: E Pluribus Sounders (Part 1): Immigrant & NASL Roots
NASL, they say, depended too much on one star-studded team, the New York Cosmos, and its free-spending owner, Warner Communications.
The Cosmos, meanwhile, have announced plans for their own soccer-specific complex at Belmont, while committing to playing in NASL this season.
From 1976 to 1981 the Sounders would average more than 20, 000 fans per home match, nearly doubling the average NASL match attendance.
FORBES: E Pluribus Sounders (Part 1): Immigrant & NASL Roots
Certainly conversations with the second-division NASL on potential technical partnerships, were brief.
And, back then, the NASL didn't just bring in foreign superstars but also bought numerous seasoned pros from overseas to support Pele, Cruyff, Chinaglia, Best and Beckenbauer.
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But by last year, that project had stalled and the Cosmos wound up in a new version of the NASL in the second tier of the U.S. soccer pyramid.
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"In the NASL the onus is on the local owner to build his club, and the strength of the league will be determined by what those owners do, " he said.
While the NY2 conversation continues, the elephant in the room is the revived New York Cosmos, who begin play this fall in the new NASL, which is entering its third season.
When Beckham signed, the question was asked as to whether the MLS was following the failed premise of the North American Soccer League (NASL), which imported international superstars in the 1970s.
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The Sounders and NASL may have folded, but the spirit of the recreational and semi-professional players in the area would keep the sport alive until it was readmitted to top-flight soccer twenty five years later.
FORBES: E Pluribus Sounders (Part 1): Immigrant & NASL Roots
As an SC2 fan, I rarely log on to Battlenet anymore, but I still regularly follow the tournament results and commentary, stream the NASL when I can, and watch VODs of some of the big matches I miss.
If the Cosmos and NASL manage to tap their avowed potential (and right now the former are in a bullish pre-IPO mood, where claims are yet to meet empirical reality), then the ghost of NASL could haunt MLS again.
The North American Star League ( NASL), Dreamhack, the IGN Pro League ( IPL) and Major League Gaming ( MLG) are the biggest names in these sorts of events, and all have seen their viewership numbers rise dramatically over the past year.
But where the implosion of the NASL in the 80s was caused by a rapid expansion of teams that had only served to exaggerate the deadly concept of the weakest link, Major League Soccer decided that the route to success was more likely to be found through contraction.
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