Struggling NASL Will Play Championship in Front of Just 2,600 People

Not so long ago, the North American Soccer League took aim at Major League Soccer, with the goal of supplanting it as the top soccer circuit in America. Back in April 2015, league commissioner Bill Peterson, asserted that "our teams, our owners are at the highest level" and on par with the top division.

His signature team, a reboot of Pelé's New York Cosmos, entered the league in August 2013, and quickly backed up that assertion. On Sunday against Indy Eleven, these Cosmos will look to win their third championship in four years. Unfortunately not even 3,000 people will be on hand to see it, a fact that sucks all of the air out of Peterson's boasts.

The problem is due to the Cosmos still not having a permanent home stadium. When MLS initially courted the Cosmos, ownership preferred to invest what would have been a $100 million expansion fee in the team itself. Primarily, that meant a new stadium, designs for which were submitted for state approval in 2012. By the most pessimistic projections, the stadium would be up and running by now, had it been quickly approved.

But the stadium got caught in the struggle MLS continues to have over building a stadium for NYCFC, the franchise picked to be the second team in the New York market once talks between MLS and the Cosmos broke down. MLS lobbied successfully against the Cosmos' stadium, and it continues to be held up in state red tape, much to the Cosmos' anger.

As a result, the team has played at Hofstra University's Shuart Stadium. However, due to scheduling conflicts and a deteriorating relationship with the university, the championship match will be played at St. John's University's Belson Stadium. Whereas Shuart holds nearly 12,000 people, Belson has a capacity of just 2,600.

The result is emblematic of what's been a difficult year for NASL. Several teams have folded, failed to make payroll, or left for the United Soccer League, which has embraced becoming an explicit feeder league to MLS. Most USL teams now have direct relationships with MLS clubs, and the growth in USL continued this year when two franchises jumped from NASL to USL, hardly an indicator that the NASL is keeping up with USL, let alone challenging MLS.

For his part, Peterson isn't discussing a battle with MLS anymore, instead speaking of internal goals:

"Look, I don't recall precisely what I said in 2015, but I'll tell you what I say today," Peterson said in a conference call Thursday. "We get up every morning, and try to figure out how to make a stronger league today than it was yesterday, continue to deliver great competition for our fans…we try to focus on ourselves, and making ourselves better. It's a golf analogy, but we try to focus on our ball, rather than focus on what others are doing. And if we continue to do that, we'll be successful. How successful? It's impossible to predict."

It's a real walkback in rhetoric, one that poses a larger issue the league will have to reckon with, which is to define itself the way Peterson once did. Back in April 2015, he explained it this way: "Look, to me, there's really only a couple categories of leagues, if you will. You've got championship leagues—these are leagues that are designed and structured to play for championships. You have reserve leagues—their main goal is the development of players for someone else, whoever that may be. And you have amateur leagues."

MLS has succeeded in continued growth as a championship league, by that definition. USL has done the same as a reserve league. So where does NASL land?

"I still view us as a championship league, since we play for championships," Peterson said Thursday. "And that has been our focus."

That championship, however, will be played in front of a maximum of 2,600 fans.