Category Archives: Opinion

Detroit City FC, Opinion, Soccer, Writing

Detroit City and a little Writer’s Postpartum Depression

This is probably going to be a bit more rambly than most posts on this site, but let’s go ahead and deal with it anyway. I have a few topics and I don’t think I can really make them stand-alone posts.

First – I’ve begun writing Book 2, which has already gone through a few working titles, but given that this is a total re-do we shall see what happens. Having previously written some 45,000-ish words in the previous version I already have a good sense of direction with this one. Hopefully I am not stuck too deep in the rails and I can move away from what I’ve got. Already two chapters have been condensed into what is now the prologue and the original prologue is actually the last chapter of Sun-King!

So yeah, that is off to a decent start but I had to say I’ve hit something I didn’t really expect – it really sucks to not be working on Sun-King anymore. Like really weird. Same characters, same settings, same general direction and it just feels like I am in some strange foreign land. If I had to guess I would assume I am suffering from the shock of having total control again. When editing and rewriting chunks of Sun-King I obviously had laid rail before and was generally following the plan if only soothing some corners out.

Now I have total control again and that is really “weird” to me. Maybe I just need a few days away from writing. Maybe I just need a few days back at the helm of creating rather than editing. Either way it was not something I expected and it has made today rather lethargic (among other things, not going there).

So that is where the postpartum comes into play. I really don’t like not working on it. Where is my baby? What is this blank sheet of a paper that I need to fill with brand new words? Fuck all this shit. Fuck it, I want to work on Sun-King some more.

But I can’t.

Or at least I shouldn’t. I need to move on. That is part of writing. Still. I miss it and I know in the back of my head another round of editing is still on the horizon.

O well. Moving on.

Soccer!

But Nick, the superbow-

Shut it.

Oh, so you’re watching the superb ow-

Shut it.

We’re talking soccer, because I care about soccer. I like gridrion. I care about soccer. It means stuff to me. Newcastle won. Celtic won. Kendal lost. And DCFC is moving forward.

Rumor has it that we are very close to running out of season ticket slots. It essentially implies we are on track to sell out every. single. game this summer. That is FUCKING AWESOME. If you disagree go fuck yourself. Little Detroit City, for whom I’ve had a place in my heart since day one.

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My friend Zak and I made those for our first game back in Season 1. I still have both and I just recently was talking with another fan and he mentioned a season 1 flag that was red with golden fleur de lis all over it. It was weird, strangely enough after the last few seasons, that this stood out. I’m really glad it did. It is a beautiful flag, it is too bad it isn’t mine (it is Zak’s even if I store it).

There is a lot going on. I can feel it. Then a few weeks the big news broke.

Check it out (25:30 in the cast).

The FO has been looking at moving up! This is great. I’m so glad to hear that and though I’m doing my damnedest to not get excited it is hard not to. Hard not to see it all paying off. Hard to not love what DCFC and the NGS have been able to put together from scratch. And from what I’ve heard Peter Wilt of the Indy Eleven is not a man who speaks lightly or rumormongers.

So fuck yes!

With tickets and the NASL in our sights, that leads to some speculation. Honestly my prediction is you won’t see DCFC on the field in the NASL until 2018 or 2020. We need a new stadium. We need major sponsors. We need major names. We need a lot of stuff, including potentially new owners who have the cash. That means a lot of growing pains and a lot of issues that might follow. The NGS might look good on paper but when so many FOs would rather have Sally DoGood and her three cum-sprites in the stands paying $10 for a hotdog with mustard each and Richy DoGood paying $12 for a can of Miller Lite; the NGS (and I’m going to quote Hot Time in Old Town):

THE NORTHERN GUARD IS WHERE FAMILY-FRIENDLY ENTERTAINMENT WENT SLUMMING AND GOT STOMPED BIKER-STYLE INTO INTENSIVE CARE

When one of your loudest mottos is “We’re ruining football and we don’t care” you aren’t a great target for rich, white suburbanites. Or at least that is what people thought until we sold out twice and nearly sold the entire allotment of season tickets three months before kick off.

The Northern Guard has a duty to stand between squatters and the club and ensure that despite ruining football, we don’t ruin DCFC as well. I don’t think that is really at risk. I can’t say with a straight face that DCFC is “less” because of the NGS. Less family friendly? Yes. Less TV friendly? Yes. But less? Less as a whole? Absolutely not. Absolutely not.

Tomorrow the season schedule should be out. There are some major mix-ups apparently. Then, Wednesday, we go to see Victory and grill the ownership at the Q&A. That will be mind-opening to say the least. Finally, Friday night, Midnight Madness as the NGS invades the try-outs.

This is a great week to be a DCFC fan.

Oíche mhaith, bitches.

Opinion, Writing

Why I Write

I’m not an author, but I am a writer and I’m going to talk about a pretty common topic/question that writers get so don’t expect anything ground-breaking here.

Anyone with a passion has at some point been asked “why.” Why do you write? Why do you paint? Why do you fix cars? Why do you go to work each day? Everyone has their own answers, something that drives them. It could be internal, external, a mix of both. A person might slave away at work for the family just as easily as an artist slaves away at a painting because of expectations.

There is a stereotype that sometimes people like me take cubical jobs for the stability and then everything is happy forever. Sure, the stability is a huge part of it, it is certainly nice to know that for 8 hours of work I’ll get 8 hours of pay. I got into a twitter fight with an “arteest” type who essentially told me all cubical jockeys were cunts who expected life on a silver platter.

Needless to say I no longer buy his stuff or go to his site at all.

But I digress. Engineering is a passion of mine and luckily one in high enough demand that I can use it to fund my more creative endeavors like writing and going to sports games in an increasing number of scarves. I’m lucky that I can enjoy going to work long enough to not go crazy. Not everyone is lucky like that.

Every economy has two sides: creator and consumer. If you are an artist and all you do is mock and bash middle America, your consumers, you’re pretty much a cunt. There is more to life than a pay cheque and day-in and day-out the grind gets boring. We look to artists to provide. I’m fairly confident that most people like me are more than happy to pay for escapism. Yet I constantly see creators complaining that we want it free, or treat them poorly. Maybe I surround myself with decent people but I rarely hear engineers talking about how artists don’t deserve to get paid. I rarely hear CAD designers talking about stealing music.

I do hear it from a lot of people who’d rather not resort to it. People who illegally download the CDs to afford the concert ticket. I won’t defend their actions, but I rarely see people download something because “Fuck the artist, man!”

And it is just that, people who spend five days a week in a cube often are the people who need and want escapism the most. Are the most willing to pay for that hour or two in bed next to a loved one reading a book or listening to Starbomb’s newest album.

My writing comes from a different sort of escapism. It was an escapism of school, of bullies, of social insecurity. It was also an escapism from what teachers wanted me to read. Dull, dry books that were better for putting young boys to sleep than engaging them with the arts.

Too often I was told I should read literature instead of genre so I chose to hate literature and create genre. I wanted to write stories about knights and dragons, about hidden languages and magic, about nations at war and getting the girl.

My writing filled a hole left by the constant demand of school to read things deemed “important” or “significant.”

Things deemed “important” and “significant” rarely contain dragons.

Just saying.

My first book is lost, it was last seen on a 3.5″ floppy. My next one was probably right beside it. Everything after that is saved. I have it on this computer I am typing on right now. That includes

  • An insane Harry Potter knock off if instead of magic it was ROTC on crack
  • A nihilistic sci-fi take on World War I set in space
  • A Forest Gump-esque take on vampire novels
  • Several dystopian war novels
  • A rehash of the nihilistic WWI novel set in a PMC operating inside western China
  • Several hundred ideas for a series of slap-stick short stories involving “Percival Mellowfeather” a joke shared among a group of friends
  • Project XIII – my successful attempt at NaNoWriMo in 2012
  • Project XIV – my unsuccessful attempt to turn PXIII into a real novel
  • Noortland

Noortland was something strange. Probably my first foray into “Dark Fantasy,” a place I am still firmly rooted. It is based off a particularly thrilling game of Civilization III I had back in highschool. It involved Lammert, a ranger; Alexandrine, a vampire rogue; Antonius, a wolfman; and their quest to overthrow the vampire King Constantine on behalf of his brother, Valentine – Alexandrine’s father.

To be fair, it was kind of shit.

To be honest it was total shite on a stick.

That’s where we come to Project XV, which has the working title “Sun-King” (and it is still a working title).

Sun-King is, in so many ways, is Noortland given new life. The maps are similar-ish, the settings are similar-ish, the characters are similar-ish.

Project XIII struck a chord with me, I knew that I wanted to write in a darker tone, I wanted to write from the perspective of characters that were not all good but not all evil. Like Noortland Project XIII was heavily based on an experience from a video game: namely that evil characters in a rail-roaded video game are still inherently treated as good. In my own case, my back-stabbing rogue who was an embodiment of the Void (death) was still treated as the great hero so long as I kept killing dragons.

I was infinitely amused at character’s willingness to trust me in story missions but on the flip side, essentially had to play two characters – my character outside of missions, killing and plundering all the way; and this second character, honest and trustworthy inside the story. So Project XIII was about two characters stuck in one body, one wholly good and the other wholly evil. Plus it involved Ice Elves, which I think are decently rare.

That was fun.

Project XIV… I don’t really remember anything from project XIV.

So in 2013, when I got laid off, I took a chance to start writing again. Having recently quit writing my serial, Baltikja, on the Paradox fora I had some free time and a willingness to write. A passion and a drive.

I wanted, I guess still want, to finish this.

From August 2013 to June 2014 I wrote Drafts 1 and 1.5. Draft 3 was written from December 2014 to January 2015. I documented some of that process here making sure to stop in just about every single day.

Project XV is Noortland re-imagined, re-invigorated, and the proportions blown up. It is written from my perspective, seen through my lenses and informed by who I am. All the characters are slices of myself or people I know. The interact with each other, with their world, and more importantly with me.

Because I don’t write for you, dear reader, I write for me. I write for years lost to reading trite that I  despised. Years spent reading pseudo-intellectual new-age bullshit for the appeasement of high school teachers rather than my own curiosity. Years spent away from fantasy and genre and buried to my neck in things I didn’t enjoy.

So my apologies to Mr. Albrecht, if he is even reading, I liked your class. I liked working with you in theater.

But holy shit, to my English/Reading teachers in High School – fuck you and the horses you road in on.

Fuckyouzard

I write, primarily, then to make up for lost time. So it is no surprise then that Sun-King involves Einar, the ranger; Rozenn, the immortal knight; Pallas, a wolfman from the highlands; and newcomer Gwennerch, a witch from a far-off land. It is no surprise that A work of my youth is finally so close to life. So close to publication that the younger me is starting to emerge again.

I have found new first readers. I hope that within a month I can begin the last bit of editing before I send the draft off to copy editing and then, maybe, start the hunt for an agent or finish putting it together for self publication.

Who knows?

I certainly don’t.

I just write for the fun of it all.

Opinion, Soccer

Killing the Mood

Nothing kills my mood like hearing that the people I’ve allied with are a bunch of fucking idiots.

I’ve spent time over the last few days getting berated by people who support pro/rel, people who in theory should be on my side. They don’t make me proud, that is for sure. Many seem to have this idea that it’ll be automatic. That the market can handle it. But with even MLS teams facing economic relegation (that is: running out of cash), there is no easy way to do this.

Don Garber is not going to stand on his desk tomorrow and shout “Promotion/Relegation… ACTIVATE!” and suddenly have a perfectly functioning system.

Side note: perhaps he and the USL Pro commissioner have to shout “Wonder Twin Powers: ACTIVATE” to get it to work… hmmm…

Regardless. I’m not one to enjoy looking the fool, and if the pro/rel bus is the proverbial short bus, then I don’t want to be on it. I want to be anywhere but on it.

So to pro/rel-ers out there. Beef up your arguments. You all sound like a bunch of fucking uneducated morons going on and on about how it is a conspiracy, or shady MLS dealings, or how USSF can step in and fix it all. You are really selling yourself and a unique part of soccer short by: not accepting the realities and difficulties faced by implementing this system; acting like it will cure all ills of soccer in the USA; and pretending that the argument “we will win world cups” is a legitimate one.

Thanks.

Sincerely, a former supporter of Promotion/Relegation

Opinion, Soccer

The Pro/Rel Litmus Test

Aside 1 Comment

I want to add this as a sort of after-the-fact question to readers.

A lot (not all) of people who support Pro/Rel don’t root for teams in the MLS. A lot (but not all) of people who are against Pro/Rel do root for teams in the MLS.

So I would pose this as a sort of Litmus test on whether you support Pro/Rel or just want an MLS club: if you team was threatened with relegation, would you still support Pro/Rel? What if it was a rival getting promoted instead of you? This is where it sort of breaks down for me. Maybe?

I definitely want to see DCFC reach its potential, and promotion would sure make an easy way for that to happen. But can I take the bad with the good?

I don’t know. I think I know. But I don’t really know until it happens.

So ask yourself if you actually support Pro/Rel or just support your team moving up (as you should).

Opinion, Soccer

Dragging Me Back In: Promotion/Relegation & America

Okay, here is some new vocabulary for the unsoccery people:

Promotion and Relegation, often used together and sometimes abbreviated Pro/Rel. It is a pretty contentious point in American soccer fandom.

So, over in þe olde Ængaland and – well – the rest of the world Association Football uses this system that would be completely alien to Americans: promotion and relegation. What it means is that the soccer season doesn’t end in a championship (there are cups for that) it just ends. Someone comes in first and someone comes in last and there are teams inbetween. What happens is that the lowest ranking team(s) get sent down a tier (relegation) and the highest ranking team(s) get sent up a tier if possible (promotion).

Now this means a lot: first it means that minor teams with enough cash and support can grow and spend even a season or two at top-tier earning extra TV cash. It also means that for weak teams every match is a battle and it ensures interest remains in the club through two general means: first if you lose everything, there is a good chance next year you’ll have a better season (because your opponents will be weaker) and it also means that up to the end fans are watching and praying that you don’t get relegated.

A lot of American soccer fans grew up not watching MLS, but EPL (English Premier League). Now that America’s MLS is picking up in popularity EPL fans are calling for their beloved pro/rel to make the jump across the sea.

People are very divided on this issue and some people (myself included) are divided even within themselves because pro/rel isn’t all good. So lets talk pros and cons and then move onto how I think America can realistically adopt pro/rel.

Some Pros:

First, like I said, it makes smaller clubs viable. It encourages people to root for more than just the big team from the big city 500 miles away. In the USA in every sport there are 20-ish teams and that is it. You have to pick the one closest to you, or the one that your father’s brother’s wife’s cousin played for that one year before blowing out his knee.

If done correctly this means MORE not less money for the the league. FC Butte is almost assuredly NOT going to be a power player. But the people of Butte are probably also not going to too many Sounders matches. They are passively watching on TV or the internet. Stick FC Butte into the picture and likely they’ll go to a few games a year. A supporter or ultra will go to quite a few more. And then they’ll still probably watch the Sounders game on TV. In economics terms: we are far from true market saturation in the United States.

Next – it stops stupid one sided and worthless matches from becoming common OR forces owners to actually invest in their teams. Basically it helps “settle” the market and encourages more investment. A team with an owner who is risk-adverse might settle into a lower tier. If the owner wants to keep challenging other local clubs they’ll have to invest. No more owners taking supporters for granted. If they don’t invest the team might slide and that might mean fewer tickets sold. So in a city like Cleveland, with only the Browns, tier 2 might not be a bad idea. People will still go, the Browns might do better with teams of similar stature and everyone wins. On the flip side the Cubs now need real investment, their in-town rivals the White Sox might steal fans away if they get relegated. That means this whole mentality of “as long as Wrigley is filled” undergoes a drastic change – win or die. That’s good for fans and supporters.

This also could potentially add space for talented players who are not necessarily great. So long as lower tiers pay living wages it means the fear of “do I play the sport I love and risk starving” or “do I get a job I hate and eat every night” sort of vanishes and that might be good for developing talent. However, it means we as Americans have to reevaluate how we look at sports as a career option, which I’ll discuss in the cons.

The Cons:

So as I just said, this requires a HUUUUUUGE change in how Americans view sports as a career option and how players should develop as well as tiered leagues.

Right now in America it is essentially pros or nothing. Yeah yeah, minor league baseball. You know who watches minor league baseball? No one.

What about minor league soccer, Nick? You know who watches minor league soccer? Hipsters and soccer purists. Sorry to say it, but that is sort of it. I know at least one fireman who is likely ringing his fists waiting for a chance to put my neck in there. There isn’t really a market for low tier soccer in the USA. Not enough to guarantee TV spots.

But Nick, Indy 11 is on TV and sold out every game. First: yeah, their stadium is tiny. Second: that really just goes back to what I am saying: the soccer market in the United States is far, far from saturated. So call it the exception that proves the rule. Indianapolis is exactly what MLS should look for in a tier 2 city. Big-ish. Passionate. Lacking in a lot of other sports (they have the Colts and they have minor league baseball IIRC).

A huge drawback is America is HUUUUUUUUGE. Like gargantuan. Germany is one of the larger states in Europe and it is half the size of Texas. HALF! This makes travel really hard and really expensive. Small teams will probably need to have travel subsidized, which no league wants to deal with. In lower tiers, with regional play, travel is no problem. But what happens when our hypothetical FC Butte is promoted to a non-regional tier? Now they are flying to Tampa and El Paso and shit, none of those teams want to fly to fucking Butte (sorry Butte, I’m sure you’re beautiful but I’m not queuing to visit your lovely vistas).

There is also the potential to introduce yo-yo teams. This isn’t necessarily bad, but it can be annoying. Usually when pro/rel supporters talk about their system it is this beautifully fluid system with all sorts of teams floating around. But its not. The cream floats to the top, the shit sinks to the bottom. Manchester United is not being relegated any time soon without something cataclysmic happening. Rangers from SPL got sent to (what?) tier 4? And they are rising back to the top with a nearly unprecedented speed. Why? Because the quadruple relegation was unprecedented.

A yo-yo team is a team that is too good for tier n but not good enough for tier n-1. That means one season they are #1 and promoted, the next they are #20 and relegated. Repeat forever. FC Augsburg over in Germany used to be a good example of this. They are actually currently #4 in Bundesliga as of my last update. So I guess a good example (according to wikipedia) is Norwich, I’m sure some Norwich fan will correct me. I don’t see Americans dealing with yo-yo teams. But that goes to the first point: the mentality as a whole is not ready for this system.

So to wrap up this rambling with the biggest con: lower tiers have to fight college sports. Americans love a few things (in no particular order): Guns, Jesus, Reagan, Boobs, and College Sports. Unless you went to Purdue and gave up ever winning a bowl, you fucking love college sports. Fuck I did go to Purdue and gave up ever winning a bowl and I FUCKING LOVE WATCHING ME SOME COLLEGE SPORTS!

A low tier is going to have to fight college sports first for viewers and then for players. The NCAA is a big monster to fight. But this goes back to the very top of the cons pile: we see sports as pros or nothing. These kids HAVE to go to college. They cannot all be super stars, right? They need to have a back up! That is not a mentality or a societal norm that is going to change overnight because someone paid $500 to fly a banner over a single MLS match. That is an Olympus Mons sized hurdle we will have to climb.

So? Where do we go?

So? How does America catch the pro/rel fever? More cowbell? More left-over European players? Jürgen Klinsmann?

No. First there are bigger hurdles to handle. First we need to stop the cluster fuck of trading and DPs and regulations concerning the movement of players between clubs. This is necessary so we mesh better with other leagues. Then we need to adopt the same trading windows. HOWEVER. We should not adopt their calendar. This is mostly because Europe is a lot warmer than the US in the winter, so while they can still reasonably move around in December/February, we cannot. Storms and freeze-ins is a real thing.

I think that We should use the winter as our “off season” period. Summer can be our mid-season break for trading. This gets players out of the sun when the heat is at the worst in places like Texas and California. This way our trading windows sync up with Europe better and we don’t have to travel in the snow. Both wins.

Once we get better trading and a better transfer window the USSF (US Soccer Federation, our version of the FA) will have to work with the existing leagues to be open to the idea of pro/rel. They are going to want to see cash, cold hard funbucks. This means all those people clamoring for pro/rel need to get out to and watch some low tier soccer now. If the MLS/NASL/USSF sees the money at the bottom, they’ll want a piece.

Once they’ve been shown the potential for income they’ll have to restructure themselves. MLS is a “single entity” meaning the owners are actually investors, they don’t own their team they rent it from the MLS. The MLS will have to devolve into a standard league structure within the USSF. This can actually happen over night. The actual guts of the issue is simple – give the people in control actual control. The hard part is getting the MLS to want to let go.

Then after that the USSF needs to come up with a real, official structure. This means a) drawing a concrete line between pro and amateur, no more semi-pro on the pyramid. It also means b) getting these leagues to play along. Same schedule, same windows, same pool of players, and very real lines of promotion and relegation. Then throw in some cups to have fun. The Lamar Hunt Cup is our “Open Cup” and then throw in a few more, one for the lower leagues, one for everyone but the top. That’ll be nice. Cups, for the uninitiated, are tournies that run alongside the season. They are knock out and they let teams play teams they might not normally play as well as funnel some cash into the lower leagues when teams like FC Butte play the Chicago Fire.

I imagine it like this: the NASF (North American Soccer Federation) has four tiers:

  1. Tier One – The NAPL
  2. Tier Two – The NACL 1
  3. Tier Three – The NACL 2
  4. Tier Four – The RPSL
  5. Under this is amateur

The NAPL

The MLS is renamed the North American Premier League, encompassing both the United States and Canada under the newly minted North American Soccer Federation. The NASF will NOT govern the national teams for either country, which is not how it usually works but I think the USA and Canada are best when their sports leagues work together – however at a national level we shouldn’t ever compete together.

This league would be the cream of the crop, 20 teams and no regional divisions. Once you get this high, you are in, you are the best, you got the cash to travel. Teams aren’t promoted from this league, but they can be relegated.

The NACL 1

The North American Champion’s League 1 is tier two. Their best go up to the NAPL and their worst go to the NACL 2. I like the British style of best/worst 3 with a play off for the fourth spot. This means the teams ranked 20, 19, and 18 in the NAPL are always relegated, 17 and 16 play a two-game series with the loser being relegated. The same applies here for 4 and 5 for going up.  There are 20 teams here as well.

This league will also be non-regional, perhaps needing some about of subsidizing of travel costs. Teams here should be from medium to large markets like Cleveland from the beginning of this rant.

When a team is relegated into the NACL 2, it goes into its respective conference automatically. This means all teams (even those far from the threat of relegation) need to be pre-assigned a region.

The NACL 2

Things get complicated here. This is the first regional league made up of two leagues of with 20 teams each, divided east and west. This should NOT be based around “well two teams in Texas should be in opposite conferences” but rather travel costs. Each region plays their season in parallel. Their respective champions are both automatically promoted. Then the next four teams play parallel tournies to fill the second spot.

I’m just going to copy-paste the wiki article for the English pyramid (with changes as necessary):

The bottom three teams in each division relegated to the proper region as appropriate. If, after promotion and relegation, the number of teams in the East and West divisions are not equal, one or more teams are transferred between the two divisions to even them up again. This should start with teams previously transferred to the “wrong” side, then go go to teams closest to the other league.

The RPSL

The Regional Professional Soccer League rises out of the ashes of the NASL. It is divided into four regions: NW, SW, SE, NE of 20 teams each. Done. NPSL is nearly there as-is.

Six teams are promoted (each of the champions and then the top two from a play-off). There is no more relegation. Teams that fail economically have their place in line sold. Since the league doesn’t own the club, the club’s owners are economically liable as any company would be depending on structure and tax filing status and the league can easily wash their hands of the failure. Not their problem.

Like the above, if after the promotions leave and the incoming relegations arrive the regions are not even, they should be rebalanced as appropriate taking into account the same ideas as above – first move teams that have been moved into the “wrong” region into the “right” region, then start moving teams based on proximity.

In Conclusion

So there. This is not as easy as most supporters of pro/rel would claim, but I also think that those in opposition aren’t in opposition for the right reason. As usual, the real reasons (cultural, economic, societal) are probably the real root causes of why pro/rel isn’t happening tomorrow.

From a business perspective, a bigger pool of players and a bigger pool of teams in a system that essentially automatically sends them to the level best suited for owners should be pretty attractive. the USSF/NASF has a lot to earn with so many more teams it just needs to stop being the dog wagged by the MLStail.

But the hurdles in the way are gargantuan. Breaking down the monopoly of the NCAA is an unspeakably difficult task. I think that a market for both can exist – with the NCAA encompassing the spirited amateur, people who are good but not looking to be pros and the actually pyramid holding those who are good and want to do it for a living.

The hard part will be getting the lower leagues to generation enough income to pay their players a living yearly wage. That isn’t necessarily hard either, but it does mean that people cannot just ignore their local NASL/USLPro/NPSL teams anymore. If you want promotion and relegation in the USA/Canada you HAVE to support your local teams. HAVE to. Stop traveling. Stop supporting a big team because they are closest and biggest. Support what you got. You cannot say: I support pro/rel and I’m a Chicago Fire fan from Indianapolis who has never been to Chicago, been close to Chicago, or have family from Chicago. Because you are shooting yourself in the foot.

So, I hope this was enlightening and look forward to all the good this will do for my traff- I mean standing among people with opinions about sports.

Edit:

It has been pointed out to me that relegated teams are given a “parachute” fund to help lessen the blow of decreased TV revenue. This can actually make relegation lucrative if done “correctly.” I don’t really want to talk numbers or money – first it is easy to get wrong, second I don’t want people thinking I crunched the numbers. How you split TV profits and assist teams being relegated is up to organizations like the USSF and might be handled differently depending on where you go. For example – a big benefit from going from the NACL 1 to NACL 2 in my examples is a big decrease in travel costs, which can help off-set a loss in TV profits.

If you haven’t picked up the nuance and difficultly surrounding adopting a new system from everything above, I’m sure this isn’t going to help it any.

Opinion, Soccer

Don’t Forget to be Awesome

1 Comment

Okay.

Deep Breath

Going to start of with a disclaimer. I’m a nerd, and I really like sports. In recent years I’ve learned that that is not a rare combination, in fact a lot of nerds like sports. So much so that a bunch of nerds got together and helped AFC Wimbledon with a massive outpouring of support.

For those not in the know, the short (and heavily biased) story is that Wimbledon had a team with a lot of history and culture. Someone bought it and decided “Fuck all that, I’m moving the team.” A lot of supporters were heart broken. So much so that they banded together, put some money up, and remade their team from scratch. That team is AFC Wimbledon and though I am neither a fan nor a supporter of theirs, I just like what they’ve done.

In recent memory, writer/nerd John Green was playing FIFA and was managing this team, which is high enough in the English pyramid to actually be a selectable team on FIFA, which if we are fair is every team’s dream. John Green and his brother Hank have a large (and highly loyal) group of fans collectively referred to as “Nerdfighteria.”

Personally, I am a casual listener to the Green brothers and don’t consider myself a “nerd fighter.” From my few interactions with other nerd fighters you’d think this is a blasphemy, but I don’t like other people labeling me.

Anyway, I digress, Nerdfighteria has done a lot of great things and I like seeing them succeed. I like that they’ve chosen to side with supporters and fans in helping preserve the Dons. I think they are on the right side of history with this, they often are. However, I am actually slightly miffed by all of this and that is why I am calling out John Green and Nerdfighteria.

Guys, guys… I’m so glad you’ve fought for the little guy. But it pisses me off that you’ll send thousands of dollars over to England and then seemingly ignore teams in the very same position over here in the United States. There is so much more to the sport over here. So many teams that are left ignored, unloved, unwanted. You turn your backs on them to write out cheques to send over to England for what?

A team you tangentially “support” via FIFA? Why? Why do you help a team so far away when so many other teams all around you are crying out and dying hoping to get just a handful of people to care. Teams with a passionate crowd that is lacking in the size department. FC Buffalo, the Cincinnati Saints, next year could see the end of the Atlanta Silverbacks to the  exact same scenario as Wimbledon.

Where are all the Nerd fighters there? Where’s all the support for Atlanta? Fuck it. Can’t look all cool and hip supporting Atlanta. Gotta jump on the Dons bandwagon, I guess.

It honestly makes me sick. It just seems so disingenuous.

It would take five. whole. seconds. on wikipedia to find an NPSL team near you.  I’m even going to walk you through what you need to do to support an NPSL team. Trust me, it is easy.

  1. Find a team. See, we’re already that far. It took five seconds, remember?
  2. Talk to their FO. Be upfront, be honest, be willing to work with them, but don’t compromise. If they complain, point to Detroit City. They won’t admit it, but every FO wants to be DCFC’s FO.
  3. Make some banners, buy some smoke bombs (this is America, it isn’t hard). Get a drum on craig’s list. KNOW HOW TO KEEP A RHYTHM.
  4. Buy a megaphone.
  5. Wear something silly/cool. It’ll always be both.
  6. Get some other people together. Its Nerdfighteria, you can do it.
  7. Come up with a sweet name and a good logo. Don’t feel you have to do it yourself. Talk to people like the NGS’ Sergeant Scary
  8. If you aren’t rude, people will help. But don’t brown nose. Have some spine, especially publicly. Make fun of other teams.
  9. Make a twitter account.
  10. Follow other Ultras groups on twitter. (By the way, you’re an Ultra now, deal with it.)
  11. NEVER MISS A GAME. SOMEONE ALWAYS HAS TO BE THERE.
  12. NEVER STOP SINGING. NEVER SIT DOWN.

It’s really easy. It just means actually having the gall to be the fan the team deserves. It means that you’ll have to do more than cut a cheque. You’ll have to spend money, time, effort, sweat, blood; all those things that don’t come easy. And you’ll only get back what you put into it.

But let me tell you something. The look on the face of that player, when after a bad game, he looks up and there are 10, 20, 5,000 people who do not give a fuck. Who are there to cheer regardless. The pain melts away. You can see it.

And when they score, if no one is there, who do they run to? Who do they cheer with?  DSC6811-copy

Photo: Detroit City

They need you. They need you.

So while I’m thankful that you’ve supported the Dons, for all they stand for in the face of homogeneous sports events, don’t ignore the home front.  Don’t ignore the war on soccer culture that is being waged right here in our own backyards.

AFC Wimbledon is a great success story, but like pandas for the WWF, we cannot ignore the rough and ugly in favor of everyone’s favorite poster child.

So get out there. Do what you can for as long as you can do it. I hate to say it, but “big soccer” is coming for us. They are looking to end it all.

Fight.

Fight and don’t forget to be awesome.

Climb

Photo: Michael Kitchen

Pictures casually lifted from the Detroit City page and the NGS facebook page. Looking for photo credits now.

 

Opinion, Soccer

Dear National Premier Soccer League

Dear National Premier Soccer League (aka NPSL or NP$L),

If you have to include the exact words “yet another team” in your press release about yet another fucking team you’ve added… YOU’VE ADDED TOO MANY FUCKING TEAMS.

Consider for a second every other time you’ve ever used the words “yet another” anything. I’m guess it was negative. That’s because this is negative, and your poor story writer knows it. They know it. You know it. We all fucking know it.

Stop.

Just… just stop.

You rejected Grand Rapids, I think that one was questionable leaning toward a good idea. You turned down Real Ann Arbor Athletic Association Football Club United Town, that was a really smart idea.  Then you let in FC Indiana because… not enough teams north of Indianapolis? Need to capitalize off the Indy 11 and Chicago Fire just a little bit more?

Come here. Come here!

National Premier Soccer League, come here this instant!

The fuck?

The. Fuck?

The Midwest is full. We have enough of these fucking “grow the game,” no fans, no fun, no smoke, crush the spirit of everyone around teams, that do nothing to grow the game but make it slightly less socially acceptable to support anything lower than first-tier soccer.

This league is full of joke clubs and joke owners who want nothing more than the satisfaction of wanking off to the idea that they own a sports team. That some how because they pay $10k a year or whatever and throw eleven college-aged players and maybe a dinosaur or two onto the field they are the next Dan Gilbert or Mike Ilitch.

They do NOTHING to grow the game. NOTHING to grow the league. NOTHING to become a part of their community. They are coasting by, riding the coattails of the few teams that actually manage to try.

Teams who know supporters, not soccer moms, fill wallets and seats rather than just seats. Teams and owners, who like their supporters, likely dream of a day when they can move to a league that doesn’t add or lose a dozen teams a year.

Stop watering down your product, NPSL, even Budweiser thinks you’ve gone a bit too far.

But thanks for killing those insufferable twats in A2.

Sincerely,

Nick

 

PS/EDIT:

I completely forgot to add Fuckyouazard! So here he is:

Fuckyouzard

Opinion, Writing

Reread Your Work

Aside 1 Comment

Been writing this morning. I fell about a thousand words short of my goal last night but some things came up that couldn’t be avoided as easily as Facebook.

Decided to try to make a made scramble to catch up today. Am I going to make it? Maybe. Not that I care. All my deadlines are artificial constructs of my own mind.

So, in a pause between chapters I decided to re-read one of my previous chapters to reset my tone and consistency. I do this a lot. I love to reread my work. I specifically write what I want to read. I don’t read a lot. A book or two a year is pushing it for me. I was barely able to drag myself through high school “English” (read: “Reading”). There is only so many times I could read a book I hated and write a five-paragraph BS essay every few chapters.

I’ll bitch about fivers later.

So I lost a lot of interest in reading because to me it was all associated with the pain of over-analysis. Nothing is fun to read if some mad-woman is stopping you every few lines to ask you what it means and why it was done that way. I don’t know bitch, maybe he was being paid by the word and all those words contribute to a higher pay cheque. (Pro-tip: never suggest to your English teacher that Nathaniel Hawthorne was being paid by the word.)

This led to the golden-age of my childhood writing. I was writing the equivalent to a novel every year or so. That is a lot for a kid. I’d hardly finish what I’d start, writing a third of a novel and moving onto the next third. I did this for five years (counting the first year of middle school) until I went off to college, by which time I had started my serial publishing.

Everything I write, including this, will be read and reread countless times by me. I write what I want to read and so I get great enjoyment out of rereading my stuff over and over again.

Echo_and_Narcissus

The comparison is inevitable.

After I finished a bit of rereading I checked twitter and got the following tweet on my feed:

I’m sorry. I completely disagree. If it said “editing” I’d still disagree but to a much lesser degree. What you need to avoid is over-analyzing everything you do. Reread all you want. Get back into your character’s heads, remember what motivates them, what they were trying to accomplish right before you stopped. Reread your favorite bits because it can inspire you to keep going.

Yes it is a first draft, yes you can change anything later. But it is later. Changing a piece because the necessary change is on your mind is important. Don’t let that idea fade. Act on it. If you characters are in a pickle because of some stupid choice last chapter, change it. Don’t “wait until the editor gets to it.” Do it now. Your editor isn’t your ghost writer.

Reread your work, it isn’t a bogey man hiding in the dark. It is a creation that requires attention. And no attention is more important than yours. Just don’t write fivers every few pages.

Detroit, Detroit City FC, Opinion

Becoming an Icon

1 Comment

I mentioned some sports (I also mentioned being a writer but that can wait) and I want to talk some sports. Specifically I want to talk about becoming an icon of a city.

Now there is already a great blog specifically on Detroit City from a supporter’s view, it is called Boys in Rouge and I highly recommend it to those interested in the growth and soul behind our great team. I also recommend it if you want opinion and well-researched facts. This is a place for opinion.

I want you to read this tweet and then I’ll give you some background.

The Apostolopoulos family is a Toronto-based group that owns a lot of property in Metro Detroit, top of the list is the Silverdome (a complete wreck of a building in Pontiac) and also the State Savings Bank, a historic building in downtown. They are also the number one advocate for bringing MLS (Major League Soccer) to Detroit. Paints it in a different light, eh? DCFC knows its supporters have its back. It sees many of them calling out the Apostolopouloses on their bullshit attempts to both “invest” in Detroit while simultaneously trying to tear it down. There is no fear there. Detroit City looked a potential investor in the face and burned that bridge so readily, so quickly, and so fearlessly I can’t really help but be very proud. Detroit isn’t some dime-an-hour hooker to be partitioned and sold, no matter what Lansing or people like the Apostolopouloses want to believe. It is our city.

I can already hear some of you getting ready to rebuke me. Tell me about business plans and how all investors are alike and how teams should shut up and just play sports.

Fuck you.

That is the wrong attitude. That is the attitude that lets racist bullshit like the Redskins and Cleveland Indians exist into 2014. A team isn’t supposed to be just a business venture. It is supposed to be a little piece of a city’s soul, stitched together like a quilt made from those who wake up early, don their colors, drag their friends and family, and stand in the smoke and fire of the game.

Detroit City has done so much right. So much. They put vets back on their feet. They support our schools. They were proud to support LGBT teens in our city and wear kits donned with rainbows against a foe known for using homophobic language. And when people would tear down our city and our history they stood up in a small way with a picture of Jerry Seinfeld.

Because it isn’t about appeasing every investor – bending down a licking the hand that might feed. It is about that little slice of the city that is your soul. That’s why when Detroit City goes out onto a field they are marked by the Spirit of Detroit. Because if not them, then who? Certainly not the Wings, Lions, Tigers, or Pistons. They need fucks like the Apostolopouloses to sit in their court-side seats while the real fans can hardly afford the nose-bleeds.

And we are okay with that. We as Americans are okay with the idea that fans should shut up, sit down, golf clap when the jumbotron says so, and if you so much as think about doing anything more than the wave then the polite gentlemen with the badges and guns will show you to the door.

Why is that good? Why is what we have bad. Pro-tip. It isn’t. People will keep telling themselves that it is bad. Bad for a team to embody more than a business professionalism. Bad for supporters to chant and sing. Bad for people to stand. Bad for drums and coarse language. Bad to set off smoke after goals. Bad to tetris and bad to leave with no voice.

Bad to be an icon.

Well it isn’t. And the fucking line has been drawn. Detroit City Football Club isn’t becoming an icon, it is an icon.

 

Edit:
Detroit City still has its claws out, apparently: