Early this summer, Nike ended its two year ownership of United Soccer Leagues (USL) when they sold the league to a group called NuRock Holdings. The transfer was a controversial one, as the owners of many USL-1 (the top tier of the league’s structure) had been informed St. Louis lawyer Jeff Cooper had won the bidding. Having already discussed with Cooper the changes teams felt necessary within USL, a group of USL teams called the Team Owners Association (TOA) were dismayed to discover NuRock intended to make few changes from the dissatisfactory model employed by Nike.

In this episode of Inside the Six, I an joined by Inside Minnesota Soccer’s Brian Quarstad. Brian has worked with Kartik Krishnaiyer (The Kartik Report) to lead the reporting on the ever-changing USL landscape. Brian walked us through the history of the league, the problems with the existing structure, and the implications should the TOA follow-through on their threat to form a breakaway league.

In the final segment, Kartik joins Brian and myself to look at the future of the USL, TOA, and the conflict between them.

[podcast]http://www.pointoneohradio.com/pods/its_episode34_20091020.mp3[/podcast]

About Richard Farley

Richard Farley is a U.S.-based contributor to World Soccer Reader. He can be reached at richardfarley at gmail dot com and followed on Twitter, username "richardfarley." And while you are at it, feel free to check out RF Football.