Athletic Club of Saint Louis is on the verge of folding its North American Soccer League and Women’s Professional Soccer clubs, sources have confirmed. The club’s weakened cash reserves may not allow them to make their next payroll obligations, and despite ongoing conversations amongst the United States Soccer Federation, NASL, and WPS, no plan is currently in place which will allow the teams to complete their 2010 seasons.

The situation came to light when AC St. Louis failed to make a regular payment to the NASL league office. Each club within NASL periodically sends money to the league office to cover the owner-operated league’s operating costs. Upon investigation, the NASL learned the Jeff Cooper-led group did not have the cash reserves to meet the obligation or its future operating expenses.

The United States Soccer Federation has been notified of the circumstances in St. Louis and is in contact with the NASL and WPS, attempting to find a solution that will allow the teams to continue through the 2010 season. As of Thursday afternoon, those attempts were ongoing.

AC St. Louis’s next payroll obligation comes due Friday, May 21. Efforts were being made as of Thursday afternoon to try and meet that obligation. According to sources, Saint Louis Athletica must meet payroll the following week.

AC St. Louis is prepared to fold its teams before the end of the season; however, in recognition of the importance of the St. Louis market and its teams, USSF has been working with the leagues to try and keep both clubs in operation.

Women’s Professional Soccer in continuing to monitor the state of Saint Louis Athletica; however, WPS was unavailable for comment at the time of this submission.

The North American Soccer League referred all requests regarding St. Louis to the USSF, otherwise declining comment on the story.

The mystery surrounding New York Red Bulls’ hot start is one of the highlights of the your Major League Soccer season. To talk about that, Jeff Kassouf – who covers MLS for Set Piece Analysts and Red Bull New York for Examiner.com – joins me to talk about what’s gone right for RBNY and whether this start is sustainable.

In the second half of the show, Jeff and I talk about this weekend’s opening of the Women’s Professional Soccer season.

Before ESPN or Fox Soccer Channel begins the live broadcast of a Major League Soccer game on a Saturday evening, many soccer fans are burned out. They’re burned out from watching a smorgasbord of European soccer that has been on television all day.

Take a typical Saturday on US cable and satellite television, for example. Soccer fans in the United States can watch 7 live English Premier League games (more than anytime in US history), 1 live Serie A game, 3 La Liga matches and 2 Bundesliga games. That totals 13 live games (i.e. 26 hours of live coverage) before a Saturday evening MLS game begins on television. And those 26 hours don’t include the handful of European games shown on delay or the EPL-centric shown on Saturday mornings such as the Barclays Premier League Preview Show and Fox Soccer Match Day.

On top of all of that, Fox Sports International launched a new channel on March 1st, Fox Soccer Plus, that is 100 percent European programming featuring games from the Premier League, FA Cup, England national team, Coca-Cola Championship, Champions League, Carling Cup, Serie A and four, yes four, rugby cups and tournaments.

My question again is where does Major League Soccer feature in all of this? Or, for an even broader question, where does U.S. soccer feature in all of this and how can it compete on television? The answer is that it simply can’t. The battle has to be won in the streets.

That battle is a difficult one especially when you’re competing against soccer TV networks who are showing games in HD, launching new channels, improving their broadband offerings and putting most of its dollars into advertising its European soccer coverage. At the same time, it’s hard to convince a family to spend their hard-earned money by going to see a live game for their local team when it’s much cheaper to stay at home and watch it on television.

So how does Major League Soccer (or the USL, NASL or WPS for that matter) convince soccer fans that it should either (a) attend one of their matches on a Saturday night or (b) encourage them to watch one of their games on television especially given the fact that there were 26 hours of live European soccer coverage shown earlier in the day?

It’s a massive question because if Major League Soccer is unable to figure out how it can do that, it could lead to the death of the league. Seriously.

I’ve discussed before that there needs to be more local Major League Soccer teams across the country. I also believe it’s important for Major League Soccer, USL and NASL to work more closely together to promote its teams across the United States so there’s no excuse that soccer fans don’t realize there’s a local team near them. For example, why isn’t there a website or tool that soccer fans in the US can use to find their nearest teams? And, unless I’m blind, why is there no 2010 schedule of NASL and USL matches on either the official NASL website or USL website even though one does exist?

And yes, the product on the field needs to be improved to bring people to live soccer matches and to encourage them to watch it on television. But is there anything else that local clubs can do in addition to that?

I don’t pretend to have all of the answers, but I would like to hear from you – the passionate supporters of soccer in North America – what you think the MLS, USL, NASL and other leagues can do to ensure that large numbers of soccer fans go to local games each week and watch US soccer on television. Please share your thoughts in the comments section below. I look forward to reading your insight.

The last few weeks should have been some worrying times for Major League Soccer. First, the protracted labor disputes are still unresolved and there remains a lot of uncertainty regarding what may happen in the next few weeks. Second, ESPN announced its lead commentator team for the 2010 World Cup and not one US-born announcer was selected. And third, the number of live Premier League games shown on ESPN‘s family of networks next season will increase to 83 matches.

It’s clear that ESPN is making a major play at trying to win the hearts and minds of soccer fans who prefer to watch international soccer, specifically the Premier League. And my concern is where does Major League Soccer fit into all of this? Shouldn’t MLS executives be mad as hell that it the TV network is betting most of its chips on English soccer? An all British lead commentary crew? Almost double the amount of live Premier League games shown on TV in 2010-2011? To me, the writing is on the wall for Major League Soccer and it doesn’t look good.

Add to that the concern that the United States national team may exit the World Cup in the second round. Or, even worse, in the opening group. The biggest challenge Major League Soccer would then face is that there are no other MLS players who would be left in the tournament for viewers to bond with. If the same happened to England, and they got knocked out early in the tournament, there would be players from practically every country playing each night who also play in the Premier League. The net result would be that even with an early England exit, the Premier League would still be promoted each night because of it’s array of international stars.

It’s therefore imperative that the United States men’s national team do well in World Cup 2010 to help promote Major League Soccer and to produce a “World Cup effect” where millions of Americans become so excited by the games they see on television that they begin attending MLS games in larger numbers when the tournament ends in mid-July.

But Major League Soccer needs to make sure that they don’t take the “World Cup effect” for granted. After the tournament ends, there will be several top European clubs traveling across the United States and playing in front of large crowds to take advantage of the massive interest. These clubs could include Manchester City and Arsenal. And undoubtedly these teams will appeal to many soccer fans in the United States because of the quantity and quality of international stars who would have just finished playing in the biggest tournament in the world.

Honestly, I don’t see Major League Soccer doing well in the soccer TV wars in the United States. Fox Soccer Channel and ESPN have already made it clear that they’re more interested in showing the Premier League than MLS. During a MLS season, or even after a season ends, how many MLS games are shown on repeat on Fox? Fox’s programming is heavily tilted in favor of the Premier League. Heck, the TV ratings on Fox for MLS are the same as for WPS. And WPS pays Fox for that airtime.

The soccer landscape is not all doom and gloom for Major League Soccer. Hopefully the United States will advance deep into the tournament this summer and it’ll give MLS the opportunity to put some of its players in the spotlight and to generate more interest in the sport, the league and its players.

Honestly, though, I don’t see MLS winning the soccer TV war in the States, and that’s OK. Where MLS has an advantage is on a local level where it can give soccer fans a safe and entertaining experience in their own backyard. In cities such as Seattle, Philadelphia, San Jose, Houston, Chicago and elsewhere, why watch a ton of games on television when you go see your local MLS team play in person in front of an enthusiastic crowd and see good soccer played on the field?

That’s what Major League Soccer’s focus needs to be. It needs to create new teams across the country in areas where MLS has no team and where there’s a large soccer fanbase. Otherwise those fans who have no MLS team near them have few reasons why they should watch MLS on TV but plenty more choices to watch games from other leagues and tournaments from around the world.

Take last night, for example. For most 9-5 employees who live on the East Coast of the United States, they would have come home Tuesday with a few choices of games to watch on television. They could have watched Columbus Crew against Toluca in the first leg quarter-final of the CONCACAF Champions League. Or, if they had taped the games, they could have watched Arsenal against Porto or Fiorentina versus Bayern Munich.

Those same decisions of which games to watch Tuesday night would have entered the minds of soccer fans in the Columbus area. Should I go to the game to see the Crew play, or should I stay home instead and watch games on television? The answer was loud and clear last night. The attendance at Crew Stadium was only 4,402 for a very important cup game. Where were the fans? Were they all watching Arsenal against Porto in the comfort of their living rooms?

MLS needs to trust that the United States men’s national team will do this country proud in the 2010 World Cup. And, if so, to accelerate the expansion of MLS teams across this country and to replicate the Seattle Sounders success story wherever possible.

Well, “Atlanta”. It’s actually in Kennesaw, on the grounds of Kennesaw State University. Kennesaw is in Cobb County, northwest of Atlanta-proper.

Did you know that everyone in Kennesaw has to own a gun? They don’t enforce that law, but it is on the books. Has been since ’82, I believe. But that’s just being random, on to the story…

Steven Goff broke the news today, although the secret wasn’t exactly well kept by the Atlanta Beat or Kennesaw State.  The stadium will seat about 8,300 and looks a little like Rochester’s stadium. It’s somewhat remarkable in a way, since the stadium is so closely tied to the Atlanta Beat, it means Greater Atlanta now has two professional soccer stadiums, this one and Re/Max Greater Atlanta Stadium in Chamblee, where the Atlanta NASL team will play.

Of course, neither is actually in Atlanta, and Herndon Stadium is just sitting there these days thanks to Morris Brown being so badly managed financially. But beggers can’t be choosers, and at this point we’re still beggers. Soccer stadiums of any kind are better than playing in cramped high school stadiums with narrow athletics tracks around the fields. In truth, Atlanta is setting an example for other metro areas in the US in regards to soccer infrastructure, and being a Charlottean, it’s not easy for me to compliment Atlanta. I’m looking at you, Houston.

Hopefully many more are on the way.

The whole business enterprise of women’s professional soccer is an enigma.  It is hard to figure out why the soccer braintrust with MLS has not already put a women’s league together.  It would seem that a women’s league would be the perfect compliment to MLS.  Women’s soccer is exciting, competitive, and fun to watch. 

Women’s professional soccer showed that it has a base of fans to draw from during its last try with the WUSA.  Women’s soccer was able to make itself viable as a professional commodity because of what happened with the U.S. women’s World Cup performance in 1999. 

With all the momentum that women’s soccer has accomplished since the ‘99 World Cup, and weighing where MLS is with their progress, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that they can compliment each other.  If cultivated properly, women’s and men’s pro soccer in the U.S. can take each other further along in the sports spectator spectrum. 

While it was not legions of fans that supported the sport, WUSA proved that it has the platform to stand up as a profitable spectator sport in the U.S.  MLS has proven that it too can be supported and profitable.  Professional soccer should consider profitability vs. mainstream spectator sports, but this is another discussion entirely.  The bottom line is that both can feed off each other and grow together.

Both MLS and Women’s professional soccer need each other.  MLS is struggling and this is well documented.  Attaching women’s pro soccer to MLS would be a catalyst to propel the game more with American sports fans.  It is a package that brings soccer fans more with less effort. 

The leagues, MLS and WMLS, would travel together and make a doubleheader for fans on every appearance with the exception of the playoffs.  WMLS would be treated equally at all levels with regard to the amount of teams, separate website, statistics, jerseys, etc…  Team colors for WMLS would follow suit with their respective MLS team’s colors.  Fans are the ones who would benefit, getting all the emotion, enthusiasm, and professionalism of two games and two leagues for the price of one. 

But, of course, this is not happening, even though the new women’s league, WPS ( www.womensprosoccer.com ) is playing in 2009 in some MLS stadiums.  

WPS will struggle along just as WUSA did.  Eventually, MLS will have no choice, they will have to take a women’s league on as a partner in order to save itself.  It makes common sense.