Force No Longer With MISL, Which Is Now Looking at 7 Teams, 48-Game Schedule

The Cleveland Force, the last remaining charter member of the Major Indoor Soccer League, folded Friday, and the future of the 10-year-old league was once again up in the air.

The Force became the fourth team in the past month to fold, leaving the MISL with seven teams. Socker President Ron Cady said the league owners will spend the weekend trying to see if it is feasible to go forward with that number.

“We’ve all put a lot of effort into keeping this league alive, and nobody’s ready to throw up their hands yet,” Cady said. “We’ll sit down this weekend and talk with everybody involved to see if we can’t make it happen. The encouraging thing is that everybody’s willing to try.”

During a conference call with the seven remaining teams Friday afternoon, MISL Commissioner Bill Kentling laid out plans for a 7-team, 48-game schedule.

“The meeting was very upbeat,” Kentling said. “Everyone is going to invest time this weekend planning for a seven-team league.”

Cleveland, which lost the MISL championship series to the Sockers this past season, was believed to have been the most financially successful franchise in the league. The Force led the league in attendance the past five seasons, averaging nearly 13,000 fans per game. But Scott Wolstein, the team’s vice president, said the Force lost $320,000 during the 1987-88 season.

“It became evident the battle could not be won, nationally and in Cleveland,” said Bart Wolstein, Scott’s father and the Force owner. “We feel that our energies should be dedicated toward other worthwhile causes.”

Wolstein offered the franchise to the operators of the Richfield Coliseum. He told the acting coliseum president, Art Savage, that he could have it for free, but Wolstein said the chances are “slim and none.”

Cleveland’s departure leaves the league with teams in Baltimore, Kansas City, Wichita, Dallas, Los Angeles, Tacoma and San Diego. And last two are still on shaky ground.

Investors in Tacoma, however, said Friday that they still plan to go forward with a bid to re-start the Stars franchise.

“The people there have verified that they will participate in a seven-team league,” Kentling said.

Ron Fowler, who has bid to purchase the Sockers in U.S. bankruptcy court, has repeatedly said he would go forward only if there were at least eight teams in the league.

“The other six teams and ourselves discussed it, and the consensus among the group is to see if we can work it out with seven teams,” Cady said. “The commissioner has laid out some ideas for how it might be able to work with seven teams for one year. In that time, efforts could be made to find new franchises.”

Cady said MISL owners will talk again in a conference call at 9 a.m. Monday.

Among the subjects they will discuss is how a 48-game schedule would affect each team financially. MISL teams played 56 games a year ago and were scheduled to play that many again before Cleveland’s announcement Friday.

“With four fewer home games, you could be talking about over $250,000 in gross revenue,” Cady said. “That must be looked at by each of the teams. We need to see if the numbers can possibly make sense.

“Nobody was expecting Cleveland to fold, but we don’t want to jump to any conclusions before we get a chance to look over the situation. We’re going to talk with players and partners and see if there’s any chance. Everything’s up in the air again.”

Cleveland was an original MISL team in the 1978-79 season, along with the Houston Summit, New York Arrows, Cincinnati Kids, Philadelphia Fever and Pittsburgh Spirit.