S.D. Sockers Due to Follow League Demise
The Major Soccer League ceased operations Friday, and Oscar Ancira, the Sockers’ managing general partner, said the 10-time champions will follow.
The league dwindled from seven to five teams over the past month, as the Tacoma Stars folded and new ownership could not be found to take over the St. Louis Storm.
After spending most of June and the first days of July trying to come up with a sixth team, the remaining owners on Friday decided that their attempts were futile.
“There isn’t much hope in reviving it,” Ancira said of the MSL, which began in 1978 as the Major Indoor Soccer League. “We just couldn’t put enough teams together. We only had five teams, and we needed a sixth team.”
In addition to the Sockers--who won the league’s championship every year they were a member except 1987--Dallas, Baltimore, Wichita and Cleveland were committed to playing next season.
“At this time, we probably have the strongest group of owners we’ve ever had,” said Earl Foreman, who founded the league with Philadelphia businessman Ed Tepper and was in his second term as commissioner. “Just not enough of them.”
The league’s demise--threatened every year since 1988--came despite a 20% increase in attendance last season and several cost-cutting measures by owners. The league’s salary cap, first instituted in 1988 at $1.275 million per team, was reduced three times and stood at $550,000 last season.
The failed effort in St. Louis marked the end of the road. Only two weeks ago, according to MSL sources, the U.S. Soccer Federation agreed to put up $150,000 of the Storm’s $350,000 letter of credit. A partnership headed by a St. Louis urologist was prepared to pick up the team’s other expenses for the 1992-93 season.
“The federation said we’re trying to help you because more of our constituency has seen your game than any other league in this country,” Foreman said.
In the end, the USSF decided against offering financial support, and Storm owner Milan Mandaric on Thursday rebuked one final appeal from Foreman to continue funding the club, which was the only MSL team to average more than 10,000 fans per game last season.
“I can’t blame Milan for leaving,” Ancira said. “His home and his business are in San Jose, and his team is in St. Louis. If I lived in Mexico City, I never would have gotten into this.”
Ancira, whose partners are Mexico City businessmen, proposed another possibility for a sixth franchise and had a team of first-division players from Mexico ready to join on a barnstorming basis. It would not have played any home games, a condition several MSL owners found onerous.
In addition, Dallas Sidekicks owner Donald Carter, who said he plans to keep that franchise alive in an undetermined form, was trying to persuade some of his National Basketball Assn. peers to join the MSL. Carter also owns the NBA Mavericks.
But that, too, failed when Lakers owner Jerry Buss put together his own circuit, the Continental Indoor Soccer League, which will begin play in June, 1993, and will consist mainly of teams funded by NBA owners around the country.
The Sockers have been bombarded with phone calls from season ticket-holders this week asking why the club doesn’t simply align with the CISL. Ancira refuses to consider such a move because the new league will be operated on a semi-pro basis, paying players on a per-game basis.
“I have to go down to Mexico and meet with our partners, but I can almost guarantee we’re folding, too,” Ancira said. “There aren’t any leagues around that are viable.”
Ancira then recalled an earlier conversation he had with club Vice President Fred Whitacre, who said he would like to keep the franchise alive even if it means joining a low-budget operation such as the National Professional Soccer League.
“San Diego was the base of the best soccer players,” Ancira continued. “The best indoor soccer players played here. I asked Fred, ‘What are we going to do, join the NPSL where the players make an average of $10,000 a year? Or join a summer league that is not even formed yet?’ That would be to go from one frying pan to the other.
“If I were to bring (the Sockers into the CISL or NPSL), the fans are going to say wait, wait, wait. Where’s Paul Wright? Where’s Kevin Crow? Where’s Victor Nogueira?”
All three players earned salaries of more than $50,000 last year.
However, Ancira left his foot in the door should any other league make a commitment to the game.
“The only way the Sockers would continue,” he said, “would be if there was a league the quality of the MSL as far as players and as far as the level of the game, which is not there in the NPSL and, from the looks of it, will not be present in the CISL. If (the CISL) takes off and they elevate their payrolls to where they can afford good players, then, yes, we would join.”
Without the guarantee of another season, the Sockers already have deposits for more than 3,400 season tickets. All money will be refunded, Ancira said.
Sockers Coach Ron Newman was said to have taken the news extremely hard. He was the only link in all 10 championships.
Newman did not make himself available at the news conference, and instead issued a statement:
“I haven’t given up hope yet. Even though the league has folded, I can’t believe that this will be the end of the Sockers. We’ve got to consider all our available options at this point. The Sockers haven’t won 10 championships by giving up easy.”
It was Newman who, in June, 1991, after then-owner Ron Fowler announced he would stop funding the team, went out and secured new ownership.
“If you’ll recall,” Foreman said, “Ron found three ownership groups to bid for the team.”
This summer, Newman will have an apostle in Whitacre, who said he will continue to look for alternatives.
“I came here for two reasons,” said Whitacre, who came aboard in April. ‘Oscar Ancira and Ron Newman. And I would love to find a way for the three of us to continue working together in soccer.”
Whitacre also served as vice president of the club in 1981-82, when the Sockers began their string of championships.
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