Great! First Atlanta & now Miami??????

Just when we are looking forward towards the USL-1 season, this news bit coming from Miami came in.

Miami FC Deathwatch has Officially Begin

Already we had the Cleveland City Stars move up from the USL-2 to the USL-1 replacing the Atlanta Silverbacks who suspended operations (or folded if you like). And now Miami might be gone before the season begins. And you wonder to yourself why the USL-1 schedule was so late to release to the public.

I have two thoughts on this:

1) With it's past histories in the NASL & MLS, Miami has poor stability to hold on and run a soccer team in American (pointy) football-mad South Florida area. You would hope that would get things going in a grass roots effort in the local community to support their local soccer team.

2) Ironically both Atlanta & Miami were candidates for potential MLS expansion teams and naturally Atlanta pulled out of the running and now Barcelona might pull out of putting a Miami team as well due to the economic situation. This "putting the cart before the horse" mentality from the owners on getting a future MLS team and not concentrating on your current USL-1 teams does not help at all and the local soccer fans in these communities will suffer at the end. This does not bold well of getting pro soccer in the Southeastern parts of this country.

Sadly, the Atlanta & Miami owners seeing Seattle Sounders's transitions from USL to MLS has not only hurt USL-1 but hurts the so-called-pyramid level of U.S. Soccer. Can somebody please call the Tampa Bay Rowdies to start the season now instead of next year?