Carolina RailHawks

Three years after the formation of the new North American Soccer League, establishing legitimacy has transitioned to exponential growth as the league rides the surging tsunami of soccer's American popularity.

For the Carolina RailHawks and the five other founding teams of the NASL which remain in existence today, such rapid growth is highly apparent within the local community.

But, as evidenced by the three expansion clubs beginning their first full season in 2014 and the three more expected to join next summer, the NASL has become more than just a local-scale minor league conglomeration.

NASL Coming of Age

Few have seen the league's maturation more clearly than commissioner Bill Peterson, who presented his views Thursday at a media round table in Durham, N.C., hosted by the RailHawks. 

"We've moved out of start-up mode to growth mode," he said. "I can sit down with an expansion candidate and...show them numbers and hard examples of where this league is working.

"It's no longer about selling a dream, it's selling a reality, and you can see the vision of where this is headed and where it goes."

Such a reality is on the verge of becoming more quantifiably obvious than ever before. At this time in 2013, the NASL consisted of seven teams. At this time in 2015, that number is likely to stand at 13—and rising fast.

The New York Cosmos brought tremendous exposure when they joined for the 2013 fall season and took the league title; the Indy Eleven (Indianapolis) and Ottawa Fury made their NASL debuts last weekend. Expansion teams in the D.C. suburbs (Ashburn, Virginia), Jacksonville and Oklahoma City will begin play a year from today.

"We have plans to continue to grow this league to 18, possibly 20 clubs," said Peterson. "We're involved in...five very serious conversations [about potential expansion franchises] and some others that could turn serious over the next few months."

The soccer world around Peterson and the NASL is lending a helping hand: Between increasing numbers of international friendlies and the upcoming World Cup, both the league and the sport are finding more and more time in the spotlight.

"We've also started to encourage the teams to travel outside of the country," said Peterson. "We've really started to view this as a global league." Three NASL clubs—Minnesota, New York and Ft. Lauderdale—played international friendlies this past offseason in England, the UAE and Haiti, respectively.

"There is a lot of commercial money spent in and around the World Cup so soccer in general gets a big audience the next few months," he added. "Our local clubs will try to take advantage of people talking about soccer, people watching soccer. New people introduced to it now need a home."

However, Peterson emphasized the importance of the league's self-pushed growth as the critical piece behind increased exposure. "Does [the World Cup] help? Sure. Is it something that really moves the league a lot? Probably not. You've got to enjoy the competition, but the Monday morning after it's over, you've got to get back to work again."

RailHawks Growing into Niche

The RailHawks continued to spread the NASL reputation and offered a peephole into the club's future popularity in the Raleigh/Cary market with their deep run in the 2013 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup. Huge turnouts at WakeMed Soccer Park led the squad to wins over MLS sides Los Angeles Galaxy and Chivas USA as Carolina advanced to the quarterfinals.

Club president Curt Johnson summarized the franchise's development since its 2007 inaugural campaign on Thursday. "We have clearly stabilized the organization, professionalized the organization," he said.

Aaron Davidson, a representative from Traffic Sports USA (which owns both Carolina and fellow franchise Ft. Lauderdale), conveyed even higher ambitions. "Our goal is to be first division at some point. Clearly I believe...we have to be the best pro soccer team in our market. We've got to figure out how to make this team one of the best teams in North America."

The clear next step is a rise in attendance. WakeMed Soccer Park added an upper terrace prior to last season that increased capacity to 10,000, yet the RailHawks averaged just a hair over 4,700 fans per game within the NASL (both Cup match crowds were much bigger). 

"The sweet spot for our league today is exactly the size of that stadium," said Davidson. "But we've got to start filling it on a week-in, week-out basis..."

Attendance does seem to be trending in the right direction. Season-ticket sales are reportedly up for the fourth straight season, and the Triangle Soccer Fanatics group was likened by Johnson as "an organization that can grow as big as anything we see in Portland or Seattle." 

More seasons like 2013, when the RailHawks went unbeaten at home, will certainly help as well.

"We want these game days to be celebrations of the sport," said Johnson, "...where the passion level for the sport rises: you see more people in orange, more people in our merchandise, more people that care deeply about the result."

2014 Season Full of Opportunity

From both the RailHawks' on-field perspective and the NASL's big-picture point of view, the summer ahead and the soccer that will abound in it is a tremendous reason for excitement.

Carolina tied 1-1 in the first-ever professional soccer game in Indianapolis in front of a crowd of 11,048 last Saturday. New York routed Atlanta 4-0 in a rematch of last fall's championship game, while Minnesota downed San Antonio 2-0, Tampa Bay tied 1-1 with Edmonton and Ft. Lauderdale, which travels to Cary for the RailHawks' Saturday home opener, won 2-0 over second new expansion club Ottawa.

"The competition on the field, which is really the most important thing to us, even last week in the opening, was very competitive," said Peterson. "You could see where the teams have improved over last year and the quality they have."

These are stirring days for the NASL indeed.

"We're at this really interesting tipping point that is mirrored throughout the country," said Johnson. "The expansion of attendance, the level of play, expansion within leagues...it's really exciting to be a part of it."

In NASL action last night, the Carolina Railhawks defeated the Minnesota Stars 1-0 to pull within eight points of the league lead.

That wouldn't be notable news in the national soccer scene, except for one rather interesting twist—the game finished at 12:58 a.m.

FINAL: #RailHawks win 1-0 in a game that literally started yesterday.

— SWakeSports (@SWakeSports) July 22, 2012

Why so late?

Thunderstorms.

Four hours of them.

Lightning was first spotted just moments into the second half—with precisely 47:24 on the clock—and the game officially entered a rain delay at 8:17 p.m. local time.

The 3,158 announced fans were cleared from the stands, the stadium loudspeakers began an endless run of weather-related songs and the storms began.

And continued. 

And continued.

At 11:51 p.m. local time, the two teams at last returned to the field for another round of warmups.

At 12:23 a.m. local time, the game finally resumed play after a league-record four hours and six minutes of rain delay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhO6oSYH9dM

And 43 minutes of regulation and three minutes of stoppage time later, the Railhawks walked off the WakeMed Soccer Park Field for the final time, having battled through a six-hour-long match to earn a 1-0 victory...

...On a goal in the 10th minute.

Railhawks' coach Colin Clarke was, understandably, a bit irritated:

Colin Clarke in postgame says there needs to be a #NASL cutoff for abandoning the match. Doesn't blame MN, says 4 hours is "just too much."

— SWakeSports (@SWakeSports) July 22, 2012

Still, the win did pull Carolina (6-6-5, 24 pts.) into fifth place in the eight-team NASL standings and extended the club's league record since June 1st to 6-1-1.

But that's not the only impact of Saturday's game in Cary.

The MLS will also be closely eying last night's box score. After all, the league is looking seriously into a Southeast US expansion team—and the Railhawks are top candidates to be that expansion.

Per ESPN, MLS president Mark Abbott visited the Raleigh-Cary area in April and had good things to say about the area's soccer passion:

"Mark Abbott visited the North Carolina Triangle on Thursday as a guest of the Carolina Railhawks and met with fans and local business leaders to "get a sense of the community."

'Today was about really coming down and getting a deeper understanding of soccer in this community,' Abbott said. 'It wasn't a sort of checklist-type of exercise on the road to making an expansion decision. It was an opportunity to learn more about this community and what's happening here in soccer.'"

Luke DeCock of the Raleigh News & Observer also articulated what has become a passionate soccer following in the Triangle:

"The only question MLS should be asking with regard to the Triangle is not “if?” or “how?” but merely “when?” There are legitimate questions to be asked, about ownership and facilities, and some serious hurdles to clear, but this market is as good a fit for MLS as MLS is for this market.

The summer MLS season doesn’t coincide with college football, college basketball or the NHL; with 17 home dates, MLS is a better fit for this area’s population than baseball and there are few markets in the country with more interest in the sport at every level than the Triangle."

There are certainly a number of indicators around the Raleigh area that could point towards an MLS franchise.

The Railhawks ranked third in NASL in 2011 with an average attendance of just 3,353, but drew a record sellout crowd of 7,939 in a match against a mostly-reserve L.A. Galaxy squad during the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup in May. The home side scored twice in the game's final 16 minutes to win, 2-1.

The club then drew 7,117 fans the following week against Chivas USA, despite eventually losing 2-1. 

WakeMed Soccer Park, the club's current home, is also undergoing a $6.3 million grandstand expansion to increase capacity from 7,000 to 10,000 by later this summer.

With a larger, more up-to-date stadium and weekly showdowns with MLS teams and their starting players, the Triangle's soccer interest could continue to skyrocket with the blessing of an expansion franchise.

But the weather could also turn such an experiment sour.

Simply put, the MLS isn't too accustomed to thunderstorms. Of the league's 19 current cities with franchises, only four—Columbus, Kansas City, Dallas and Houston—fall in climates of moderate-to-high lightning density.

By comparison, per the National Weather Service, the next four days of Raleigh weather forecasts all include the words "T-storms," and each has a chance of rain of 30 percent or higher.

That's the way it is every week, every summer.

Saturday night's storms dumped 1.29 inches of rain on Raleigh in a mere six-hour span and issued Severe Weather warnings on 23 North Carolina counties.

Over a three-and-a-half hour period—which fell right in the middle of the Railhawks' once-promising match—at least one lightning strike occurred within three miles of WakeMed Soccer Park every 10 minutes for over 200 consecutive minutes.

Soccer weather? Not exactly.

This has been a May of futility for Bruce Arena's Los Angeles Galaxy. No wins, only one draw. Could things get any worse for Arena? Could his role as the boss be in grave danger?

On Tuesday night, the Galaxy surrendered a one-goal lead to the Carolina RailHawks and lost 2-1 to crash out of the U.S. Open Cup.

With a long, long break before the Galaxy return to MLS action, here are six things we learned regarding the culmination of a futile month of soccer for the Galaxy.

1. Arena Fails To Take the Cup Seriously

This was perhaps doomed from the beginning. A number of key starters were not on the plane to North Carolina: A.J. DeLaGarza, Sean Franklin, Todd Dunivant, Juninho and David Beckham.

Because of this, Carolina were able to take advantage of an under-strengthed LA Galaxy side and leave the match late.

2. A Full 90 minutes from Leonardo

One of the bright spots to take from this defeat was that Leonardo, who was injured for a majority of last season, earned a full 90 and stoppage starting in the back line for the Galaxy. Whether or not his performance will lead him to playing time during the MLS season remains to be seen.

3. Tommy Meyer Continues To Improve

Center-back Tommy Meyer starred for the Galaxy in the back line but had to be subbed in favor of David Junior Lopes. During his time on the pitch, Meyer made routine clearances and helped generate some sequences offensively. However, the lack of experience meant that he could not do it alone.

4. Wholesale Changes Could Be on the Way

A number of players could be on their way out of Los Angeles: Bryan Jordan, Michael Stephens, Kyle Nakazawa, Chad Barrett, Lopes and even Hector Jimenez, among the notables. If the Galaxy expect to contend for the rest of this season, a number of contracts have to be eaten up and a new wave of transfers come in this season.

5. Arena Is Definitely on the Hotseat

Phil Anschutz had better take a look at this string of results and ask himself, do we really want to keep Arena now? It is very clear that Arena has lost control of this team, and the failure to take this competition seriously only adds to the case against this three-time MLS Cup winner.

A managerial change, at this point in the season, might be the way to go before the year is completely a wash.

6. Galaxy Have a Long Time To Think Before Portland

The international break is going to be something the Galaxy will want to take advantage of. It gives them plenty of time to think before the MLS slate kicks up on June 17 at home against the Portland Timbers.

A lack of offense, a porous defense and no drive has plagued this Los Angeles Galaxy team. If they don't make changes, and fast, this season will be a wash before Tottenham and Real Madrid say hello.