Kartik Krishnaiyer
Following the contraction of MLS in 2001, removing clubs from the Tampa Bay and South Florida areas, the state became a virtual wasteland for soccer. Until that moment, Florida had been a hub of American soccer since the 1970s. Fan support for the NASL 1.0 was as good as anywhere in the country. For five successive seasons (1978-1982), the Tampa Bay Rowdies averaged over 18,000 fans a game at Tampa Stadium (the Big Sombrero). The Rowdies won the NASL in 1975 and made the Soccer Bowl in 1978 and 1979.
After struggling to win fans in Miami, South Florida’s NASL 1.0 club traveled up the road to Fort Lauderdale’s Lockhart Stadium in 1977 and solidified a strong fan base under the ownership of the Robbie family. The Strikers had the best record in the Regular Season in 1977, made the Soccer Bowl in 1980 and in general were one of the most competitive teams in the league over that period. They also regularly averaged north of 14,000 fans a game.
Various reasons exist as to why the MLS teams that played in the very same facilities didn’t quite capture the local imagination the way the NASL 1.0 teams had, but that’s a discussion best saved for another time.
Due in large part to the NASL 1.0 success and the infrastructure left behind in the state, the US Men’s National Team (USMNT) played more games in Florida between 1980 and 2003 than in any other state outside of California. But between August 2003 and January 2010, the USMNT played one match in Florida, a March 2007 friendly against Ecuador in Tampa. Florida had officially become a no-go zone for the sport at the highest levels in this country.
During the middle part of the 2000’s, very few amateur teams in national leagues played in the state of Florida. For years, NPSL avoided the state and PDL only had a handful of teams that lasted more than a few seasons, though some of the more successful development teams of that era, such as Bradenton Academics and Central Florida Kraze, were from the sunshine state.
1994 World Cup legend Romario meets the press with MIami FC in 2006, the first real sign Florida professional soccer would get off the mat after the MLS exodus at the turn of the century.
When Miami FC of the USL First Division (now USL Championship) began play in 2006 with Brazilian legend Romario, interest was at a low ebb. Two years later, USL announced expansion to Tampa Bay, with the return of the Rowdies. While a copyright dispute (which was resolved in December 2011) prevented the Rowdies from initially using the classic NASL 1.0 nickname, the feeling that a traditional club was back in business stimulated big crowds when the club first kicked a ball in the spring of 2010.
Also in the spring of 2010, after playing nine matches at Fort Lauderdale’s Lockhart Stadium the previous season, Miami FC relocated a half north, with plans to rebrand as the Fort Lauderdale Strikers for the 2011 season.
The USSF Division 2 Pro League was a temporary league that US Soccer ran for a year in 2010, hoping to stabilize lower league soccer which had become chaotic under the leadership of USL. Miami FC’s ownership group, Traffic Sports, in alliance with the ownership of the Montreal Impact and Vancouver Whitecaps, had formed a team owners’ association which hoped to reform USL. In the end, those clubs and several others banded together to form a new league.
The US Soccer Federation (USSF) at the time was bidding on hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup and the chaotic state of division 2 soccer was a bidding concern of US Soccer President Sunil Gulati. While the federation has at times seemed indifferent to the men’s game outside MLS, in 2010 Gulati was deeply concerned about Division 2 and deserves credit for stepping in and preventing a complete collapse of the league structure immediately below MLS. In time, however, USSF’s growing interest in the lower divisions would cause more problems, all of which linger today, but again, a topic for another day.
The NASL 2.0 was formally launched in 2011 with two teams in Florida harkening back to the NASL 1.0 legacy. In 2010, the NASL-affiliated clubs had played in the aforementioned USSF Division 2 Pro League. USL had lost second division status so those clubs wanting to participate in a sanctioned second division all gravitated to NASL.
On May 14, 2011 the Rowdies and Strikers were scheduled to play one another in an NASL 2.0 Regular Season game for the first time. Unfortunately, the match at Lockhart Stadium was postponed due to inclement weather after three hours of delays. It was a blow some might argue the Strikers never recovered from, as that match reported an attendance of more than 10,000 fans. The rescheduled midweek fixture, held on a muggy night in June, attracted only 5,848 fans.
The Strikers suffered a similarly bad blow when the second leg of the NASL Championship Series was played during a Tropical weather disturbance that poured several feet of rain on South Florida. The hopes of a crowd of 10,000 plus were dashed, and Minnesota’s (eventually, Minnesota United) trophy celebration after seeing off the Strikers was abbreviated thanks to the storm.
But more interest in the sport was readily apparent locally – thanks to the Strikers fan and ownership community efforts and increased media coverage after the rebrand in 2011. Amatuer clubs with Strikers connections began to spring up in the region in 2013 and continue to develop to this day.
The departure of Montreal to MLS after 2011 left the Strikers and Rowdies as the signature teams in NASL. The next season, Tampa Bay won the title, seeing off the defending champions Minnesota in a dramatic penalty shootout after 210 minutes over two legs could not separate the clubs.
The Rowdies return to Tampa/St.Pete, which began in NASL and has moved to USL, has given the state a model lower division club with a robust fan base.
A year later, the Rowdies, who had regularly faced financial difficulty since the 2010 launch, were sold to Florida real estate magnate Bill Edwards, who took the club to a new level.
Suddenly the Rowdies were the toast of St Petersburg, integrated into the general entertainment and downtown community. Al Lang Stadium, a Baseball complex which housed the Rowdies, was bought by Edwards who significantly upgraded the facility, making it soccer-friendly and promoting the club. In this period, the Rowdies built a supporters culture that continues to thrive today as the team, now owned by the MLB’s Tampa Bay Rays, is one of the shining independent soccer clubs in the country.
The Edwards years weren’t without difficulty for the Rowdies.
Thomas Rongen, a legend for Fort Lauderdale in the NASL 1.0 years who also won the team its only league title in 1989 as a Head Coach (That version of the Strikers played in the APSL, a link league in-between NASL 1.0 and MLS) had the Rowdies in position to contend for a title in 2015 when he was bizarrely fired by Edwards who claimed he had a “one year plan” to win a championship. Rongen’s successor, Stuart Campbell, who as a player had won the 2012 NASL title, was not only unsuccessful from the middle of 2015 to early 2018 with one of the highest budget teams in the history of US lower leagues- his sides played quite possibly the least attractive football in the country. Campbell’s sacking was long overdue when it arrived in May 2018, but the decision reversed the Rowdies fortunes and they are at the time of this writing the top side in USL’s Eastern Conference.
The Strikers road was rockier and less fortunate after an appearance in the 2014 NASL Championship where they lost to San Antonio. The club was sold by Traffic Sports who, unbeknownst to the public at the time, had already pled guilty to corruption charges as part of a Department of Justice investigation into the sport which became public in May 2015.
The Strikers new ownership group, which included Brazilian legend Ronaldo, inexplicably fired Team President Tom Mulroy and popular, innovative coach Gunter Kronsteiner. The team’s relationship with the local youth soccer community and others in the game in South Florida never really recovered. The new owners promised beer drones and massive Lockhart upgrades, but after a casino-style party and rollout, paid for none of it, barely even advertising within the community.
Thanks to brilliant players like Fafa Picault and clever coaches like Gunter Kronsteiner, the Strikers delighted their fans on the field; but their owners didn’t invest enough in Fort Lauderdale off the pitch.
The next season, with the Strikers floundering at the bottom of the league, Kronsteiner was rehired. It took about a month for the team to click but they went on a tear qualifying for the NASL Championship, a four team end-of-season tournament to determine the league’s champion. Playing the New York Cosmos in Brooklyn, the Strikers dominated the first half of play but ended up losing 2-1 after 90 minutes, with one very controversial call that disallowed what seemed to be a clean goal. The Strikers best team of the NASL 2.0 era had, as such, been eliminated in heartbreaking fashion.
The next season, still promising beer drones, the Strikers hit financial bumps on the road and eventually became so dependent on Bill Edwards financing that he today owns the club’s trademarks.
It’s important to note that NASL 2.0 revived pro soccer in Northeast Florida as well with Mark Frisch’s Jacksonville Armada being born and escalated soccer locally in Miami-Dade County with the founding of Miami FC. As NASL lurched toward its end, the state of Florida found itself with five soccer clubs in the top two divisions of American soccer: Jacksonville Armada, Tampa Bay Rowdies, Miami FC, Fort Lauderdale Strikers and Orlando City SC of MLS.
Despite their struggles at the club and ownership level, the Strikers proved to be an infrastructure hub for local youth coaches, adult leagues and future league administrators. Without the presence of the Strikers, a local professional team that was visible, the soccer infrastructure in South Florida splintered, and now includes over 20 local teams playing in national adult/amateur leagues, plus an MLS team, Inter Miami CF (who will play in Fort Lauderdale, for now) and Relevent Sports ICC playing regular matches at Hard Rock Stadium.
Supporters groups like Vice City 1896 (above) and Siege Supporters Club will be needed to unite South Florida’s various soccer factions ahead of Inter Miami’s MLS debut.
The fragmentation of the market in southern Florida including the number of match promoters and individual clubs will make efforts to unite the area behind MLS’ Inter Miami CF more difficult. While fans and those who work in the sport have for generations now been accustomed to coming to Fort Lauderdale’s Lockhart Stadium, the new club will find it difficult to unite a disparate community that since the original Strikers have created infrastructure locally that can exist outside of any connection to an MLS club. The Strikers of NASL 2.0 increased this base of talented, soccer-connected individuals who do not need to work with MLS to carve an important niche in the local landscape.
Tampa Bay, meanwhile, thanks to the Rowdies and NASL 2.0, has grown into a soccer hotbed once again, not only support-wise but on the youth and adult amateur level. The Rowdies moved to USL after the 2016 NASL season and continue to draw large crowds to Al Lang Stadium.
The NASL 2.0 last played in 2017, but has left a lasting legacy in the Sunshine State. Without it, Florida’s soccer landscape would certainly be less robust.
Kartik Krishnaiyer is a veteran American soccer journalist and the author of multiple books about the beautiful game. The former Communications Director for the North American Soccer League, he hosts the TYAC Podcast, among other projects. Kartik is currently on the board of the North American Soccer Reporters. Follow him on Twitter @kkfla737.