RSC 2050: A Renewed Purpose

When we founded our club in 2014, our purpose was pretty straightforward: Create a club that was inclusive, community-based, and sustainable. 

In other words, create a youth program that is relatively affordable and family-friendly, is focused on improving our local and state soccer culture and ecosystem, and develops a model that lives beyond the first generation of our players and coaches.

Six years later, we're proud of the following accomplishments:

• Our relatively low registration fees have helped our club's members save at least $800,000 in registration fees (not to mention countless hours and funds that would otherwise be accrued with regular out-of-state travel)
• We've worked with our fellow Maine-based clubs to help grow our statewide league by more than 30% over the last five seasons
• And our first generation of players are now alumni of a club that has fourteen girls' and boys' teams spanning age groups from 10U-18U.

We've met every metric for success we established for our fledgling club six years ago--and yet we still lack the same purpose that exists for most every other club in the world.

That's because in pretty much every other country in the world, our relatively small club tucked away in a relatively remote part of a country would nevertheless still have a clear-- albeit relatively irrational--purpose: To build a multigenerational club whose first teams have the opportunity to earn their spots in the highest league their country has to offer. 

It doesn't matter if you're sitting in the boardroom with a director for a club that represents an Icelandic town of 3,000; or if you're supporting a 7th-division English club that just got bought by a handful of soccer legends; or if you're watching the latest edition of El Clasico on TV.

In all those settings you're sharing experiences with clubs of all types and sizes who nonetheless share the common experience of competing in open systems that provide opportunities for advancement (and relegation) for all that hasn't recently existed in the United States--until now.

Until recently, opportunities to establish a professional soccer club (or any other type of sports franchise, for that matter) in the U.S. have been limited only to the deep-pocketed, and the organizing principle of professional sports in our country is exclusivity instead of inclusivity.

But with the incorporation of the National Independent Soccer Association (NISA) and its recent momentum on and off the field, the opportunity for our club--and the thousands of independent clubs like ours--to become a professional club now exists. 

Indeed NISA is explicitly articulating a commitment to the same principles that give every other club in most of the world the purpose we've previously lacked:

• An open, connected system without territorial rights or franchise fees
• Promotion and relegation based on on-field performance
• Solidarity payments

So now that opportunity exists, here's our club's renewed purpose:

And this is our renewed purpose because it gives our club and all its stakeholders--administrators, coaches, members, players, and supporters--the purpose and the aspirations for opportunities to fulfill their greatest potential on and off the field.

The road to achieving this long-term goal will be winding and--if American soccer history is our guide--marked by uncertainty almost as frequently as it is by certainty.

But here are some key fundamental areas we'll be focused on in the short-term to the build the foundation for this long-term aspiration:

Phase I: January 4, 2021-October 31, 2021

Evolve into a multigenerational club

If you're building your club from the ground up like we are, you can't have a professional first team until you have an amateur first team, so the first thing we need to do is to evolve from a youth-only club to a multigenerational club. The goal this year is to establish U23 men's and women's teams and to provide for those teams state-based programming that accounts for the continued uncertainty related to COVID-19 and collegiate soccer.

Expand our youth programming

Along with expanding our club vertically, we need to expand our club horizontally. And the way we plan to do that is by expanding the playing opportunities we offer our youth players beyond our typical January-June season.

That means we'll be rolling out summer programming for our players, and we'll be offering fall programming that complements--not competes with--our players' commitments to their high school programs and their Fall Classic clubs. That also means we'll be providing our players with more informal playing opportunities at the outdoor court that's scheduled to be built in Westbrook this spring.

Develop age-appropriate curricula and invest in analytics tools

There are a variety of approaches and strategies use for the long-term growth of a club from an amateur club to a professional one. But one key characteristic is the effective development of its local talent.

So we'll be working on updating our curricula to make it more age-specific, and we'll use tools like Veo to help develop our coaches and players.

Build our brand

The Internet, social media, and all the other aspects of our current digital revolution have democratized most aspects of our lives, including independent soccer. We'll leverage this proverbial flattening of the soccer world to build our brand by improving our digital footprint and continuing to focus on boosting engagement anywhere and everywhere.

Restructure club to deepen community ties and prepare for community ownership

Being a community-based club committed to strengthening our local and state soccer culture and ecosystem was a founding principle for our club, and we've always been committed to the idea that our club's players are members of our club, not our customers. 

So along with maintaining our identity as a community-based and democratic club, we'll be looking to formalize many of our informal community ties, and we're hopeful that we'll be able to build enough interest in our club and its vision to eventually transform our club's members and supporters into owners of the club by tapping into micro-investing options that now exist.

Advocate for policies and practices that provide our club--and the hundreds of American clubs like ours--with opportunities to achieve our fullest potential

Finally, one key lesson we've learned in our first six years is that our club's long-term potential is inherently tied to the statewide and national ecosystems in which we exist, and that our club's success (or failure) is in many ways dependent on the health of that ecosystem. 

In other words, there's only so much our club can accomplish without collaborating with other stakeholders outside our club.

Fortunately, here in Maine we have a relatively fertile and cooperative soccer culture that just needs to become more connected, more resourceful, and more strategic. At the national level, on the other hand, the ecosystem as a whole is more complicated, more cynical, and more corrosive for most of us stakeholders.

So as founding club of The Maine Model, we'll advocate for practices and policies that improve the connectivity, resourcefulness, and strategic purpose in Maine soccer.

And as a co-founding club with Chemical Valley AC (Charleston, WV) of the Grow the Game Coalition, we'll advocate for practices and policies that give all of us national stakeholders equal opportunities to achieve the American Dream on and off the soccer field.

Conclusion

We're proud of what we've accomplished in our first six years, and we're grateful for all the support and contributions our club's directors, coaches, members, players, supporters, and--yes--competing clubs have provided us so far.

But we have a renewed purpose now, which is simply the opportunity afforded most every other club in the world (not to mention most every entrepreneurial project in the U.S.). 

And though the history of American soccer suggests our roadmap to get there could change numerous times between our departure and our arrival, we at least have a roadmap for today. 

And we're looking forward to what will likely be a long, strange trip between now and 2050.