INTRODUCTION

The summer of 2022 brought word of another professional men’s soccer league to an already complicated pyramid. The National Soccer League announced its presence on a website and a variety of social media.

The earliest available capture of the NSL’s website from August of 2022 on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine gives an idea of how the organization positioned itself early on. The homepage featured a short video introduction by actor Louis Acevedo, a prominent picture customized from publicly available templates, some marketing language, and a gold NSL logo.

Pictures from the NSL archived website and the Placeit website.

The NSL’s original “About” page used the present tense to say that the league “is a professional American soccer division. The seasons run from February to September, with each team playing a minimum ten-game regular season.” It goes on to say that “[t]he company is headquartered in Los Angeles” and “founded by international soccer experts Football People Group in 2022.”

The “Transformational Leadership” section sits a bit lower down the “About” page with headshots of 16 individuals who, based on positioning, would be assumed to be the “National Soccer League leadership” noted in the text. The list of names included former Premier League players Gavin McCann, Liam Ridgewll, and Michael Gray. It also included a number of soccer agents as well as sports and entertainment industry experts. This included Lizzie Seedhouse the former Senior VP of Marketing for the United Soccer League. Seedhouse was, at one point, touted by NSL as joining that company as a creative advisor.

Another person listed is writer and producer Stuart Gallop. At the time of writing, per his Linkedin profile, Gallop has been the Head of Immersive & Interactive for the Los Angeles Aztecs since June of 2022 and the Head of Immersive & Interactive for the National Soccer League since July of 2022.

The NSL website has been updated continuously since its launch. The leadership team page disappeared at some point in the fall of 2022. It is not known how many of the listed people are still associated with the league.

THE MATCHMAKER

The most prominent of those names is Scott Michaels. Nicknamed the “Matchmaker”, the NSL is the brainchild of Michaels. According to his personal website, Michaels is an entrepreneur and soccer agent originally from Lancaster, England. He set up “Pro Footballers, an[sic] global player agency that connects multi-million dollar deals with clubs through his network of clubs and international agents. Clubs and agents gave him the nickname of ‘Matchmaker’.”

The Pro Footballers website is sparse with only a homepage and an account page. There is also a link from that website to an Instagram page. That Instagram account is just as sparse as the Pro Footballers website.

Both Michaels’ personal webpage and the Pro Footballers webpage state that Scott set up another business called Football People. Per his personal webpage: “During the pandemic, Scott then set up Football People and arranged several takeover bids in the English Football League with investment groups. Football People were introduced to several American professional soccer leagues looking to connect with investment dollars and explored a number of expansions across the country.”

The homepage of the Football People website states that it is “The Football People offers a portfolio of undiscovered value, exclusively to both current and future football club owners. We offer a fast track service for clubs in the position to both sell and grow their assets via our global audience of football people. Guided by Pro Footballers agency owner Scott Michaels, we represent the fast pace energy that connects the dots, so that club needs and opportunities can be heard by football’s most powerful people in order to complete the latest deals.” Below that are logos from some of the top men’s soccer leagues in the country including the Premier League, Bundesliga, and MLS. Below that are links to buy branded merchandise such as t-shirts and hoodies.

The “People” page only includes Scott Michaels. He is stated to be the “co-founder of Football People Group.” There is no information as to the other co-founder(s) of Football People. A graphic at the bottom of that page states that “Scott is a respected FA licenced football club agent…”

The FA keeps an up-to-date listing of individuals and companies registered as Intermediaries. No Scott Michaels are on the May 16, 2023 “List of FA Registered Intermediaries” and neither Pro Footballers nor Football People are on the January 3, 2023 “List of Registered Companies.” These are the most up-to-date lists as of writing.

The “Partners” link on the Football People website includes a link back to the Pro Footballers website and the website for Stylo Matchmakers. A type of soccer shoe popular from the 1960s and 1970s, Stylo Matchmakers were originally produced by Stylo Matchmaker International.

As the original Stylo Matchmaker U.S. trademark had lapsed in the early 2000s, it was newly registered by Scott Michaels in 2017. As of 2020, the trademark is co-owned by Michaels and Stylo Brands LLC. The company primarily sells soccer shoes in the original styles with co-branding to well-known retired English footballers.

Michaels’ first successful business seems to be a line of men’s hair products called Hairbond United Kingdom. Michaels seemingly grew the Hairbond brand via endorsement deals with footballers.

LOS ANGELES AZTECS 2.0

Anyone who knows U.S. soccer history knows the Los Angeles Aztecs. The team joined the NASL in 1974 and won the league championship in its very first season.The Aztecs were one of the more popular NASL clubs in large part to a roster dotted with superstars such as Johan Cruyff and George Best. The franchise would fold following the 1981 season. Scott Michaels applied to re-registered the Los Angeles Aztecs word mark on May 29, 2022 (All trademark information in this article is from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s TESS database)

His interest in U.S. soccer may have been sparked by a trip in late 2021. Michaels attended the USL Championship Western Conference final in Irvine, Cali. on November 20. The match went to penalty kicks which Orange County SC won 5-3 over San Antonio FC. He later attended the USL Winter Summit held December 13-15 in Tampa.

On June 21, 2022, Michaels applied to trademark “NASL” in regards to clothing. The second NASL still holds the trademark as it applies to the sporting event itself but canceled the “NASL” trademark in June of 2021. At the end of June 2022, Michaels announced that he was relaunching the Los Angeles Aztecs on The Los Angelers website as well as his Linkedin page.

In The Los Angelers piece, Michaels stated that “[w]e plan to launch the club first as an exhibition team not too dissimilar to the basketball team ‘Harlem Globetrotters’,” and that “[w]e also plan to play the LA Aztecs women’s exhibition game before the men’s which is just as important and will be held in the same esteem.” He also went on to say that “[w]e are now in advanced talks with returning the Aztecs back home to the historic LA memorial Coliseum as well as play games at the brilliant Titan Stadium which is just on the outskirts of the city.”

A follow-up Linkedin post states that Michaels started as the new Club Owner of the Los Angeles Aztecs. This position is no longer listed on his Linkedin profile or the website for the Aztecs.

Scott Michaels was interviewed in a piece on the TechBullion website. Published on July 6, 2022 Michaels talked about his plans for the Los Angeles Aztecs. He stated that “Football People is acquiring a growing network of advanced technology partners which we will invest in the new generation Aztecs soccer club model. We will reintroduce the club as an exhibition team, not too dissimilar to the family-friendly entertainment seen with the basketball team ‘Harlem Globetrotters’. Our focus is to bridge the connection with the local fans, both in-person and online with fuller access to content through meta, web3 advanced digital platforms.”

Michaels went on to say that his plan was to “officially launch” the Aztecs this summer and play a number of exhibition games in Los Angeles. “I have spoken to a number of professional clubs already who are very excited about playing the Aztecs over their preseason. We are also getting lots of interest from high profile players who are curious about playing for the Aztecs.” As far as a venue for the games, Michaels said, “I am delighted to announce we are now in agreement with returning the Aztecs back home to the historic LA Memorial Coliseum as well as play smaller games at the Titan Stadium which is situated just outside the city. In other exciting news we are in talks to build our own virtual reality stadium.”

Talking about the group behind the venture, Michaels said that “[t]he Football People is a group that is made up of top soccer executives, world soccer agents, soccer technology pioneers, soccer media and experienced finance experts. Whilst soccer continues to grow across the US, we have a strong passion and the drive to build the game up in North America. As things stand, we do not feel the current industry is large enough to support the game’s huge growth and potential. Our journey starts with the Aztecs club but our mid term vision is to launch an all-new, National Soccer League (NSL) across all under-provided markets and build up soccer infrastructure in the US. We plan to launch the NSL before the 2026 World Cup and have made our intentions known to the United States Soccer Federation. Our long term aim is to eventually develop an exciting open system, just like we have in England.”

THE NATIONAL SOCCER LEAGUE

Soon after that, Scott Michaels began applying for trademarks on old NASL club names. July of 2022 saw Michaels apply for a number of trademarks on old NASL properties. These included “Sting”, the bee design of the NASL’s Chicago Sting, “Washington Diplomats”, and a “Los Angeles Aztecs 1973” logo. That month Michaels also applied for the trademark to “Mutiny”.

It was around this time that the NSL website launched and Michaels posted on Linkedin that he was the co-founder of the National Soccer League. It is unknown who the other co-founder(s) of the NSL are. Michaels had already filed to apply for a trademark on the copper “NSL National Soccer League” logo on April 20, 2022.

The next post on Michael’s Linkedin page featured a short 10 second video from Geoff Hurst. A England footballing great who scored a hat trick in the 1966 World Cup final Hurst also played for the NASL’s Seattle Sounders in 1976. In the video Hurst sends congratulations “to your friend” Scott Michaels on launching the NSL. While the provenance of the video is not known, the look and feel is very similar to the videos available on Hurst’s Cameo page.

In August, Michaels applied for the trademarks to “Galacticos”, “Minutemen”, and “Liverbirds”. He also announced, on his Linkedin page and the NSL website, that Gavin McCann had joined the league as an adviser. On the same two platforms, Michaels also announced that the NSL is in talks with the USSF for the league to join the U.S. Open Cup. The seven clubs listed on the NSL website (along with pictures of kits) as of early September 2022 align with the seven club trademarks that Michaels had applied for.

In September of 2022, Michaels applied for a trademark to the Atoms logo of the NASL’s Philadelphia Atoms. That team becomes the eighth listed as a club on the NSL website. In addition, the NSL adds a tab called “Shop & NFTs”. While the page included NSL and team branded clothing, it did not include NFTs.

Michaels applied to trademark the NASL’s Trans-Atlantic Challenge Cup logo in early November of 2022 as well as the car logo of the NASL’s Detroit Express. At the beginning of December, Michaels also applied to trademark the elephant logo of the NASL’s Memphis Rogues.

NSL 2.0

Not much movement seemed to occur for the National Soccer League at the end of 2022 and beginning of 2023. Spring of 2023 saw a new flurry of activity as the NSL website stated that the league was announcing its launch as an “independently governed professional soccer league in the United States.” Gone were the Liverbirds, Galacticos, and Mutiny. They were replaced by the Rogues and Express as the seven teams in the NSL The website also became pared down with little more than a homepage. Stylo Matchmakers also connected directly to the NSL as it offered, and continues to offer, t-shirts with logos from the NASL clubs that Michaels has applied for trademarks.

April of 2023 also saw a flurry of social media action from the NSL and Michaels. Although the NSL’s official Twitter account (@NSLAmerica) launched in December of 2021, all activity from the account has been scrubbed prior to April 4, 2023. New tweets began on that day as if the NSL was launching for the first time.

The NSL also began posting pieces on public relations platforms such as AccessWire and GlobeNewswire which it would then publicize on its website and other social media platforms. Michaels applied for trademarks on the names of two former NASL teams, “San Antonio Thunder” and “Atlanta Chiefs”, on April 30, 2023. Those two teams were added to the roster of NSL properties.

The NSL now talks about launching with a minimum of teams with expansion to 30 teams within five years. The NSL is also planning on introducing promotion and relegation between multiple NSL leagues. In a bold move, the NSL has also announced it will not align “with certain governing bodies in the sport.” Assuming this means the USSF, the NSL is setting itself up for a difficult road to hoe.

A controversial marketing tactic that Michaels has implemented since April is the use of “sock puppet” accounts on Twitter. Accounts such as Daniel Hernandez (@ussoccertweet) which purports to be an “American Professional Soccer Contributor” began discussing the NSL. Questions would be posed by such accounts which Michaels would often then answer via his personal Twitter account (@scottmatchmaker).

Along with tweets about the NSL, these accounts seemingly acting as soccer journalists will post soccer articles from likely “sock puppet” websites. These websites scrape articles from authentic websites to pass them off as their own.

For example, the “Daniel Hernandez” @ussoccertweet account posted an article about Jack Ramirez signing with Rising FC from the Premier Soccer News website. The code for the homepage of Premier Soccer News is broken, but that website contains pages and pages of soccer articles all attributed to “Jose Sanchez” beginning November 12, 2022 and running to the present. The article that @ussoccertweet attributes to Premier Soccer News about Jack Ramirez was scraped directly from the USL Championship website.

Michaels set up a Twitter account for a NSL supporters group called @nslfans. On April 21, that Twitter account began to push back on other Twitter users taking the NSL and Michaels to task on their claims about the league and its clubs. The account began engaging with Mark Fishkin, the host of the Seeing Red podcast, whose back and forth led to Michaels allegedly outing his marketing tactics and eventually deleting the @nslfans account.

The Future

As of today, the NSL is saying that it plans on launching in 2025. On May 4, Michaels said that “[a]ny conjecture about FIFA imposing limitations on a prospective league [due to being unsanctioned] is unfounded.” That same day he also tweeted that “I am in the process of finalizing a capital raise aimed at securing a substantial investment in US soccer, including institutional capital.” And, also on the same day, after a question about another league operating as the National Soccer League, Michaels responded “After obtaining clearance from my lawyers, I federally registered the NSL. However, the NWSL has contested the registration with the trademark office, which is within their rights. It's important to adhere to the proper protocols for intellectual property registration.”

What we know is that Scott Michaels has applied for at least 17 trademarks related to soccer since last year. He has launched a National Soccer League website and that organization is active on social media promoting itself as the newest U.S. men’s professional soccer league. The NSL and Michaels’ other ventures are also selling merchandise with NASL logos and other styles related to that league and U.S. soccer in general.

What we don’t know is how far along the NSL is to launching a viable men’s professional soccer league.

Unlike so many other leagues which have launched to greater or lesser degrees of success, there is little to no excitement among the targeted American fanbase regarding the NSL. People are skeptical and, so far, the NSL has yet to find the right combination of facts and marketing to squash that skepticism. If the NSL plans to launch in 2025, it has a tremendous amount of work to do to change the public perception of the league. If it doesn’t put the required work in, it is almost certainly destined to fail.

- Dan Creel

Editor’s Note: In preparation for writing this article, Scott Michaels was approached via social media to discuss the NSL. He responded cordially that he was “in the process of finalising our series A investment round. Happy to have a chat when that’s done.” We have not heard back from Mr. Michaels.