This often meant bringing in African players from around the globe for a variety of reasons. First, because of policies like apartheid in South Africa (which forced the black players to play in a separate league) and, secondly, because of the implicit racism of European leagues, where black players were only slowly being integrated into teams, NASL teams were encouraged to racially integrate teams quickly if only because it was the cheapest way to raise the talent pool.Īs a result of this strategy, Ian Plenderleith argues that the NASL was the first soccer experiment of “mixing several ethnic backgrounds” into one team, an experiment only later pursued by the Premier League and other leagues. In order to pay the large salary of these stars-including, Pelé, Franz Breckenbauer, Giorgio Chinanglia, Carlos Alberto, Johan Cruyff, Johan Neeskens, Gerd Müller, Bobby Moore, Eusébio, and George Best, while also continuing to raise the level of play, the teams begin to search for players globally who were talented but undervalued (a mid 70s form of moneyball).
While pleased that the growing NASL audience was largely made up of “professional, active suburbanites, including men, women and children,” the league needed, and desired, a larger following. Faced with the desire for the largest possible audience, the league maintained the “rock n roll” distractions while also beginning the high stakes strategy of bringing in established, high profile soccer stars from abroad in order to enhance the “appearance” of a highly skilled game. Newsweek reported at the time, however, that the owners found this group staying away, telling pollsters that they found the quality of play in the league to be inferior. A 1979 essay in MacLean’s observed that when the league surveyed this intended audience, they discovered that these populations thought the game was undeveloped in America (i.e., not very skilled).
While attempting to draw the largest possible audience, they had expected first generation immigrants from nations where soccer was a national sport to be the first fans. Even with the success such spectacle began to manifest, the league discovered, much to its own surprise, that they were not getting the audience they expected at the games.
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