Out of the American Premier League comes the American Champions League. Founders of the former have basically recreated the original APL model with its multitude of teams almost exclusively in the Twin Cities.
I called the original APL a "Twin Cities metro rec league". I'm yet to see any evidence that the zombies of FC Minneapolis and Granite City are creating anything more worthy of attention.
The ACL model sees teams competing at state (or more accurately metro) level against one another for what amount to divisional titles.
The divisional champions will then eventually face off, apparently, in a "Champions League" format.
This next season there is only the one division, in that one metro/CSA. (Depends on whether you consider St Cloud a different metro)
It doesn't even include Duluth, let alone Fargo-Moorhead so I am curious but it is irrelevant.
If they convince people to expand into North Dakota there is the obvious problem that Fargo is out on a limb, with the other "big" cities over 200 miles away (Grand Forks is closer, but still 80 miles away)
The ACL is a state model and the closest cities to Fargo are in other states. It will be interesting to see what they do.
It will also be interesting to see how much room there is for yet another amateur cluster in a Saturday with a new MLS side.
Update: 8th April 2017 - FC Minneapolis have branded themselves "America’s leading Non-League Professional Football Club", and they apparently mean that literally, playing a schedule which would ordinarily be described as an exhibition season, with no silverware at risk. They then insisted that they would run their reserve side in the ACL.
People paying attention may recall that federation rules dictate that any team which markets itself as professional MUST pay their players and that those players will lose their college eligibility.
If this was such a glorious idea, you'd think Stegmans would be doing it.
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