After the National Professional Soccer League (1990-2001) folded in 2001, the slow and steady decline in the popularity of professional indoor soccer accelerated rapidly. Since 2001, the sport has seen an alphabet soup of leagues, re-branding efforts, fly-by-night franchises, and continuously diminishing budgets.
Frankly, none of the chaotic leagues that have hung a shingle since 2001 deserve their own entry here, so we have consolidated all of the 21st century leagues in this catch-all category of “Indoor Soccer (2001-Today)”. This includes franchises from the following leagues (including a couple of pre-cursor leagues, the Premier Soccer Alliance and the World Indoor Soccer League):
Premier Soccer Alliance Franchise List (1998)
An offshoot of the Continental Indoor Soccer League (1993-1997). Became the World Indoor Soccer League in 1999.
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Major Indoor Soccer League Franchise List (2001-2008)
Six surviving clubs from the defunct National Professional Soccer League (1990-2001) re-organized as the Major Indoor Soccer League for the fall/winter of 2001-02. In doing so, the reclaimed the MISL name, hoping to capitalize on nostalgia for the first and most successful indoor soccer organization, which existed from 1978 to 1992.
This second incarnation of the MISL folded in June 2008, with most of the league’s remaining franchises splitting into two separate camps and forming the National Indoor Soccer League (2008-2009) and the Xtreme Soccer League (2008-2009).
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National Indoor Soccer League Franchise List (2008-2009)
One of the two offshoot leagues, along with the Xtreme Soccer League (2008-2009) which formed out of the break-up of the second Major Indoor Soccer League (2001-2008). After one desultory season, the NISL clubs reunited with the Milwaukee franchise of the failed Xtreme Soccer League and formed – wait for it – the third incarnation of the Major Indoor Soccer League. All but a handful of message board obsessives had long since stopped paying attention.
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