Three MISL leagues, one name
— the eras, 1978 to 2014.
The MISL name covers three separate competitions across thirty-six years. The archive does not cover them evenly.
Move through time.
Drag the year control to travel across the three eras that carried the MISL name.
The arena experiment becomes a phenomenon.
Six teams entered the inaugural season. The New York Arrows won the first four championships and the league grew into a major American indoor attraction.
What the MISL archive holds
Era one — the original league, 1978 to 1992
Founded in 1977 by Ed Tepper and Earl Foreman, and initially named the National Indoor Soccer League. Six teams contested the inaugural season; the New York Arrows won it and the three that followed. Across its whole existence the MISL name covered 14 seasons and clubs in 27 cities. This site carries no reports from that period.
Era two — 2001 to 2008
The best-documented period here: 42 of the 50 reports fall in it, running from October 2002. Award announcements, roster moves, the 2005 dispersal draft and the championship series all sit in this window.
Era three — 2008 to 2014
8 reports survive, ending in October 2010 with the 2010-11 regular-season schedule. By 2010-11 the competition was down to five clubs.
What each era leaves behind is uneven in kind as well as in volume. Era two supplies the whole of the honours record — 14 awards across the four seasons 2002-03 to 2005-06 — plus the 5 January 2005 dispersal draft, in which 59 players moved across 12 rounds to seven clubs after San Diego and Monterrey were dispersed. Era three supplies one complete artifact instead of a body of reporting: the 2010-11 regular-season schedule, 50 games between Baltimore, Chicago, Milwaukee, Missouri and Omaha. Era one supplies nothing at all.
Frequently asked
Why three eras rather than one league?
The MISL name was carried by three separate competitions: 1978 to 1992, 2001 to 2008, and 2008 to 2014. They are not continuous, which is why the archive treats them separately instead of presenting thirty-six unbroken years.
Which era does this archive actually cover?
Almost all of era two. Forty-two of the fifty reports come from 2001 to 2008 and eight from 2008 to 2014. Era one contributes none — no report from 1978 to 1992 survives in the captures this archive was built from.
Do the same clubs appear across eras?
Some names recur. Baltimore appears as both Baltimore Spirit and Baltimore Blast in the corpus, and San Diego Sockers and Cleveland Force are names that carried across competitions. The reports name twenty clubs in total.
What is the last thing the archive records?
A report of 18 October 2010, “2010-11 MISL Regular Season Schedule Announced”. It is the newest surviving document here, four years before the final era ended.
Why is the coverage so uneven?
The archive depends on which pages were captured and when. Where an era or a season has no surviving report, the page shows a zero rather than an estimate.