The NASL Championship was the annual championship competition of the North American Soccer League (NASL), which formed the second division of American soccer from 2011 to 2017. The competition was held at the end of the regular season and was contested by the two finalists of the playoffs to determine the winner of the NASL Trophy, known as the Soccer Bowl Trophy.[1] The trophy was named for the Soccer Bowl championship game from the original incarnation of the NASL, which ran from 1967 to 1984.
Format
In the league's first two seasons, the championship final was played as a two-match aggregate series at the conclusion of a playoff bracket.
The league announced a switch for the 2013 season to a one-game championship final, also known as the "Soccer Bowl".[2][3]
Beginning with the 2014 season, a new format was introduced, in which the whole playoff tournament was called the NASL Championship, with the final game being called the NASL Championship Final. From that point on, "Soccer Bowl" was only used in referring only to the physical trophy itself.[1] This format persisted through the 2017 final, the NASL's last, as the league suspended operations shortly thereafter and went defunct the following year.
Trophy
On October 22, 2011, the day their inaugural championship series got underway in Minnesota, the new NASL unveiled its championship trophy. The silver trophy featured a large bowl etched with the NASL logo resting atop three long prongs, and the words "North American Soccer League" and "Soccer Bowl" inscribed prominently across the base.[4][5]
