United Soccer League owners voted on Tuesday to implement a system of promotion and relegation among the USL’s multiple men’s divisions, a historic first for professional soccer — and all sports — in the U.S.
The European model, whereby clubs earn promotion to more prestigious leagues or relegation to lesser leagues by finishing at the top or bottom of their current league, is common across global soccer. But top-flight North American leagues — the NFL, NBA, MLB and also Major League Soccer — have always been “closed” entities; franchises have a fixed place, and the only way to join the league, which functions like a cartel, is to find rich owners who’ll buy their way into it.
The USL, to a degree, wants to change that. It currently operates two pro leagues, which sit at the second and third tiers of American men’s soccer — below the lone top-tier men’s league, MLS. But the USL announced last month that it intends to add a new Division 1 league by 2028; and on Wednesday, it said it will create “an interconnected three-tiered men’s professional soccer system” with promotion and relegation.
The system would exist separately from MLS, which is far more established than the USL. MLS clubs are much wealthier and more popular. They do not feel threatened by the USL’s modest growth, nor do they have any incentive or obligation to integrate themselves into the USL’s pro-rel system.
The medium-term future, instead, would be one in which there are two distinct Division 1 men’s soccer leagues in the United States.
One, MLS, would remain closed — and probably dominant, with better players and more money, for the foreseeable future.
The other, USL, would be semi-open; owners could still buy their way in and start expansion teams, but clubs could also climb into the USL Division One by winning the second-tier USL Championship. (And they could rise into the second-tier Championship by winning the third-tier USL League One.)
The introduction of the fluid, “interconnected” pyramid “will reshape the future of professional soccer in the United States,” the USL said in its news release. It could be a boon to player development, because it will give more kids in more markets across the country a somewhat direct path to a top flight.
It will also be celebrated by longtime proponents of pro-rel, who’ve hailed the system’s open, meritocratic nature and the intense competition it creates. It will give the USL a distinct marketing pitch: fans, as USL president Paul McDonough said in a statement, are “drawn to the intensity of high-stakes competition, where more matches have real consequences—just like we see in European leagues.”
But it will also present challenges. The entire concept of Division 1, 2 and 3 leagues is actually a formal distinction governed by the U.S. Soccer Federation’s pro league standards. Those PLS require that a D1 league and its clubs meet a variety of requirements, including some related to finances, market size and stadium size. Some promoted clubs, in theory, could struggle to satisfy those standards — thereby complicating the USL’s system or forcing U.S. Soccer to tweak or even overhaul the PLS.
And some relegated clubs, meanwhile, having spent significant money to meet Division 1 standards, could struggle financially if their revenues dip as their teams dip into the second or third divisions.
That worry, though, is more acute in countries like England where gigantic TV contracts grant Premier League clubs huge shares of centralized revenue — shares that then disappear if a team is relegated. USL clubs, on the other hand, rely to a much greater degree on localized revenue streams, such as ticket sales.
And the upside, the allure of pro-rel, outweighed those concerns. Although the vote wasn’t unanimous, a supermajority of owners voted in favor of adopting the global system. Its implementation over the coming years could be one of the most significant developments in the modern era of U.S. men’s soccer.
