For the first time in United States soccer history, a promotion-relegation system will be coming to the country.
USL club owners voted for promotion-relegation to be implemented, similar to that of the European-style, the league announced Wednesday. The USL previously announced in February that they would be launching a new Division One men’s professional league in 2027.
This new league would rival MLS despite working under the same sanctioning by U.S. Soccer as a professional soccer league.
“A new chapter in American soccer begins. The decision by our owners to approve and move forward with this bold direction is a testament to their commitment to the long-term growth of soccer in the United States,” USL CEO Alec Papadakis said in a statement.
“This is a significant milestone for the USL and highlights our shared vision with our team ownership to build a league that not only provides top-tier competition but also champions community engagement. Now, just as it is in the global game, more communities in America can aspire to compete at the highest level of soccer. It’s time.”
The new Division One league stands as the highest of three levels for the USL, that includes the USL Championship (Division Two) and USL League One (Division Three). Promotion-relegation is used in many of the world’s top leagues including the English Premier League, German Bundesliga, and Spanish La Liga, but never looked set to be used in MLS.
The USL launched in 1986 and later announced a women’s pathway that includes the top-tier USL Super League (Division I), which debuted in 2024.
U.S. Soccer later voiced its support for the USL’s structure change for its new league.
“The continued investment into the game reflects the strength of the United States as a soccer country, which will only accelerate as we build toward hosting the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup, the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup and bid for the 2031 FIFA Women’s World Cup,” a federation statement said. “We welcome innovation and growth to the landscape of American soccer, and we look forward to learning more.”
This thing is not going to have the money behind it MLS does for a long, long time. But it also doesn’t have to.
MLS insists on parity and has any number of mechanisms – DP’s, salary cap, GAM, TAM, U22 initiatives – that keep spending within what is by far the narrowest gap between the big-money and small-money teams anywhere in the world. Miami spent $42 million last year, Montreal just $12 million, and every other MLS team’s total payroll fell somewhere in between; the average was $19.3 million. And people have not really credited just how much money MLS is spending these days. Its total payroll was $579 million.
A pro/rel system doesn’t have to have that at all. There’s folks out there who still have the rather precious misconception that, say, the Dutch Eredivisie is ahead of MLS. The reality – Ajax, the Dutch league’s biggest spenders and traditionally top squad, are spending almost exactly what Miami spent last year – $42 million. PSV and Feyenoord spent $33.5 million each.
After that, every other team in the Dutch league spends less than Montreal. The “Go Ahead Eagles” – I’ll never get over that name – spends just $4.5 million, only slightly more than a third was Montreal spends. And the Eredivise’s total spending is just $225 million…also only slightly more than a third what MLS teams as a whole spend.
I doubt anybody outside the folks I bore to death with Soccernomics stats here on this board knows that. Everybody just judges the league by the teams they always see in the Champions League – Ajax, Feyanoord, PSV. We see it with Liga MX teams too – everybody judges them by Club America, Monterrey, and Tigres. The rest of them are scattershot and spend almost as little as the bottom Eredivise club – San Luis at roughly $5 million – and can have the oddball lightning-in-a-bottle year where they can hang with the big boys, but they’re usually gone just as fast, too. Liga MX has just seven teams that spend in the range MLS squads do, all the rest fall well below even Montreal.
The point is that the top clubs in a pro/rel league don’t have to play fair. Rangers and Celtic certainly don’t, the Dutch giants don’t, the Portuguese don’t. They just need two or three monster clubs that dominate the others. A couple deep-pocketed owners who are willing to sink $50+ million a year into payroll and another couple hundred million into the stadium can easily build a squad that can outspend even Miami and dominate every team in North America most years. The Cosmos were going to do it; they just couldn’t get their Elmont stadium off the ground and ultimately fizzled. But if the time wasn’t then, it might be now.
I’d personally much rather put the money there than into MLS’s absolutely absurd $500 million expansion fee…I mean, for half that, I can field a team that can crush any squad in MLS most years? I know where I’m going if I’m an owner. My guess is there’s more than a few prospective owners tired of kissing Garber’s ring and paying Garber’s insane extortion…err, sorry, expansion fee, who have had exactly that thought themselves; now they have a place to land. Then they can go hunting MLS (and Liga MX!) squads in the US Open Cup and then Champions Cup. After awhile, gravity takes over and you wind up with a merger like the NFL and AFL back in the day. The fans will demand it and the fans ultimately get what they want…eventually. (We might be talking 10 or maybe even 20 years. But it’s almost certainly happening…when you see an institution fighting gravity, don’t bet against gravity.)
Man I hope there’s a team near Philly. I’m so done with the Union ownership.
What? No USL2? Boooooo!
(also… I understand it would be impossible considering the current structure of USL2)