How United Soccer League plans to launch a new top division
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The first time the World Cup was played in the U.S., in 1994, the country got a first-division soccer league out of the deal. And now, with the tournament poised to return in 16 months, plans are being launched for a second tier one league to begin play as early as 2027.
“It’s something that we’ve been working on and talking about,” said Paul McDonough, the president and chief soccer officer of the United Soccer League, which manages more than 180 mens’ teams on three levels of the U.S. Soccer pyramid, from the second-tier USL Championship to the semi-pro USL League 2. “It was something that just kind of developed as we were talking to current team owners and potential owners.
“The Championship is great. But we have a group that wants something a bit bigger.”
A second Division 1 league, something no other country in the world has, would certainly be that. But the USL, whose Chief Executive Alec Papadakis announced plans last month to create a rival to Major League Soccer, faces a number of substantial hurdles in trying to get that done.
“Notwithstanding the potential for two leagues to exist, it would be a pretty big task to make it work financially,” said Steven A. Bank, the Paul Hastings professor of business law at UCLA and an expert on soccer finances. “The national media market for U.S. pro sports is already saturated and ticket sales remain a critical revenue source.”
U.S. Soccer rules require Division 1 leagues to have a minimum of 12 teams spanning three time zones, with at least nine of those teams based in metropolitan areas with a population of 1 million or more. And all the league’s stadiums must accommodate at least 15,000 people.
After losing to San Diego FC, an MLS expansion team, in their season opener, the Galaxy know successfully defending their MLS Cup title will not be easy.
Currently just four USL teams meet both the population and stadium criteria. Increasing seating capacity or building new stadiums would require significant investment, as would expanding the league into new markets. Will Papadakis be able to persuade existing teams to foot the bill for the construction costs or convince new investors to spend hundreds of millions on a venture that hasn’t succeeded anywhere else?
MLS, launched two years after the 1994 World Cup, didn’t turn a profit for more than two decades. Would the owners of a rival league, launching in the middle of another World Cup bounce, be willing to absorb years of similar financial uncertainty?
“You need capitalization,” said Peter Trevisani, an investment manager and CEO of New Mexico United, which made the USL Championship playoffs five times in its six seasons in the league . “This is a great inflection point for the USL as a league. As individual teams, we’ve done an amazing job basically bootstrapping our league into this position.
“But to really accomplish this, we’re going to need additional capital and probably capital at the institutional level like we’re seeing in the MLS and all professional leagues. I really believe by 2027, 2028 we can get the infrastructure in place to fulfill this aspiration.”
José Bautista, the six-time major league all-star who owns the Las Vegas Lights, agreed, saying the step up to Division 1 would require improved facilities and better players, both of which will cost a lot.
“I will have to open up my wallet. [But] I won’t have to do it alone,” he said. “This is an attractive opportunity for many folks and I’ve already received a ton of unsolicited calls with interest.”
One reason it’s an attractive opportunity is it provides a path to ownership in a tier-one league in the country’s fastest-growing sport, a path that figures to be far less expensive than the $500-million expansion fee to join MLS.
“I’m not necessarily looking at this from a purely economical or an investment perspective,” Bautista said. “I want to, with my platform and our franchise, bring the highest level of soccer to our community. And I’ll do whatever it takes.”
The USL hasn’t said which existing USL Championship teams, if any, will be considered for the proposed tier-one league. Yet despite the enthusiasm of Trevisani and Bautista, officials with several franchises seem lukewarm on the idea. The Times contacted other teams in the league’s Western Conference but none agreed to speak about the proposal on the record.
Many, including Bautista, said they first heard about the idea just hours before Papadakis made his announcement and they had questions about the finances, the quality of player the league could attract and other basics. The league, they said, had few answers.
“You can call it Division 1. But is it really Division 1?” said one executive, who asked that his name and the name of his team not be used because he feared retribution for speaking out. “No it’s not. It’s very much not. It’s not going to have the same level of players. I just don’t understand what they’re doing.”
The history of start-up leagues in the U.S. isn’t encouraging. The American Basketball Assn. lasted less than a decade before four of its teams were absorbed into the NBA and the rest of the league folded. The World Hockey Assn. had an even shorter lifespan before it ceased operations after merging with the established NHL.
The WFL, XFL and USFL, rivals to the NFL, didn’t last long either.
“Does that mean that we converge with the MLS one day? I don’t know,” Trevisani said. “That’s not really happening now. That’s probably not happening in the next couple of years.”
‘Onside,’ a new docuseries from the team behind ‘Formula 1: Drive to Survive,’ takes viewers behind the scenes of MLS — and could have a similar impact on U.S. soccer.
MLS and the USL were once allies, joining in a player development partnership that saw USL clubs act as affiliates of MLS franchises for eight seasons. That ended in 2022 when MLS Next Pro was established as a Division III league to serve that development role.
Last month MLS won an antitrust lawsuit brought by another competitor, the defunct North American Soccer League, which sought $500 million in damages after accusing the league and the U.S. Soccer Federation with conspiring to maintain a monopoly on pro soccer in the country.
MLS Commissioner Don Garber brushed aside concerns that a first-division USL would be a threat.
“I have no fears whatsoever that all the contributions that anybody makes ultimately will be good for the sport,” he said.
“I think that the country will support it in places where it makes sense. And I’d be happy for the USL if they were able to achieve that.”
⚽ You have read the latest installment of On Soccer with Kevin Baxter. The weekly column takes you behind the scenes and shines a spotlight on unique stories. Listen to Baxter on this week’s episode of the “Corner of the Galaxy” podcast.
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