Has USL Outgrown the Business Model That Built It?
As the league grows with national broadcasts and ambitious expansion plans, questions are emerging about whether its financial structure still fits the league it’s looking to become.
As negotiations between the United Soccer League Players Association and the United Soccer League continue, much of the public discussion has focused on player salaries, healthcare, and professional standards. Those are critical issues, but beneath them lies a deeper conversation about how the league itself is structured and whether the model that helped USL grow still fits the league it has become.
USLPA executive director Connor Tobin recently described the league’s financial structure as unusual within professional sports. In his explanation, the league operates as a privately held company where certain central revenues remain with the league itself rather than being distributed back to the clubs that compete in it.
Club owners, meanwhile, are responsible for funding the day-to-day realities of operating a team. That includes stadium development, front office staff, player wages, travel, and community engagement. In effect, clubs carry much of the operational responsibility while the league office oversees the broader competition and commercial partnerships.
That system helped USL expand rapidly across North America. But the league of 2026 is not the same league it was a decade ago.
Today, matches in the USL Championship appear across national platforms including ESPN, CBS Sports, and TUDN. Games are broadcast in multiple languages and reach audiences nationwide.
The league has matured into a national sports property.
Which raises a reasonable question: should the economic model evolve with it?
How USL’s Model Works
The modern United Soccer League operates under a corporate structure owned by a private holding company.
In this system, the league functions as its own business entity.
Central revenue streams may include:
expansion fees from new clubs
league-wide sponsorships
national media agreements
licensing and commercial partnerships
Those revenues support league operations and growth initiatives.
Meanwhile, the individual clubs operate independently. Local ownership groups fund most of the costs associated with building and maintaining their teams. That includes everything from stadium operations and front office staff to player contracts, travel, and community engagement.
In many ways, that structure helped fuel the league’s rapid expansion. Ownership groups entered new markets, invested in facilities, and built clubs that often became important parts of their local sports landscape. Expansion fees and centralized league revenues provided the capital necessary for the league office to grow its administrative structure, organize national competitions, and support the overall development of the league.
But that structure also placed much of the financial burden of operating a club squarely on local ownership groups. Without significant revenue sharing from league-wide commercial deals, individual teams have largely depended on their own local business performance to sustain operations.
During the league’s early growth phase, that model likely made sense. Centralizing revenue allowed the league to build the infrastructure necessary to support a national competition that was still finding its footing.
The question today is whether a league that now enjoys national media exposure and an expanding commercial footprint might require a structure that distributes some of that success more broadly across the clubs that sustain it.
How MLS Differs
The system used by Major League Soccer is very different.
MLS operates under what is known as a single-entity structure. In that system, the league itself is the primary business entity. Player contracts are held centrally by the league, and the clubs that fans see on the field function as operating arms of that league structure.
Club owners are not independent franchises in the traditional sense. Instead, they are investor-operators who own shares in the league itself rather than directly owning their individual teams. The league technically owns the clubs, while the investor-operators purchase the right to operate a team in a specific market and manage its day-to-day business.
Because those ownership groups are shareholders in the league as a whole, the financial success of the league directly benefits them collectively. Central revenues such as national television deals, league-wide sponsorships, and commercial partnerships are negotiated by the league and shared among the investor-operators.
Roster rules, salary budgets, and other competitive regulations are also managed centrally by the league office, helping MLS control costs and maintain financial stability across the competition.
How Pro/Rel Leagues Operate
Many leagues around the world operate under a structure that differs from both the United Soccer League and Major League Soccer.
In competitions such as the Premier League and the broader English Football League pyramid, the league itself does not function as a profit-generating business in the traditional sense.
Instead, the league primarily serves as an administrative body that organizes the competition, negotiates commercial partnerships, and oversees the governance of the sport within that division. The member clubs themselves collectively control the league through voting structures and governance boards.
Central revenue streams, most notably global broadcast rights and league-wide sponsorship agreements, are negotiated by the league office but distributed back to the clubs through established formulas. Those distributions often include a combination of equal payments to every club along with additional allocations tied to sporting performance, broadcast appearances, or commercial participation.
Because the clubs themselves ultimately control the league structure, the commercial success of the competition directly benefits the teams that make up the league. As media rights grow and sponsorship deals expand, those revenues circulate back into the clubs that produce the matches and invest in the players, stadiums, and supporters that drive the league’s popularity.
That structure naturally creates a strong alignment between the growth of the league and the financial stability of its member clubs, an alignment that has helped many promotion and relegation systems maintain long-term competitive ecosystems.
Why the USL Model Made Sense
The structure used by the United Soccer League was designed for a league in its expansion phase.
Ten to fifteen years ago, the league had limited national visibility. Media deals were minimal, and expansion fees were one of the primary ways the league could finance growth.
Centralizing revenue helped the league build the administrative infrastructure needed to support a rapidly growing competition. It allowed USL to enter new markets, support emerging clubs, and establish itself as a national league.
Without that approach, the league likely would not have expanded as quickly as it did.
Over time, that reality may have contributed to instability across the league. Since 2015, more than twenty professional clubs across the various divisions of the United Soccer League system have ceased operations, gone on hiatus, or exited the league structure entirely.
There are many reasons clubs fail in professional sports such as ownership challenges, stadium situations, market conditions, and shifting league structures all play a role. But when clubs are responsible for most operational costs while the league retains much of the centralized revenue, the margin for error at the local level can become very thin.
Why the Conversation Is Changing
The circumstances around the league have shifted.
Today, the USL Championship has national broadcast partnerships, established markets, and clubs that have invested heavily in stadiums, academies, and community engagement. Matches now appear across platforms including ESPN, CBS Sports, and TUDN, reaching audiences nationwide and in multiple languages.
At the same time, clubs across the league have made substantial local investments. Stadium projects, training facilities, youth academies, and community outreach programs have become defining features of many USL markets. Cities like Sacramento, Louisville, and San Antonio have shown that clubs operating within the league’s structure can become deeply embedded in their communities, drawing large crowds and building passionate supporter bases.
As the league’s commercial reach grows, it becomes increasingly reasonable for clubs to ask whether some of that success should flow back into the teams that ultimately produce the product on the field.
But the structure of the league complicates that conversation.
Unlike the single-entity system used by Major League Soccer, USL clubs operate as independent employers. Players sign contracts directly with their clubs rather than with the league itself. That distinction has real implications for issues that have surfaced during the current collective bargaining discussions.
League officials have previously pointed out that providing league-wide benefits such as centralized health insurance is not as straightforward under this structure. Because the league does not hold player contracts, there is not a simple legal mechanism for the league office to mandate or administer certain employment benefits across independently operated clubs.
In MLS, the league can vote internally on issues like player benefits and implement them across the competition because the league controls the player contracts and the employment framework. In USL, those responsibilities largely fall to the clubs themselves.
That difference means the financial health of individual teams plays a much more direct role in shaping player working conditions. When clubs carry most of the operational burden but have limited access to centralized revenue streams, the stability of the league’s ecosystem can become uneven from market to market.
As the league continues to grow commercially, the relationship between centralized league success and club-level stability is becoming an increasingly important part of the conversation.
A Possible Middle Ground
Addressing that imbalance would not necessarily require dismantling the structure that helped the United Soccer League grow over the past decade.
The league could remain a privately operated entity while beginning to share certain categories of central revenue with its clubs in a way that better aligns incentives across the ecosystem.
Expansion fees, for example, could reasonably continue flowing primarily to the league office. Those fees represent the value of entering the competition and have historically helped finance the league’s administrative structure, competition management, and long-term growth initiatives. Expansion has been one of the primary mechanisms through which the league built its national footprint, and maintaining that revenue stream would allow the league to continue investing in infrastructure and future development.
Where the conversation becomes more interesting is with revenue streams that exist because of the clubs themselves.
Media rights agreements, national sponsorships, and digital broadcasting partnerships are all built around the product that takes place on the field. They exist because clubs invest in players, stadiums, supporters, and the matchday environment that ultimately becomes the league’s broadcast product. As the league’s visibility has grown through national partnerships with networks such as ESPN, CBS Sports, and TUDN, those commercial opportunities are increasingly tied to the collective strength of the clubs that make up the competition.
One possible approach would be the creation of a central revenue pool tied specifically to those league-wide commercial deals. Rather than flowing entirely to the league entity, a portion of those revenues could be distributed back to clubs on an annual basis.
Such a system would not need to mirror the revenue structures of global leagues like the Premier League, where broadcast money is the dominant financial engine of the sport. But even a modest distribution could create meaningful stability for clubs operating in smaller markets while still allowing the league office to retain significant resources for operations and growth.
Those distributions could also be structured in a way that reinforces the league’s broader goals. A portion could be shared equally among all clubs to create baseline stability. Another portion could reward on-field success or playoff performance, incentivizing competitive investment. Additional allocations could encourage market growth, such as improvements in attendance, youth development, or community engagement.
Perhaps most importantly, stronger club finances would inevitably translate into greater stability for players.
Because players in the USL Championship are employed directly by clubs rather than the league itself, the financial health of those clubs directly affects working conditions across the league. Teams who operate with tighter margins and limited access to centralized revenue, player wages, benefits, and long-term security often reflect those constraints.
Creating a structure where the league continues to benefit from its growth while clubs share in a portion of that success could help balance those dynamics. The league would still retain the entrepreneurial structure that fueled its expansion, but the ecosystem around it would become more stable for the clubs and players who sustain it.
Aligning the Ecosystem
Ultimately, the long-term health of the United Soccer League will depend on the stability of the ecosystem that surrounds it.
Local ownership groups invest millions of dollars building clubs in their communities. That investment often goes far beyond simply fielding a team. Stadium development, training facilities, youth academies, front office operations, and community engagement initiatives all require sustained financial commitment. In many markets, those clubs have become meaningful civic institutions, bringing professional soccer to cities that previously had little presence in the sport.
Players, meanwhile, commit their careers to those clubs. Many relocate across the country, or across international borders, to compete in the league. They sign leases, move families, and build their professional lives around the opportunities those clubs provide.
Because players are employed directly by clubs rather than the league itself, the financial stability of those organizations directly shapes the working conditions within the competition. When clubs operate with limited margins, the ripple effects can be felt throughout the league, from wages and benefits to the long-term security of players and staff.
As the USL Championship continues to grow, that relationship between league-level success and club-level stability becomes increasingly important. The league has made clear that its ambitions extend well beyond its current structure, including plans to launch a new Division One competition and implement promotion and relegation across its professional pyramid in 2028.
Those ambitions represent a significant step forward for the sport in the United States. But building a system that spans multiple professional divisions will require a foundation that is stable not just at the league office, but across the clubs that make up the competition.
The model that helped build the modern USL was designed for a league still establishing its national footprint. It allowed the league to expand rapidly and bring professional soccer to dozens of new markets across North America.
Now, with national media exposure, established clubs, and growing supporter bases, the conversation may be shifting toward what the next phase of that growth should look like.
The question is no longer just how the league expands, but how the success of the league is shared among the clubs and players who sustain it. Aligning those interests more closely could ultimately strengthen the entire ecosystem and provide a more stable foundation for the future of the league.