USL Is Rebuilding American Soccer on Its Own Terms

For years, growth in the USL was easy to see. New clubs appeared on the map, soccer-specific stadiums began replacing temporary venues, and the league continued pushing into new markets. The next phase of that growth is different. USL is no longer simply trying to get bigger. It is attempting to build a different professional soccer system, and many of the pieces needed to make it work are already falling into place.

USL Premier and promotion and relegation will understandably get most of the attention heading toward 2028, but the more interesting story may be everything being built around them. Over the past year, USL has brought in additional institutional investment, negotiated a new collective bargaining agreement with its players and approved a revenue-sharing model with its owners. At the club level, organizations are making significant investments in stadiums and infrastructure. Together, those moves suggest USL is not simply preparing to launch a Division One league. It is trying to create an ecosystem capable of supporting one.

That ambition does not come without skepticism. USL is attempting this transformation while still dealing with many of the financial pressures that have defined lower-division soccer in the United States. Clubs have continued to disappear, relocate or step away from competition, and the league’s relationship with its players became increasingly contentious before the new CBA was finally completed. Promotion and relegation introduces another layer of financial uncertainty into an environment that has not always been particularly stable.

The basic structure of what comes next is already familiar. Premier and the Championship are ultimately planned as national single-table leagues of approximately 20 clubs each, while League One is expected to continue growing through a more regional model. What remains unclear is how USL gets there. There has been reporting around an inaugural Premier field in the neighborhood of 12 to 14 clubs, while the exact promotion and relegation mechanism remains unannounced. More clubs could conceivably move upward than downward during the early years as Premier fills out, potentially with promotion playoffs involved, but those details remain speculation until USL outlines the format.

There is also the more complicated question of which clubs are actually prepared to move between divisions. U.S. Soccer’s current Division One standards include a 15,000-seat stadium requirement, creating an obvious tension with an open system. A Championship club could earn promotion while playing in a venue nowhere near that capacity, while requiring every potential promotion candidate to build a Division One stadium in advance would make little financial sense.

Some form of flexibility may ultimately be necessary. U.S. Soccer has previously granted waivers involving its professional league standards, and USL has publicly questioned how existing requirements fit a promotion and relegation system. Whether that eventually means waivers, revised standards or transition periods remains unresolved, but allowing clubs time to expand or replace facilities after earning promotion would create a more realistic path than requiring Division One infrastructure throughout the Championship.

That could also influence how the next generation of USL stadiums is built. Forbes has reported on conversations around modular seating and expandable facilities capable of growing with a club. Several organizations are already further along. Louisville City has formally applied for Premier and plays at Lynn Family Stadium, which lists a total capacity above 15,000. Detroit City is building the 15,000-seat AlumniFi Field, scheduled to open in 2028. Sacramento Republic FC moved away from its original roughly 12,000-seat phased Railyards plan and is now developing a stadium with more than 20,000 seats from opening day, also targeted for 2028.

The three clubs offer different examples of what preparing for Premier can look like. Louisville already has much of its infrastructure in place, Detroit is building around the current Division One threshold, and Sacramento has chosen to build beyond it. Those are significant commitments to USL’s future, but they also highlight one of the fundamental questions surrounding the entire project: how many clubs throughout the system will realistically have the resources to make similar investments?

That question has become harder to ignore because club instability has continued even as USL lays out its most ambitious plans yet. San Diego Loyal and Rio Grande Valley FC ceased operations after 2023, Memphis 901 FC followed after 2024, and South Georgia Tormenta FC withdrew its professional team from the 2026 League One season only weeks before it was scheduled to begin. Tormenta’s situation was particularly jarring because players had already relocated and prepared for the season before being informed the club would not compete. The USL Players Association said league headquarters had been aware of financial instability at the club, adding another layer to questions about how clubs are monitored and supported.

North Carolina FC presents a different kind of uncertainty. The club did not simply fold. Its Championship franchise agreement concluded after 2025 and the organization stopped competing while its ownership redirected resources toward a Division One application and the stadium infrastructure necessary to support it. The stated goal is to return at a higher level, but for supporters in Raleigh the immediate result is still a period without men’s professional soccer while the club attempts to position itself for Premier.

Those examples are part of why the recently approved revenue-sharing model could prove to be one of the least flashy but most consequential changes USL has made. The exact distribution formula has not been made public, but clubs now have a defined mechanism to participate in the growth of national league revenue. That matters considerably more when ownership groups are being asked to think about larger stadiums, training facilities, player budgets and front-office operations.

It could also address one of the structural criticisms that has followed USL. Historically, clubs have depended heavily on their own local ticketing, sponsorship and commercial operations while receiving relatively little from national league revenues. ESPN reported in 2025 that media-rights revenue reaching clubs was limited and that the league office itself was losing money, according to multiple sources. The new revenue-sharing agreement represents a meaningful change to that relationship, although its impact cannot really be judged until more is known about the size of the revenues being shared.

The challenge becomes even more complicated with promotion and relegation. A Premier club cannot build an operation that becomes unsustainable after one season in the Championship, while a Championship club should not need to gamble its future simply to prepare for the possibility of promotion. If the financial difference between the two divisions becomes too large, relegation could threaten precisely the stability USL is now trying to build.

Revenue sharing could become one mechanism for softening those differences, particularly if growing national revenues benefit clubs throughout the system rather than being concentrated entirely in Premier. USL will have to make promotion valuable without making it prohibitively expensive and make relegation consequential without making it financially destructive. That balance may ultimately be more important to the sustainability of the system than the number of clubs moving between divisions each season.

The new CBA provides another layer of stability, although the agreement should not be viewed without the context of how difficult it was to reach. Negotiations began in August 2024 and continued after the previous agreement expired at the end of 2025. Players authorized a potential strike, and the 2026 Championship season opened with players standing motionless for the first minute of matches in protest of the stalled negotiations. At one point, the league sent players information regarding their rights to cross a potential picket line and resign from the USLPA, a communication the union publicly characterized as an attempt to undermine it.

The eventual agreement is substantial precisely because of those disputes. It runs through 2030, meaning Premier will launch with its labor framework already established. Championship players move to standardized 12-month contracts, clubs must offer qualifying health insurance, medical standards are expanded and minimum base compensation is $42,000 in 2026, inclusive of housing or a housing stipend, with scheduled increases. Premier’s standards are already included, with minimum base compensation beginning at $67,500 in 2028 and players receiving expanded commercial rights and participation in certain revenues involving their likenesses.

For players, those changes establish considerably clearer employment standards. For clubs and prospective investors, the agreement also creates predictability around labor costs through Premier’s first three seasons. The contentious negotiations that preceded it are a reminder that the interests of players, owners and the league will not always align, but having those standards established before Premier launches removes one significant uncertainty from 2028.

That certainty, combined with revenue sharing, could make USL more attractive to larger and more patient investors. BellTower Partners brought institutional capital into the league for the first time in 2025, while Weatherford Capital, Advaya Capital, family offices and other investors have joined the broader investment base. At the same time, projects in Sacramento and Detroit show individual ownership groups making commitments at a scale that would have looked considerably different during earlier periods of USL’s growth.

The investment proposition is changing with it. An owner is no longer necessarily investing in a lower-division club whose ceiling is largely defined by its market and league designation. The potential future includes a pathway to Division One, participation in national revenue growth, established labor standards and the possibility that a club can increase its sporting and commercial position through performance. None of that removes the risks of professional soccer ownership, and recent club departures make clear those risks remain very real, but it provides a clearer argument for long-term investment.

Media rights may be the next major piece. ESPN has been central to USL’s growth as a national broadcast property, while the addition of CBS Sports expanded the league’s reach across CBS Sports Network, CBS Sports Golazo Network, Paramount+ and the CBS broadcast network. With the current CBS agreement running through 2027, the next media cycle arrives alongside the planned launch of Premier.

Nothing has been announced tying Premier to CBS, and USL’s future media package remains an open question. The product going to market, however, could look considerably different. A Division One league connected to promotion and relegation, playing in increasingly ambitious soccer-specific stadiums and featuring established clubs across the country gives USL a different story to take to broadcasters. If that produces a more valuable agreement, the new revenue-sharing model gives the league a mechanism for turning national commercial growth into club-level investment.

Inevitably, that ambition raises another question: is USL trying to compete with MLS?

The creation of another sanctioned Division One league means comparisons are unavoidable. Premier would operate at the same U.S. Soccer classification as MLS, and promotion and relegation gives USL an obvious point of differentiation from the closed MLS structure. USL President and CEO Paul McDonough has talked about bringing top-tier soccer to more cities and states rather than limiting it to the country’s largest markets, while MLS has publicly said it welcomes continued growth in the North American game.

That does not necessarily mean USL needs to match MLS in attendance, franchise valuations, player spending, media revenue or overall popularity for Premier to succeed. Nor has USL established that it will reach that scale. The more immediate question is whether USL can build a sustainable alternative around a different model: greater club autonomy, more markets with access to Division One and sporting movement between divisions.

Trying to recreate MLS would arguably miss what makes the project interesting in the first place. The opportunity for USL is to find out whether there is room in American soccer for two Division One systems built around fundamentally different ideas. MLS has spent three decades developing a closed, single-entity competition with enormous investment in expansion markets, stadiums and player development. USL is proposing something structurally different, with independent clubs and a pathway connecting three professional divisions. Whether that difference translates into substantially greater audiences and investment remains one of the biggest unanswered questions surrounding Premier.

This is where all of USL’s recent moves begin to look less like separate announcements and more like pieces of the same plan. Better stadiums can improve the television product, stronger distribution can increase sponsorship value, and additional national revenue can support further club investment. Revenue sharing can give clubs a greater stake in that national growth, while the CBA provides clearer standards for the players whose labor makes the system possible. Promotion and relegation then gives ambitious clubs a sporting mechanism to move upward rather than waiting for an expansion opportunity.

There is no guarantee it works. Recent club instability demonstrates how difficult the economics remain, the CBA negotiations exposed significant tension between the league and its players, and the financial mechanics of promotion and relegation in the American market are largely untested at this scale. Stadium standards still have to be reconciled with sporting movement, the inaugural Premier membership remains unknown, and the value of the next media agreement could dramatically affect how much money is available to share.

Those concerns do not necessarily contradict the direction USL is moving. In many ways, they explain it. Revenue sharing matters because clubs need stronger financial foundations. An established CBA matters because Premier needs labor stability. Institutional investment matters because building a national Division One league is expensive. New stadiums matter because clubs need infrastructure capable of supporting greater attendance and commercial revenue. The instability USL has experienced is part of the reason these changes are so consequential.

By 2028, Louisville could enter Premier with its stadium already standing, Detroit could open a new 15,000-seat home and Sacramento could move into a stadium built beyond the current Division One threshold. Players will be operating under a labor agreement extending through Premier’s first three seasons, owners will be participating in a new national revenue-sharing structure, and USL could be entering a new media-rights cycle with a fundamentally different product to sell.

Premier and promotion and relegation will get most of the headlines, but their success may depend far more on everything USL builds around them. The league’s recent history offers plenty of reasons to question how easily any of this can be accomplished, and the next two years will test whether the ambition can be matched by sustainable economics.

The bigger project is not simply creating another Division One league or attempting to become another MLS. It is determining whether USL can build a professional soccer ecosystem strong enough to support its own model, one in which clubs can invest for the long term, survive movement between divisions and ultimately determine on the field just how high they can climb.