United Soccer League plans to bring promotion and relegation to its growing pyramid of soccer leagues, the league confirmed today following an initial report from The Athletic's Paul Tenorio.

Likely starting in 2028, the league will introduce promotion and relegation to coincide with the launch of the organization's new Division I-sanctioned men's league. USL owners held a vote on the issue this week and a supermajority approved the plan.

The new USL Division One league will sit atop the league's pyramid above the Division II USL Championship and Division III USL League One, with teams then promoted and relegated between the three competitions.

One thing to keep in mind is by the time this new division comes online, the Dallas market will be in the USL structure (more thoughts on that element in a bit).

The challenges ahead

There are plenty of questions involving this move, the two biggest from today include who will be in the new Division One on launch day, as well as the specifics of how USL will implement its version of promotion and relegation. So far, there is no detail on how many teams face the drop each season, the financial implications of going up or down the pyramid, etc.

The who in this equation is going to be very tricky for the USL to sort out over the next couple of years. They will have to comply with the USSF's Pro League Standards (PLS). Division one requirements in the PLS include market size (must be 1 million plus) and stadium capacity (must be 15k or larger).

The league currently has plenty of clubs in the million-plus metro size but they're no where near the stadium requirements. Even quality owned clubs in places like El Paso or Lexington will struggle to meet the stadium requirements.

The bigger question in my mind outside of the PLS issues is the actual method of doing promotion and relegation. Overseas, it is typically three up and three down each season. But that may not be doable on day one in the USL. As John Morrissey states over at Backheeled on this topic, the regional aspect of the USL is going to be a big problem to sort out in this structure.

Maybe the USL adopts a single-table model at each step on the pyramid, but a few years of pro-rel could create wildly imbalanced divisions in a geographic sense – and that’s a problem when, say, Spokane or Boise has to travel 2,000 miles to Florida every other week.

That screams early days of MLS in a way to me that I don't ever want to go back to in any league in the US.

One of the next items before they even launch this system is sorting out the stadium situations across the league in places where a club is playing in a baseball stadium or a less-than-ideal set up.

There are some great venues in this league already like in Louisville, potentially in Sacramento when their new stadium gets built, Oakland (yeah, I'm including them as I think they'll do really well in the Coliseum now that both the Raiders and As are gone), and Colorado Springs.

But there are some not-so-great venues in the league as well. El Paso, New Mexico United and Las Vegas all come to mind.

I do think once the stadium situation is sorted out or at least given a pass by the USSF on the PLS front, this league could be very attractive. You don't need massive 50k seat stadiums to do well, as long as you are consistently selling out a 15-20k seat stadiums.

The last challenge ahead is how the league plans to market this to the TV networks. Currently, the USL doesn't earn higher TV or stream numbers than its big brother MLS. They are growing though in a positive direction. In 2024, the USL aired three matches on CBS and drew an average of 359,000 viewers to each broadcast.

Still, the revenue from a TV deal is going to likely make or break this new structure almost more than how the new system will work for the league. If they can find a way to be on over the air TV more through partners like CBS, FOX and say even an NBC, it could set the league up for success.

Final thoughts

On one hand, I give it up to the USL for giving this a go and become the first American sports league to have promotion and relegation. In a way it feels very marketing-type right now. It grabs headlines and even gets someone like me, who primarily focuses on a single club, to discuss it.

But on the other hand, I think the challenges it faces to get going are going to be tough hills to climb. I do think they'll get there in the end, but it may be at the cost of some very good clubs in their local markets. Let's not forget, the USL has a long history of new clubs coming in only to go away in a few years time (and I'm not referring to the ones MLS poached).

And from that, I also think that for this system to truly work. There needs to be a difference in the class of talent and clubs between Division One and the Championship. Reskinning a group of USL-C clubs as Division One today doesn’t do anything for me if the talent is the same. I think the fans watching will feel the same over time with this if the talent levels don’t improve drastically.

Last thought, will it truly take away from what FC Dallas and MLS are doing locally?

Nope. Almost a hard stop on that respond for me, too.

My gut tells me this gets some folks excited up front but in the long run it won't really move the needle to drastically change the soccer landscape in the US. You'll more than likely just have a split group of fans of those who want the higher level (which I believe MLS will be for a while) and those who want the European model (ie: what USL is going to be doing). Some true sickos will love what USL is doing while the common everyday soccer fan won't know or even care that it is taking place.

I also don't think MLS needs to do anything special to react to this kind of news. I think their potential shift to the fall-spring calendar will likely be enough to silence some critics down the road.

I am still eager to see how the team in Garland gets set up. Do they enter day one as a Division One team or will they have to work their way up? I'd kind of like to see them have to work their way up out of the gate instead of being placed in that division because of their market size and stadium capacity.

But like everything with the USL, we'll see.