By Paul Tenorio / The Athletic
The United Soccer League (USL) is set to introduce an elite men’s professional league, with the aim of expanding its presence in the United States and increasing the availability of top-tier soccer across North America.
The USL currently fields two professional leagues: the second-division USL Championship and third-division USL League One. It now intends to have a 12- or 14-team first-division league up and running in 2027-28 that would operate as a separate and competing Division 1 entity from Major League Soccer.
USL President Paul McDonough said this was a natural next step for the league as it studied how to expand its impact after the 2026 men’s World Cup, which the United States, Canada and Mexico will co-host.
“It’s a key moment for soccer in this country, and as we see where this game is going, we want to be a part of it,” McDonough said in an interview with The Athletic. “Taking this big initiative allows for the growth of the game throughout the country.”
The move to start a first division would give the USL a full three-tier pyramid that would make possible promotion and relegation, which McDonough and the USL have outlined as a long-term goal for the league. The USL would be the first U.S. sports league to institute promotion and relegation.
“We’ve been very public about trying to get there,” McDonough said, adding: “We’re not there yet, but we’ll continue to push forward with it.”
McDonough, who previously held executive roles with MLS teams in Orlando, Florida, Atlanta and Miami, said USL leaders feel strongly that the country can support more first-division teams. He pointed out that Europe has hundreds of first-division men’s soccer clubs, while the United States has only 30 with MLS. That number follows similar footprints for North American professional men’s sports leagues, but McDonough said there are many more markets capable of supporting professional teams.
“If soccer in the country is truly going to grow, it’s going to grow outside of 30 or 32 markets,” McDonough said.
U.S. Soccer’s pro league standards for men’s leagues require Division 1 outfits to have at least 12 teams, located across the Eastern, Central and Pacific time zones, with at least 75% of the teams playing in metropolitan markets of at least 1 million people. All league stadiums must be enclosed with a minimum seating capacity of 15,000. The league must also meet several levels of financial viability, including ownership groups that can demonstrate the financial capability to operate a team for five years. A first-division league must also have a broadcast contract, full-time team staff for each club and a full-time league operations staff.
The USL is the first to attempt a U.S.-based first-division league separate from MLS since the North American Soccer League in 2016. A jury recently ruled in favor of U.S. Soccer and MLS in an antitrust lawsuit filed by the NASL, which has since gone out of business, contending that the league and federation conspired to keep the NASL from receiving Division 1 sanctioning.
McDonough said the court decision did not affect the USL strategy to push for a top-flight league. The USL commissioned a study with consultancy firm Twenty First Group several years ago to study how it could differentiate itself in the marketplace. That study offered three options, which included promotion and relegation and a move for first-division sanctioning.
McDonough said the USL waited for the NASL trial to conclude before moving forward with its plans.
“We probably were ready to go with this sooner, but with everything pending with U.S. Soccer, we just put it on hold until it was resolved,” McDonough said. “But we have to get going, so now’s the time.”
USL executives met with U.S. Soccer to go over their plans, McDonough said, and “at this stage, there’s no pushback from U.S. Soccer.”
“We shared our plan and our vision with them,” he said. “They were very good and asked what they could do to help.”
Notably, the USL recently launched a first-division women’s soccer league, the USL Super League, which operates separately from the NWSL, the other first-division women’s league in the United States. The Super League began play in August and is in the midst of its first season, with eight teams competing.
USL owners were informed of the decision about the new first division last Wednesday. The expectation is that multiple teams will move from the USL Championship into the new first-division league, including markets such as Louisville, Kentucky; Sacramento, California; Indianapolis; Phoenix; and Las Vegas.
Those USL Championship markets have previously either been directly wooed by MLS — Sacramento was announced as an MLS expansion team in 2019 before the prospective owner, Ron Burkle, pulled out of the agreement — or have had open flirtations in the case of Indianapolis, Phoenix and Las Vegas.
“What’s naturally happened for us over our conversations with owners is there is a desire for a higher standard, and we’ve leaned into that,” McDonough said. “When you look at the size of the country, and you look at what can happen in a place like Louisville or Albuquerque, New Mexico, where they’re doing so well with attendance and growing the game, our feeling is that if we can execute this well, with the size of our country, this can help soccer by providing more top-tier soccer in markets that traditionally wouldn’t see it.”
McDonough said the goal is to build out infrastructure with soccer-specific stadiums and to increase the level of play in the league. He pointed to the success of soccer-specific stadiums in markets such as Louisville and Colorado Springs, Colorado, as well as pending projects in Indianapolis and Sacramento, as evidence of markets ready to support a more ambitious offering.
“Stadiums change the whole dynamic of the business model, so having the proper stadium and training facilities is really, really important for us,” McDonough said. “And we need more owners with that ambition to drive the game forward.”
The USL also operates differently than MLS. USL owners run teams as separate businesses, while MLS uses a single-entity system in which team owners are partners in the league business. The USL also operates without a salary cap and other restrictions such as academy territories, which give MLS teams vast control over youth players in their respective markets.
“We want to try to be as close to the global game as possible,” McDonough said.
The USL will make a push to find investors for new first-division markets, and fewer restrictions and a cheaper expansion fee might be appealing to foreign stakeholders looking for an entry point into the American marketplace. As a comparison, owners of MLS’s 30th and most recent team, San Diego FC, paid a $500 million expansion fee.
The USL also believes its history is evidence that its markets are capable of first-division success. Seven former USL teams have gone on to have healthy launches as MLS expansion teams, including Seattle; Portland, Oregon; Orlando; and Cincinnati.
“By uniting people through soccer and bringing Division 1 to more cities,” USL CEO Alec Papadakis said in a statement, “we’re not just growing the sport — we’re creating lasting opportunities while building a more sustainable and vibrant soccer ecosystem in the U.S.”
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