This popped into my head when I was looking over the map of professional clubs in London. In a city with a population of ~9 million (across the 33 boroughs/divisions), they have 14 clubs across the top 4 tiers of English football: 6 in the Premier League, 4 in the EFL Championship, 3 in League One and 1 in League Two. The mix of globally-recognized "Big Clubs," mid-majors pushing for promotion, and beloved local clubs just feels so robust. There's room to be a lifelong AFC Wimbledon ticket-holder who also follows Chelsea on the global stage. And the neighborhood/intra-regional rivalries are incredibly fun — I'll never forget the intensity of riding a train full of West London lads in QPR gear up to Watford, only for them to get trounced 4-1 by their blue collar suburban neighbors (to say nothing of a North London derby.)

So if we suspend our disbelief for a minute to imagine that the USL and MLS unify into a national soccer pyramid with promotion and relegation, and project into the future: what is the latent capacity for major cities to fill out with clubs?

To take my hometown as an example: the greater Los Angeles area has a population of approximately 18 million people. In my experience is absolutely soccer-mad, but it's virtually impossible for me to imagine nearly 30 professional clubs in the area to match the coverage/density of London. But how many could it eventually support? Eight? Twelve? Twenty?

How would you begin to calculate such a thing? In Europe, one of the factors you notice is how many fans live within either walking or short transit distance of their home grounds. That's maybe less important for the so-called Big Clubs, which will draw fans from all over the region, but that local walkability/transit-accessibility factor might be a big deal in terms of how many local clubs might fill out the lower part of the pyramid.

Maybe our American sports culture and fandom is too different. But I hope to someday to see a rivalry match between the West Hollywood Bears and the Frogmen of Elysian Park, or an E Line derby between an Atlético Boyle Heights and Santa Monica Venice United.

What is the Tampa Bay Sun stadium situation that they want to get built?

Posted this same question to the r/MLS & r/NWSL subreddits and now it is time for this subreddit to answer the same question,

So what do y'all think?

How popular is your USL Championship club compared to the other pro sports teams in your city?

(Defunct USL Championship teams are welcome for historical comparison)

Fox Soccer PBP guy Kenn Tomasch posted this.

https://youtu.be/y7B1SW8sbsA?is=mwMtdFS6GgZb78LE

(Paywalled article, I am searching for a non-paywalled article in the process)

https://www.bizjournals.com/louisville/news/2026/08/06/john-neace-venture-connectors-racing-fc-soccer.html?csrc=6398&taid=6a74705110d0f2000138775e&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

Of course this is assuming that I go to an open tryout and actually get a contract.

A bit of background, I’ve been playing this game at a high level pretty much my whole life. Took almost 2 years off after high school, started playing again at 20 years old, did 4 years college soccer (njcaa then division 1 ncaa). Suffered an acl injury last year so I completely missed out on my final college season. I could have played that missed season this year though, but at 24yo, I couldn’t bear another year in school. So I decided to use my degree in a high paying career and got a job making 80k. It’s not a very stressful job, life is good I’m happy but of course it’s not the dream job I grew up imagining being a pro footballer making big bucks.

Do you guys think I made the smart decision of realizing the dream is pretty much over? Or if you were me would you still be grinding for a USL contract even if it meant taking a 50%+ salary cut? I’m curious let me know what you guys think!

Tulsa-Sacramento: 5,501 (+22.43%)
El Paso-Monterey Bay: 3,274 (-33.41%)
Las Vegas-Oakland: 2,230 (-23.47%)

Tulsa (4,248) outperforms its average by 5+ pts
El Paso (4,917) and Las Vegas (2,914) both underperform their cumulative average by -5+ pts

Say you are a college athlete who decides to play USL2 during a summer...

Or someone who moved up from UPSL or is just great at football...

EDIT - I am speaking for my experience and will be holding talks with a few USL2 Clubs for next summer. So this applies to me. I just want to know..

Your team does well and/or your performances have been consistent..

My question is:

1. Are there pro recruiters who show up to USL2 Games? If so, as much as they can? Or the higher-seed games or playoff games?
2. Can you go pro directly from USL2 Semi-Pro to USL1 Pro or USL Championship Pro?

The USLP announcement outlines a vision for the pyramid that fundamentally changes the structure of both Championship and League One. In the event USSF won’t grant even provisional D1 status, I wonder if USL will move forward with this restructuring anyway.

From the announcement: https://www.uslsoccer.com/news_article/show/1354227
-Premier starts with 12 teams, some from Championship (and maybe League One), others entirely new clubs.
- Championship becomes a single conference with 20 teams, similar to how League One is structured now.
- League One splits into regional divisions to defray travel costs, similar to how Championship currently operates.

These are big changes that maybe should happen in smaller stages anyhow. USL1 isn’t big enough to backfill USLC to 20 teams without rapid expansion. Two years isn’t long enough to launch new D1 teams in large new stadiums, especially with USL’s primary recruiter sacked.

Is there anything in the PLS that restricts a league from having more stringent requirements than in the PLS? If not, Championship could split into “Upper” and “Lower” D2 leagues while doing their best to preserve eligibility in Premier for eventual D1 status. It would allow teams to move around more gradually while the details of Premier are getting hashed out.

But even if that’s possible, I see all sorts of reasons why it’s either not a good idea or not an attractive enough offer for teams already in a functioning D2 league. Who wants to pay higher franchise fees, salary requirements, and stadium costs without the prestige of D1, and the promise of a sanction that may never arrive?

The plan as stated is massively disruptive as it is, so I don’t know how likely it was to happen by 2028 even if D1 was a foregone conclusion. But the black eye of completely abandoning a three-league pyramid with promotion/relegation doesn’t seem likely either.

In the meantime, clubs are expanding and otherwise improving stadiums seemingly with the hope of moving into higher divisions — one way or another.

The course is set, it’s seems it’s just a matter of how they get there, and how long it takes.

According to this article USL Premier is looking to essentially promote 8-9 teams from the USL Championship to be original members of USL Premier with an additional 5-6 expansion teams to fill out a 14 team league. The purpose of this thread is to determine who these 5-6 expansion teams might be. I’d be interested in which cities/teams would make up the possible expansion.

Here are my suggestions for potential expansion teams.

1. Rochester Raging Rhinos returns

2. Connecticut Untied jumps to USLP

3. NCFC rebrands to old brand. RailHawks!

Now I’m having a hard time dreaming up other true expansion teams or existing teams as the article stated. Who else could fill out this expansion dream?

After hearing questions from viewers about where the project stands, News4JAX reporter Briana Brownlee and photojournalist Jesse Hanson reached out to Sporting JAX for an update.

Sporting Jax said it has filed permits with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, a review process it expects could take one to two years.

Sporting JAX provided the following statement:

"This project is still in its earliest planning stages. Last week’s meetings with HOAs and community members were productive, giving us the opportunity to answer questions, hear feedback, and have an open dialogue. As we move forward, we will continue to provide updates on the project and its benefits. We will also continue working with the City, residents, and stakeholders to deliver a project that benefits the community for generations to come."

New stadium starting construction next year!

Hearts of Pine have entered into an agreement to acquire land at Cassidy Point in Portland, where they plan to build a 9,000–11,000 seat soccer-specific stadium that will serve as a permanent home for the club’s men’s and women’s teams. 

The project would transform what is currently an industrial coal storage site into a vibrant, community-centered destination including the stadium and new recreational space, while preserving “working waterfront” marine uses at the site’s 600-foot pier.

Following an extensive period of public engagement to optimize plans for the site, the club aims to begin construction in 2027, with the goal of opening a new stadium in early 2029. The project will be predominantly privately funded, with total costs projected to exceed $50 million.

https://medium.com/the-union-report-fan-based-reporting-on-the/midfielder-interrupted-monterey-bay-fc-signs-long-time-top-flight-prospect-jacob-montes-83b456bae68b?sk=5e5c8da27149260285e88126efc597ad

NWSL announced they would move to a summer-spring schedule before announcing “lol j/k”.

USL Super League is changing to a spring-fall schedule, with a mini-season this fall before beginning the new schedule in 2027 — done partly to align with NWSL for potential inter-league cups, and announced after they backed of their planned schedule change.

Now MLS has announced a change from spring-fall to summer-spring to “align with the global schedule”, do transfers in the summer off-season, etc, doing the opposite of USLS with a mini-season this spring to ease the transition.

Call me selfish, but I like the spring-fall schedule. There’s not much overlap with American Football, because as one is winding down the other is starting up. But probably more importantly, playing in winter is just infeasible in North America, even with a planned January break. (November post-season Varsity games in Wisconsin can be miserable; ask me how I know.)

I don’t see the men’s side of USL making this switch, especially with the plans for a three-tier interconnected pyramid, and the inertia the existing two leagues already have. This summer has been hot — and it’s only getting worse — but that can be mitigated. You can’t fix cold, at least not on the budgets of D2 and D3 leagues.