In February, the USL announced that it would be expanding and creating a Division One soccer league, setting the launch for 2027-2028. A month later, the league announced that “a supermajority of club owners voted to implement a promotion and relegation system” that would include the new Division One level, paired with the existing Championship and League One levels.

The true numbers of the vote and how each club voted have been kept private by the league.

In the press release, USL CEO Alec Papadakis spoke glowingly about the move:

“A new chapter in American soccer begins. The decision by our owners to approve and move forward with this bold direction is a testament to their commitment to the long-term growth of soccer in the United States.”

The move has been, for the most part, well-received by the majority of soccer fans in the country.

But while pro/rel is often used as a rhetorical panacea for any and all issues in the American system, the implementation of such a system has never been attempted on an existing professional league system. Both regional and local leagues have long-used the system, but American professional leagues had, up to this point, resisted the call to join the rest of the soccer-playing world.

MLS has long benefited from rapidly escalating expansion fees. In 2004, now-defunct Chivas USA paid $7.5 million to join MLS, compared with the most recent expansion club, San Diego FC, which paid a staggering $500 million. When that kind of money is getting spent to join a league, the prospect of dropping to a lower level just isn’t palatable for most investors. In 2023, MLS commissioner Don Garber was asked about the prospect of pro/rel in MLS, and his answer stifled whatever hope existed among fans of the mechanism:

“We play in a country where the major leagues are really successful. There is no promotion and relegation in hockey and basketball and they work really well. It is not happening in MLS any time soon.”

It’s clear that USL has spotted a potential differentiator and is betting the farm on it.

Adding a Division One league and adding promotion/relegation within the USL system the next season will certainly set the USL apart from MLS or any other national league. But with big changes on the horizon, clubs within the USL must quickly decide on their preferred level, as infrastructure, roster, and organizational investments have to be made. The ramp is short and scaling up has to happen rapidly.

Due to the calcified nature of the American pyramid, few clubs have made the jump from one level to the next, let alone twice. But there is at least one that can claim that distinction and the lessons it learned along that path will be invaluable for the myriad situations facing clubs throughout a USL league system on the cusp of massive change.

Think Like a Startup

When Sean Mann sits down for an interview, he gives the immediate impression that he’s not going to say anything he isn’t 100% confident about. His hair, a mess of salt and pepper hair forever in need of trimming, constantly drifts into his face as he talks, almost as if he’s some sort of mad scientist who can’t be bothered to deal with mundane things like haircuts. He’s got more important things to do, like running the darling of lower league soccer, Detroit City Football Club. As one of the club’s founders and the current CEO, Mann has seen the good and bad of American soccer, at every level except top tier (though that might change in the very near future).

“It’s been a hell of a journey, to say the least. We were a classic NPSL startup. For the first three years, it was just me and the other founders and their wives, girlfriends and friends doing the work.” Those first three years were busy enough to push the club into bringing on its first full-time staffer.