USL adopts promotion/relegation, Virginia Dream Cupset Richmond, and more: Thursday Freedom Kicks
It’s the best day of the year for me! It’s the first day of the NCAA Tournament AND it’s Concacaf Nations League time! And here’s are my two worlds colliding together in the best way!
Before I park in front of a TV for the rest of the weekend, here is the news:
USL officially will have promotion/relegation beginning in 2028 when their 1st division league begins. They’re going to have to provide more details on how they plan to stabilize their 3 leagues to make this something that can sustain as well as where the extra investment will come from. But, this will get a nice buzz of discussion.
Cupset!! Virginia Dream got the major Cupset last night, beating the Richmond Kickers in the opening round of the U.S. Open Cup.
Loudoun United also got a victory in U.S. Open Cup play, defeating West Chester United SC 3-2.
Finally…the Burrito Boys!! El Farolito beat Real Monarchs 3-1 in extra time to get the major Cupset!
2025 Concacaf Nations League Preview: USA vs. Panama – Glimpses of latent greatness (SSFC)
The USMNT take on Panama tonight, and it should be another match filled with wild moments. It’s the Concacaf Nations League way!
USA Soccercast, Episode 151: USMNT seek to hold onto the Concacaf Nations League trophy (SSFC)
On the latest USA Soccercast episode, I break down the updated roster and discuss how the USMNT can win the CNL Finals and once again lift the trophy.
Bethany Balcer announced yesterday that she was taking a break from soccer. Hopefully she’s able to take the time for herself and recalibrate in the way she feels she needs.
Denver NWSL announces plan for first women’s soccer-dedicated stadium in Colorado (AFXI)
Denver’s new NWSL team will play in a 14.5K seat stadium just south of downtown Denver. The stadium will be built by 2028, but it still feels like these teams are thinking way too small with their stadium capacities and not accounting for any growth.
López, Dumornay, Shaw lead best U21 women’s soccer players (ESPN)
Lily Yohannes is 10th on this list, which is 9 spots too low. Jaedyn Shaw (5th) and Ally Sentnor (7th) also make the list.
Jamie Vardy paid $0 to become owner of doomed Rochester franchise (PSW)
Jamie Vardy’s part ownership of the Rochester Rhinos came with a price tag that would be just right for anyone: $0. Wish I coulda received a similar deal from a club.
See you all this weekend at Audi Field for the Spirit home opener. Let’s Go Duke.
At the kickers game last night, watching VA Dream play was impressive. They are mostly a counter-attacking team with a lot of good players. They do have weak links that can be exploited, but the Kickers coach did a terrible job identifying them. They seem to understand the physicality that is needed in this tournament too and completely bossed most of the Kickers players. Good for them, was fun to see.
Hell, I paid more than Vardy to be a Founder of Nashville FC. And look where they’ve ended up under my “stewardship!”
Hard to fault the Denver NWSL team for building at 14,500 when there’s still only one soccer-specific MLS stadium that’s been built at 30,000 capacity.
I dunno that anyone’s asking for NWSL teams to think about 30K seat capacities, but 20-22K seems to be a nice number. That allows for growth with some teams as well as for big women’s sports events, like the USWNT. When the USWNT comes to Denver, they’re still going to go to the Rapids stadium because they can sell more seats there (same with KC and the Current’s small capacity). That shouldn’t be the case, and it feels like a capitulation to the thought that they feel their ceiling is smaller.
Yeah, I was saying that MLS teams should probably be thinking in the 30,000 capacity, but only one has so far.
There’s still the opportunity for Michelle Kang to beat everyone to the RFK site and show the country what women’s soccer can do.
I think the city wants the commanders way too much for that to happen
Gang, the budget/CR that was just passed puts the RFK site in jeopardy now.
Last I heard, the only thing the Dems got out of agreeing to cloture was that there’d be easy passage of a vote that returns funding to DC more or less fully.
So, I’m guessing that will not happen, in terms of defunding the city.
Overall, I’d be surprised if these politicians didn’t manage to preserve funding for the city where they work and have places to live. The billion in cuts, I’m pretty sure, is not gonna stand.
That said, sounds like it’s passed the senate, and the house has to finalize it next week. They crazy, and then it has to be signed. Still, I think this threat, while real, was mainly made up as a negotiating tactic for what they in fact successfully got
There was a bit of a discussion of USL’s promotion/relegation decision, but only a few people saw it, I think.
Does anyone else think that this is a big gamble by USL that only pleases the most hardcore of Pro/Rel advocates in the US? It will create a ripple effect, but it would frankly take a tsunami to shake MlS’s financial and public recognition advantage.
I also don’t see MLS being pressured into creating their own pro/rel pyramid. From inception and at every layer, MLS is about appeasing and courting owners with the prospect of having a first division team in and American city that can compete for MLS cup every year. The stadiums and clubs are so valuable because of the lack of risk.
The news story for USL is arguably not even big enough to usher in a significant number of fans, if anything, I imagine there will be fans who realize their club is relegated, and find it shitty and unamerican, rightly or wrongly.
In short, USL might be going for a game changing blow to MLS, but my bet is they punch themselves instead.
I’m equally unsure about how seismic this initiative will be for those who think pro/rel will fix soccer. An ideal scenario would be that a club can start small and gain grassroots recognition, then move up as it grows. But the US is not a patient country, especially when it comes to money. Pro/rel has a long history everywhere else and is entrenched. We’re sort of trying to force it?
Yeah, I’d argue the carrot of being a top flight USL club (whoo?) is not remotely worth the stick of relegation for these organizations.
I think this is pretty much where I’m at. I saw that some people like Pablo Maurer were excited for it and saying that it was a good thing that would help, and I generally really respect Pablo’s opinions on the sport, but I guess I just don’t really see how it does. With my first ever experience with soccer being through MLS (Children’s National Hospital hosted diabetic children and their families at a DC United game back in ~2003. My parents and I didn’t even know how long the game lasted since the clock was counting upwards), I never really grew overly attached to any European teams. I can understand the excitement it may bring to lower division teams that could get promoted, but everything else about it seems not great, at best. The relegated teams lose tons of money and a lot of their players more often than not, which just makes them struggle even more the next year in the lower league.
I also feel like the Eurosnobs/pro-rel people (lets be honest, these are mostly the same people) in the US probably aren’t even fans of fringe teams. They just like the big names like Man City, Bayern, Madrid, etc that never have any chance of being relegated. And even they tried to break away to form their own Super League that didn’t even have relegation, so they’re actively trying to get rid of it. And I feel like in most cases, its the same 5 or so teams that just yo-yo back and forth between leagues, unless you have something like RB Leipzig where billionaires invest in a really low level team, stack it with top-level talent, and then just shoot up the ladder.
I don’t think the American teams are really deep enough to deal with pro/rel either. Most MLS teams are 1 or 2 injuries away from finishing last, but they could just as well finish last one season and win MLS cup the next. Just look at the Galaxy in 2023 and 2024. They would have been relegated after 2023 if MLS had relegation, but they made changes and went out and won the league the following year. No teams in MLS are purposefully bad either, like we see in other US major sports, since tanking for draft picks really doesn’t help you all that much in MLS. You’re generally not going to find a world-beater at the number 1 draft pick. Generally speaking, most teams have at least a shot at getting into the playoffs until the last couple weeks of the season anyway, so even teams at the bottom here generally have something to play for.
I can also see the TV rights deal for pro-rel getting complicated. Having to switch entire platforms based on how well your team does would get annoying. I think Americans are also just more used to having cheap, more accessible local minor league sports and more expensive, less accessible regional major league sports. If teams get promoted, ticket prices to their games and everything else will inevitably go up, which could very much price out their fans.
I genuinely hope this works out for USL. I think having USL and its entire pyramid is important to the US soccer landscape, but I share your fear that this could end up being them shooting themselves and making it more unstable. Though I guess we’ll have to see.
You make an excellent point about the Eurosnob gebronies not remotely being interested in being a part of a handful of fans going to these venues and rooting for these teams.
The more I think about it, for pro/rel to be worth it for organizations, you need a promised land, and there’s just not the financial incentive for clubs to kill themselves trying to be the top of the USL pyramid. Where are the staggeringly lucrative tv deals? The acclaim? The potential for massive tournament qualification? Nowhere.
“The relegated teams lose tons of money and a lot of their players more often than not”
I think you vastly overestimate the sums of money here for USL teams, and I suspect the difference between one tier or the next won’t be very large
Oh yeah for sure, that was in reference to the European leagues specifically. It will definitely be much less for USL than for the Premier League and other big European leagues. But there would still be some amount of loss. I think its the Athletic article that notes that most USL teams get most of their money off of ticket sales and concessions. But at some point, that’s not going to be enough to sustain a Division One league if they actually want to be competitive
On my pod (USA Soccercast), I have an episode coming out tomorrow that addresses the P/R news from USL. I interview my friend who covers USL League One and discuss some of the main concerns that exist with this gamble. Shameless plug, I know, but check back tomorrow morning and it will be live!
I’ll take this as my hint to pop it into tomorrow’s FKs.