OK, I realize that the American men’s soccer pyramid features Major League Soccer at the top, the United States Soccer League Championship a step below, MLS Next, USL League One and the National Independent Soccer Association occupying the third rung on the ladder and USL League Two, NPSL, UPSL and NISA Nation representing the fourth tier.
For the purposes of this column, however, let’s pretend we’re only dealing with MLS, the USL Championship and USL League One.
Now, travel with me back in time (through research … I don’t have the budget to use cool portals like you see in big-budget movies) and visit July 30, 1988.
That’s the date that Werner Fricker, president of the United States Soccer Federation, sent out a press release that detailed his plans for professional soccer in America.
The U.S. had just been awarded the 1994 World Cup, and part of the deal with FIFA was that the country had to develop a First Division pro league. With the demise of the North American Soccer League in 1984, there was no established major circuit in operation in 1988.
Fricker’s release was chock full of details, but the one that really jumps out to me came under the heading “The Future of Pro Soccer.”
The U.S. Soccer Federation has developed a plan for the reorganization of professional soccer in the United States. The plan calls for a First, Second and Third Division professional structure, with a system of promotion and relegation that will be unique to American professional sports. Under the new system, any community in America, provided it meets the proper standards, could field a team in the new professional league.
Wow.
Had that idea come to fruition, this year in domestic pro men’s soccer would look quite different.
Using the European pro/rel model (and sticking with the alternative timeline trope), Inter Miami CF are MLS champions by virtue of having the best regular season record in the league, while the Chicago Fire FC, New England Revolution and San Jose Earthquakes suffer relegation to the USL Championship.
Louisville City FC and the Charleston Battery earn promotion to MLS from USLC, and Detroit City FC, Colorado Springs Switchbacks FC, Rhode Island FC and Memphis 901 compete in a playoff for the final MLS promotion spot.
Miami FC, El Paso Locomotive FC and Monterey Bay FC tumble to USL One, with Union Omaha and Northern Colorado celebrating promotion to the USLC and Forward Madison FC, Greenville Triumph SC, One Knoxville SC and the Charlotte Independence battling in a promotion playoff for the last 2025 spot in American soccer’s Second Division.
Pretty cool, huh?
I love the idea that a minor league team can become a major league team through sporting merit, and for a few years I spent a lot of time howling at the moon about pro/rel soccer here in America.
“If we can’t have it here,” I screamed, startling many of the customers gathered at Trader Joe’s, “then it’s not worth having at all!”
But you know what?
It’s not gonna happen – at least not in a way that truly matters.
That ship sailed, sunk and rests at the bottom of the ocean 36 years after Fricker’s bold plan.
Ask 100 people why it never came to pass and you might get 100 different answers.
For one thing, Fricker lost his USSF reelection bid to Alan Rothenberg in 1990. Rothenberg, of course, went on to chair the World Cup 1994 Organizing Committee and helped oversee the establishment of MLS, which began play in 1996.
That league works under a single entity structure with each club owned by MLS but individually operated by investors. And while most franchises lose money, they’ve increased their value substantially over what they were worth originally.
A piece in Forbes in February stated that the average MLS club is worth $658 million (LAFC became the MLS’s first $1 billion franchise last year) and the expansion fee is now $500 million, up from $200 million in 2019. That gives off something of a Ponzi scheme vibe, but I have less than $300 in my checking account, so I’m not really qualified to comment on high finance.
Recently, Forbes gave a glowing review of the current status of MLS:
Boasting a league-high 23,194 average attendance at the All-Star break, MLS announced it has welcomed 8.3 million fans to matches so far, the most in league history by date in any season. With average attendance across the league’s 29 teams averaging 94 percent of capacity with a midseason-record 153 sellouts, fans aren’t just coming to the marquee matches. Season ticket sales league-wide are up 12 percent from the same time last season, with 25 of 29 clubs seeing increases from 2023.
The point is, people who invest that kind of money aren’t doing it at the risk of seeing their clubs lose First Division status. And frankly, rank-and-file American soccer fans seem fine with that arrangement. They’re used to having champions determined by playoffs/tournaments at the close of regular seasons in all other sports, anyway.
So, the worst team in MLS this year will return to the circuit in 2025, just as the trophy lifters in the USL Championship can only hope to add more USLC hardware a year later.
Throw in the fact that pro soccer in the United States doesn’t follow an international schedule (most of the rest of the world’s leagues started play in August), and you’re basically dealing with a different sports animal.
The USL has hinted at trying pro/rel, but that would be contained within the league’s sandbox.
There are lower division leagues that do it as well but, again, it’s an in-house thing.
All this used to bother me and hindered my enjoyment of U.S. men’s pro soccer but – and I truly hate this phrase – it is what it is.
I’ve come to view MLS, USL, etc., a bit like I view the United Football League (and the USFL and XFL before it). It’s a fun product to watch in the “offseason.”
Just as the NFL and college football are my primary tackle football focus, the Bundesliga, English Premier League, Scottish Professional Football League, Serie A, La Liga and college soccer offer the brand of association football most interesting to me.
That doesn’t mean I have to ignore what’s offered in my own country.
Anyway, Fricker’s pro/rel idea was in keeping with the traditional structure of world football. Promotion playoff battles are some of the most compelling in all of sports, and I think it would’ve been glorious.
Regardless, thanks for traveling back in time with me so I could write a few hundred words about something that didn’t happen. On the bright side, it’s hard to miss what you never had.
I can’t watch soccer. I’ve been to a Dallas Burn game when they played at the Cotton Bowl before moving to their new home in Frisco and changing their name to FC Dallas (that’s where they really lost me). The outdoor game bores me. I did enjoy watching the Dallas Sidekicks play indoors in 1985. That game was faster with more scoring. I would, however, possibly consider following the Bham Legion if there was a possibility of pro/rel. as long as they don’t change their name to some boring generic European name with no character.