The United Soccer League is challenging MLS for US supremacy. If the 2026 World Cup is a hit, the USL’s pro-rel gamble may just pay off, says Ed Warner.

Qualifying is well under way for the 2026 World Cup. Four countries have already booked their places to add to the trio of North American hosts. That’s seven down, 41 slots still to fill for this newly bloated tournament. 

The US will stage almost 80 per cent of the 104 matches. Will there, though, be the cut-through with the local populace that Fifa craves?

After all, Brazil’s penalty-shoot out triumph at the Pasadena Rose Bowl in the 1994 final was but a fleeting moment in America’s sporting consciousness, with little discernible lasting impact.

Men’s association football (let’s call it soccer just for the purposes of this piece) remains a conundrum. Major League Soccer (MLS) is structured on American sport’s favoured franchised, closed-league model with twin conferences and end-of-season playoffs. All alien to fans in the rest of the world.

Attendances are decent, averaging 23,234 a game in the 2024 regular season, but hardly stellar by US standards. Of greater concern is the quality of play.

Why USL is different to MLS

Even with the import of experienced players from overseas, including the occasional star, soccer aficionados in the States report a gulf between what they see locally and what they watch in European leagues in the early hours every weekend. One contact reports his two soccer-mad sons no longer watching MLS games but bingeing the English Premier League.

All of which makes last month’s announcement by the United Soccer League (USL) rather intriguing. The USL sits below MLS with an inferior standard of play and crowds typically numbering in the single-figure thousands. 

Currently structured along standard American lines, the USL has just received approval to introduce a tier one league with equal status to MLS and will adopt promotion and relegation between its three divisions from 2027-28. 

Its press release cites the approach of the 2026 World Cup and lays out the rationale. “Fans and stakeholders have been clear – they want something different,” said Paul McDonough, USL president. 

“They’re drawn to the intensity of high-stakes competition, where more matches have real consequences – just like we see in European leagues. This shift challenges the status quo and brings a level of excitement and relevance that can elevate the game across the country.” 

Promotion and relegation are sacrosanct in men’s football in major European countries. No wonder the USL is drawn to it. However, it heightens financial jeopardy for team owners. 

Other sports have struggled to reconcile the sporting integrity that comes with a pyramid or ladder with the commercial reality. Even women’s football in England is contemplating a hiatus to relegation to help facilitate an improvement in its economics.

If the 2026 World Cup really cuts deep into the American consciousness next year, if it changes radically appreciation of soccer in the US; if it creates sufficient willingness to engage with the local game; if there are enough financiers prepared to roll the dice and back teams with wads of dollars and crypto, then the USL’s cultural appropriation of the rest of world soccer’s ladder structure might just make it an upstart winner.

Louisville City currently top the early season standings in the USL Championship Eastern Conference, beating Detroit City FC 2-0 at the weekend in front of a home crowd of 9,004. Watch match highlights here.

You can have fun with the linguistic crossover. LouCity describe themselves as “the Championship’s all-time winningest club.”

Easter glut

As the Premier League reaches the pointy end, so speculation mounts as to just how many of its teams could qualify for Europe next year.