Football

USL is having a moment: New stadiums, record player sales, and promotion and relegation maybe on the horizon

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3m ago

Aug 03, 2024 / 4726 Views

Evan Walker

It's an exciting time to be a fan of the United Soccer League. From transfers, to new stadiums, to the numerous records on pace to be broken, and more, the league is thriving. New teams have joined different divisions and are thriving, history has been made in the transfer market and day after day, it feels like something notable is happening.

We took a peek behind the curtain to take a look at what's behind some of these changes and also to figure out where the league could be heading in the future.

Growing in global stature

When looking at how a league is doing, transfers abroad are usually one of the first aspects to examine, even if they may not be the only indicator of success. Not only have six of the top 10 transfer fees ever received by USL clubs been collected in the past two years, but there has also been a historic move made in Nick Akoto going from South Georgia Tormenta to Burton Albion. On the surface, it may seem like a small move as the defender went from USL League One to the English League One, but the move also broke the USL League One transfer record surpassing the fee that Minnesota United paid Union Omaha for Ryen Jiba.

USL League One clubs rarely get money when their players leave, let alone see them move abroad which shows the depth to which more players are being scouted in America, but also that more domestic leagues than MLS are on the map. This used to be the case back in the days of the New York Cosmos, but after multiple teams around the country have ceased to exist, transfers abroad that came from outside of MLS slowed to a trickle.

USL has a unique setup. Oliver Wyss serves as the sporting director of the league collectively, and his role is to develop the transfer strategy for the league while helping work directly with teams to ensure that they're getting fair values for their players on the market. It's something that will eventually help standardize transfer values around the league but also has led to teams rejecting transfer offers that they may have accepted in the past.

"I think that some of the transfer fees that are being paid or demanded in Europe are astronomical. So there's a lot of European teams now looking into the USL market for players and they realize that they also have to pay for our players, they're not free but our clubs are realizing that usually, the return on investment isn't on the first transfer but it's on the second or maybe third transfer," Wyss said speaking to CBS Sports. "So it's important for us as a league to help our clubs get proper transfer agreements where it's not only a transfer fee but also to have incentives and future sell-ons that can net you a nice return of investment."

Givemesport reported that Charleston Battery rejected offers from La Liga 2 side CD Castellon for their forward Nick Markanich. In the past, this could've been one of those transfers that Wyss was referring to as the 24-year-old has 20 goals and counting this season while being on pace to break the single season USL Championship scoring record.

Another example of the growing transfer power in USL also comes from Charleston in Fidel Barajas. After winning the USL Young Player of the Year award in 2023, Barajas moved to Real Salt Lake while Charleston retained a sell-on fee. Now with Barajas moving to Chivas Guadalajara in Liga MX, Charleston will have more funds to invest into their squad. And USL sales haven't been limited to only young players. Even those in their prime like longtime USL fixture Junior Flemmings, who played with three different USL sides before moving to Toulouse, have been able to secure moves to provide investment for their clubs.

Winning is still the goal, even more so now with the establishment of MLS Next Pro now existing, meaning that MLS-affiliated second teams that were only for improving the first team's academy have moved out of the USL ecosystem. Those teams moving into their own silo means that USL is now in a unique position to make its mark both in America and abroad. Wyss is fully aware of the difficulties posed in the transfer market abroad and it only helps USL because players can be acquired at a lower and those sales like Barajas incentivize the development of players to help a team's bottom line.

"Proper training facilities and fields are a big part of it and our owners in the USL have made significant investments into that sporting side aspect and that has helped expedite these players' development and the overall professional environment for these players," Wyss said. "It's important that when foreign scouts are watching these top young USL players play, if they play in a bigger stadium on a perfect grass pitch that is valuable. Sometimes if you look at a player and he plays in a bad environment, that also has an impact on that player, so I think it all goes hand in hand."

The facilities to succeed

To help a player reach their full potential, the facilities around the league also need to be up to par, which has been a push by USL leadership and has been taken up by clubs. Some are further down their path than others in setting up proper facilities, but the league as a whole is getting there.

Two teams in the process of building new stadiums are Detroit City FC and Rhode Island FC. Both teams are in different stages of their USL journeys as Detroit was founded in 2012 formerly playing in the National Premier Soccer League and National Independent Soccer Association before joining USL, while Rhode Island is a new expansion club currently in their first season of play.

Clubs like Louisville City and Colorado Springs are currently setting the standard in stadium development, but in these new facilities being modeled after them, it will increase USL's overall footprint both in teams communities and overall. Not having proper facilities has led to clubs folding in the past so once that infrastructure is put down it comes with a different level of security that the team will continue to exist five years from now.

In Detroit, their build will see them move to southwest Detroit into a stadium that's scheduled to open in 2027. It means leaving behind a lot of memories at Keyworth Stadium, but the growth potential of the move is immense.

It's a location that has a tremendous amount of potential. It exudes the values of the club. It's an opportunity to take a long-blighted property that combines two neighborhoods that people across this region regularly come to – Mexicantown and Corktown. It can bridge those communities, where we can create a stadium and development that is neighborhood-oriented and scaled appropriately," Detroit City co-founder and CEO Sean Mann said to the USL about the location of the new stadium.

"It's a location that's complementary to things that are naturally happening organically within the city. It's not dropping a spaceship on a community but instead bridging existing communities in a positive way."

Keyworth stadium for all of its charm is currently right in the middle of a neighborhood which does provide challenges for growth. There's no room to expand when it would mean encroaching into backyards or knocking down houses and even match scheduling causes issues due to noise and neighborhood impact.

For Rhode Island, their temporary home is at Bryant University where they're sharing a stadium with Bryant's football team. The shared facilities have caused Rhode Island to need to bring in and remove equipment needed for training and gameday but there were also improvements that needed to be made to Bryant. From seats to lights, and even a broadcast booth for cameras to point in the right direction, construction had to be done at Bryant but that's not an overall issue as the goal was to leave Bryant better than they found it according to The Stadium at Tidewater Landing General Manager Paul Byrne.

"We've learned a lot but we're in a good place figuring everything out and navigating through universities so we would have a minimal impact on what they're trying to do. What they're trying to achieve with their students which is their primary goal," Byrne said. "The relationship has been very good and we've been able to work hand in hand with their athletic department and try to not impact too much of what they have going on."

The developments put in by Rhode Island FC will be used by Bryant once their football season gets underway but with the USL season happening alongside that, it will be another situation for the team to navigate. It's one that they'll be prepared for once they get to it though.

The Stadium at Tidewater Landing is scheduled to open in 2025 for the USL's current newest team and it will bring 10,500 seats along with business development including housing, restaurants, stores, and other amenities. The goal is to create a central place in Pawtucket that people come to for more than just soccer.

"We are building something that is very special. Not only from an atmosphere standpoint but also we will literally be ingrained in the community. We're anchored in the community there, we're right along the river as well in Pawtucket. We're excited about infusing economic development into the area so it'll be a game-changer for us. I think we've set the bar high for what our fans expect from a pro level experience but we're going to be well over and above that bar when we enter the Stadium at Tidewater Landing."

How to watch and odds for Detroit City vs. Rhode Island FC

Date: Saturday, Aug. 3 | Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Keyworth Stadium -- Hamtramck, Michigan
TV: CBS | Live stream: Paramount+
Odds: Detroit City +165; Draw +230; Rhode Island +145

What's next

With more teams finding their footing, it's all about USL operations becoming sustainable. Some teams still need to move out of shared baseball stadiums while others have things to figure out on the player acquisition front. Even with guidance from the league office, every team is on a timeline that suits them. A major question that crops up is will there be promotion and relegation between the USL divisions and it's not something that has been ruled out.

"I think we've spoken about [pro/rel] both Jeremy and I and Paul and everyone at the league office here with our clubs, it is a topic of conversation. I think when we were in the previous state, where we were this time last year, we needed to go and do some work, that's at the league office and that's that club level," USL League One President Lee O'Neill said during the USL midseason media call. "We're going through that process and we are doing more work behind the scenes about what it could look like and some of the rules and regulations around it and things like that. So we're not quite there yet. But we're definitely doing a lot more work around that topic and it's great. We're in communication with the clubs and we continue moving forward with the clubs and those conversations."

"We're drilling into more specifics within that conversation last year," USL Championship President Jeremy Alumbaugh added. "We're looking at a general and a broad concept with a little bit of finite details, we're now drilling much deeper into specific areas that I mentioned before you know, from players to the sporting side and the business side."

With developments like the ones already in the works happening left and right, the groundwork is being laid to have those discussions on promotion and relegation but it's something that can only be done in a robust league system. Even looking to England, teams cease to exist because of relegation all the time and there's quite an example happening in France currently with Bordeaux. Relegation without proper support can sink a team and with how many teams the American soccer ecosystem has already lost, that's not the goal of adding it.

USL is moving in a direction that if continued will create something truly unique within American soccer but ambition can't get in the way of sustainability.