'We have to deliver' - USL President Paul McDonough on promotion-relegation plans and why more clubs could be forced out

This is part of a wider picture of a league getting serious about how, exactly, it will implement its big ideas. For the past few years, USL has shot for the moon. They announced that they would go where MLS refused, and implement a promotion-relegation system. They proclaimed that a Division I league is on the way. It seemed sudden. And at times, it was. Owners were informed of key decisions on short notice. Obvious potential pain points in the process - stadium size, market size, ownership net worth - were put on hold in favor of the bigger picture.

The plans are public. Now USL has to establish which clubs can meet the requirements, what they will need to invest, and how the system will work.

“It's funny. People say like ‘it's gone on for a while,’ but we continue to do all the work, and I think we're trying just trying to be very strategic in where we go. And I think if we didn't take the steps that we've taken in the last year, or that we're taking right now, and we launch promotion-relegation, we start losing teams,” McDonough said. “That's a problem, and it makes pro-rel look bad.”

The broad outline, at least, is clear. USL Premier is scheduled to launch in 2028, sitting above the Championship and League One in a three-tiered pyramid. Within 10 years, the league’s target is 20 teams in the top flight, 20 in the Championship and 40 in League One.

Getting there will require expansion. It will also require owners prepared to commit to the new top flight and the spending that comes with it. There are currently 25 teams in the USL Championship. Five clubs have so far announced their intention to join the new division. How many follow, and how quickly, will help determine how that pyramid takes shape.

There are some hurdles, McDonough acknowledged. Under U.S. Soccer’s current Division I standards, at least 75 percent of a league’s teams must play in metropolitan markets with populations of at least 1 million.

Then there are the stadiums. Division I standards require a minimum capacity of 15,000, a threshold that presents a challenge for clubs operating in smaller venues. Meeting it could mean expanding an existing ground or finding a new home. Either way, there are costs and commitments involved.

McDonough believes there is room for flexibility.

“I think standards are always changing. I think you look at attendance across the board in sports is tough. Attendance is down in certain clubs and certain leagues. I think you see in NFL, NBA, MLB. Think about how they structure their stadiums as they're rebuilding them or building new stadiums. So we don't really believe that 15,000 is the right number. It's more like ‘we're going for sold-out capacities,’” he added.

He pointed to Boise to explain what he has in mind.

“Tell me that Boise isn’t a cool experience with 8,000 fans. Walking in, in a really tight, intimate environment. Of course that’s good. That’s better than a big team that has 60 percent of their stadium full,” McDonough added.

He made a similar case for Portland Hearts of Pine.

“Portland sells out every game in a high school stadium. They've proven they can do it. They're going to almost double capacity to try to build a 10,000-seat stadium. Now, if they sell that out, it's great business, great environment, great story. You're building a club that people in Maine are going to follow,” he said. “I just think that's the way to do it. Building a cathedral of 50,000 seats and then trying to fill it? Or having 20,000 people in a 70,000-seat stadium? That's a pretty tough sell.”

MLS offers a more varied picture. According to Sports Business Journal and Statista, its 22 soccer-specific stadiums average 22,377 seats, with reported attendance averaging 89.9 percent of capacity in 2026. Its eight non-soccer-specific venues average 59,665 seats at full capacity, with attendance averaging 45.7 percent of that figure. Those larger venues, though, can operate with reduced seating configurations for soccer.

There is an argument, then, for matching stadium size to local demand. But the requirement facing USL is 15,000 seats, well below the 50,000-seat “cathedrals” McDonough describes. U.S. Soccer allows leagues to request temporary waivers, subject to approval. Whether USL can secure that flexibility will help determine which clubs can make the jump.

But therein lies the challenge. Getting stadiums right requires canny owners - regardless of division. Some have excellent track records and have grown their clubs sustainably (McDonough pointed to Colorado Springs and Louisville City as prominent examples). Others have struggled - and could lose their place in the league.

That means changing the way the league looks at finances. McDonough said every club has been assessed, and that Corpus Christi FC will not return to USL League One in 2027 after failing to meet the league’s requirements. Other clubs could also lose their places.

“Corpus Christi is not going to come back for 2027. We have other conversations ongoing, and we'll be strategic, and we'll just say,’ Look, if we don't think that you can be a successful club and take care of the players and run a good business, then we're just not going to let you come.’ And we could have two teams, three teams, four teams that we opt to just pull out because we don't think they meet the standards of where we want to go,” McDonough said.

McDonough argues that accepting some departures now will reduce the risk of clubs failing once promotion and relegation begin. That means difficult decisions about clubs the league itself admitted, and uncertainty for the players and supporters involved.

“I mean, not many people like it. But we want to give people an opportunity. We did bring them in, but we want to give them an opportunity to see if they can better run the business. This is being done because we know that, if we are going to be credible in the marketplace to a more sophisticated owner, we need to carry our business much better,” he said.

Getting in is harder, too. Prospective owners now face 12 to 24 months of vetting, according to McDonough. The league wants to know whether they can sustain a club, and he says groups that fall short will be turned away.

If that sounds almost counterintuitive to the lofty goal of ‘expansion’, it does not come without purpose.

“It's almost like two steps backwards as far as the number of teams, so that we can go forward. It protects and takes care of our better teams, and we can get better investors in. We get stronger,” McDonough added.

And once those team owners are in place, the league is, in theory, better equipped to expand in a more efficient way. There have, to be sure, been a number of league-wide successes that McDonough and Co. can point to of late.

The agreement of a landmark Collective Bargaining Agreement earlier this year included provisions for USL Premier and prepared for a pro-rel future. Investment from BellTower Partners, a private investment firm, is expected to facilitate growth thanks to an injection of capital. A revenue-sharing agreement gave clubs a slice of the financial pie, something that could be crucial if the league continues to grow its sponsorship and broadcast deals.

“We continue to have those conversations. We continue to have conversations with owners, with new investors, with sponsors and media. So it's all ongoing. We’ve just been quiet because we're kind of doing a lot of the dirty work behind the scenes,” McDonough said.

The league office has a new figure helping put those plans into practice, too. Tony Scholes, the former Premier League chief football officer, is now president of USL Premier, overseeing preparations for its 2028 launch.

“It's hard to think of a guy who has so much experience and was so influential at the English Premier League. He's got some learning to do over here, and he's a smart guy. He's a good person, and he has really jumped in. And he is learning everything he can. He was at the Board of Governors and met a lot of the owners, and they really appreciated him and his experiences and his insights,” McDonough added.

Piece it all together, and McDonough believes USL is becoming a more attractive proposition. Existing owners face closer scrutiny. Prospective owners face a longer vetting process. But the league still has to turn those changes into a functioning three-tier system.

“We just have to deliver and continue to deliver on it,” McDonough said. “Because it hasn't always been that way.”