The Rondo - USL Promotion and Relegation

You got $100,000. Are you investing that in the S&P 500 or are you putting it into a USL club

For 10 years, USL, give me the Greenville Triumph, baby. Let's go. Taking them to the top

USL is officially adding promotion and relegation starting in 2028. Finally, for the first time in American soccer. Tom, what's going on with that

Okay, so there are going to be four divisions of USL. There is the USL Division 1 that was

announced last week called maybe the USL Premier League. And there's going to be

Basically, you can go up or go down from League 2, League 1, Championship, or the Premier League

starting in 27 or 28, depending on when they get their shit together. American soccer has been waiting for an opportunity like this

and I'm so excited that USL is going to be implementing this. Raheem, does anybody actually care

The average American might not care, but I would say the people on Reddit in the US soccer forums

they're going insane right now. This is big news for soccer in the US

It's going to bring a lot more opportunities to the players, and I'm curious to see what MLS is going to do with this

Should MLS be scared of this? absolutely bro i think mls should be very frightened about what's to come with usl

there are so many players who have been waiting for an opportunity to play in mls they balled out

in usl championship or usl league one and they stay in the same division and when you look at

the european leagues if a player is performing well in a lower league he's usually moving upwards

through his team or through himself individually so now players have way more pathways to become pro

and MLS should be very concerned. I think they should. I agree in some senses

but in another, I think MLS has the immediate advantage right now. I think USL is kind of banking a lot on this

working out from a financial perspective, from an owner's willingness to invest perspective

So it's going to take a minute. If I'm Dongaba, I'm not sweating it now, but if this is still like smashing it

or if it is smashing it by like 2035, uh-oh. If I have to explain what promotion and relegation is

does the average US fan even care? No I think they should because like what you need to do is search for parallels right If you tell an American like this is the way this sport works worldwide then yeah they should care and i think also we got to think about the quality of the league is going to get so much better just because of the competitiveness

do you know how many players check out mid-season in usl champ or in leagues where there's no

incentive to do well if you don't make playoffs by the time september comes your season is over

pretty much and there's teams just you know kind of just lallygagging in last place second to last

place just finishing out the season now that we have something to fight for more money more

opportunities more levels of play in the united states pyramid this is so important for the

development of american soccer you know i'm really interested to see what will happen to like small

market teams as well or people who are clubs that traditionally haven't invested you know like al

paso i don't know i'm trying to think of small places or even like a lexington kentucky spots

that haven't had to invest money now you're on the threat of relegation so then the question

becomes are you almost happy to get relegated and sit in league one be where you are but never

really attract anything other than mediocrity are you going to be crystal palace to them or

do you want to push for the top like is portland hearts of pine currently in like what usl league

one with dope jerseys are they going to say you know what man we want to be in the big leagues

that's when it gets exciting yeah no this is really interesting and i think it is a huge

financial incentive if they get it right for teams to go up you make a million dollars a year in

revenue as a club in league one but you can make four in the top division that's a huge incentive

to invest show me the money great and like me the money baby owners are gonna love that if they can

you know 3x or 4x the revenue by going up and you also gotta think as an investor you want your

league to be competitive it's the reason why ryan reynolds and all these guys are investing in clubs

overseas because they see the incentive of yo i can make it to the big lights i can make it to the

from the Premier League from going from League Two. Like the story of Wrexham is so important

because people are seeing them climbing divisions into potentially the Premier League Imagine if that brought to the US This is all great but how is it gonna affect MLS i think as soon as it seems like this thing is like becoming legit i mean don gaba won be commissioner

probably by that point but mls is buying it you got to remember was it 2019 there were four clubs

in the mls that applied for expansion franchises indy 11 is still building a stadium because they

think they can play in mls sacramento republic they want to play in mls and i think as soon as

mls feels a little bit threatened that sweet apple money that sweet whatever money is gonna

get invested whether they go pro-rail i don't know but they've got four or five clubs coming in

let's say the usl premier league like the top division is able to rival mls do you think there'll

still be incentive for usl clubs to still want to go to mls even though they're the highest division

yes even if they had similar investment mls has like a one billion dollar rights deal on the table

that's happening right now. That is not even remotely close to what USL could be sniffing in 10 years

So you think they'll just go for money? Yes. If you are USL

and you have your three or four leagues, whatever, and you have access

to give your clubs the opportunity to move up to a league where there is a billion dollars

of media rights revenue on the table, it would be stupid not to want to give your clubs access to that money

Of course, but what if these organizations that are working with MLS see USL now

and like, wow, this is a way more open market. this is a lot more success for our money what if that money that mls is getting starts going towards

this you have to also think about the infrastructure mls is restrictive as man it's got like a 500

what was it 500 million dollar buy-in yeah something like that it's really not everybody

has apple tv plus let's be real i i'm not gonna lie to you guys bro it's been a minute since i

watched the u of mls game you got a hundred thousand dollars are you investing that in the

S&P 500 or are you putting it into a USL club? For 10 years, USL, give me the Greenville Triumph, baby

Let's go. Taking them to the top. Yo. 100 bats? Teppin Bay Rowdies, we're going up, gang

We're going up. That my hometown club I got to do it bro I got to take the risk Yeah Right now I would probably go for USL club as well it fake money it not real if we being real and i had that much money which i do

not all right so is this going to draw more euro snobs to actually watch american soccer in usl

as a euro snob i am now a usl truther i think honestly yeah bro because you'll have the people

over in europe promotion and relegation that's why i don't watch american soccer and now people

in Europe sound? Nah, yo, my British accent is trash. Promotion and renegade

But if I'm from the UK, for example, and I finally see a league implementing what we're doing

over in Europe that makes us like what it is, I'm definitely going to tap in

Do you know what it is? I feel like this is big for the football hipsters. Do you know what I mean

Because like the football hipsters in the UK are always like, Serie A is the best league. No, wait

you should care about football in Greenland, which you should, by the way. But the point is, is like now

like you have got random eyes in America and this is how this stuff starts, man

It's like microcultures into the mainstream. and I think the Europeans might now give a s**t about US soccer

and how is that not exciting? And also... Oh, we got to enroll in here

They're going to give it more legitimacy but when I talk about American Euro snobs

who are like, I don't watch MLS, bro. I only watch the Premier League. They're not going to start watching USL

because there's promotion relegation. I think they say that because it's just the easiest excuse

I think you're wrong. No, they want to watch European soccer because the best players in the world

play for those clubs. The best players in the world do not play for Greenville Triumph

It doesn't matter if they can go up. Sorry, I love Greenville. But then you also got to think about why are people interested in the Netherlands league

Why are people interested in Belgium? Some of the best players in the world play in those leagues. Name five

Ricardo Pepe. Ricardo Pepe, Serginio Dest, one of the Aronson brothers, the other guy who's American who plays over there

Richie Ledesma. Chucky doesn't even play over there anymore, man. But all I'm saying is, like, how many Americans are really watching the Belgian league anyways

or the Eredivisie on a weekly basis. Not really any. So if they're not watching those

why would they watch USL