Can you tell me about the UPSL? New team in Lincoln, Nebraska

It's a league that has relatively recently exploded into a national footprint. It's roughly equal to NPSL or PDL in stature if you are familiar with either of those, with some key differences. They have promotion/relegation structure in areas where they have added enough teams. Some regions already have it, but you shouldn't see this in action in year 1, this is a new division that has been created. Also, they play a longer season with a split calendar, similar to what Liga MX does for instance. It's not a summer college offseason league, though most teams are amateur. Some college players may fill in for some teams during their summer breaks, but they are roster boosters, not the core.

Teams are relatively free to do what they want. As such, the structures, backgrounds, and competence of the teams vary wildly. Nationally, it's a huge mixture of ethnic cultural clubs, senior teams for large youth clubs, top men's league teams, etc etc. At the high end there are teams that were drawing 1-2k fans to games last year, mostly in the newly absorbed Midwest region (Cedar Rapids Rampage, Oakland County, Muskegon Risers). At the low end, there will be next to no one in the stadium. Same goes for level of play. The top teams in the nation (SoCal, mostly) have knocked off sides from the professional leagues several times in the US Open Cup. RWB Adria in Chicago won a national amateur title in 2014 over PDL and NPSL teams. But in the same region, there can be a second division and the bottom teams there would probably get beaten at least 20-0. and quality varies wildly from region to region. A lot of them are new and haven't filled in as many teams yet.

What to not expect: A level of play comparable to MLS. It will likely be amateur soccer, the play will be sloppy at times. Few teams pay players, and where they do, it's not close to a living wage. The league to have media coverage from national media. Every opponent to be highly competitive, sometimes the weaker teams get smashed pretty heavily.

What to expect: Cheap tickets, live soccer, local players. If you want to make an away trip, the furthest will probably be a few hours away and easily done in a day. Opponents pulled from Omaha, Kansas City, etc.

From my initial impressions, (social media reach this announcement generated, backgrounds of the owners etc), I'd hazard to guess this particular club will turn out on the competent end of the league but of course this is pretty impossible to predict accurately. Already saw talk of getting a supporter group going on twitter though, which is a good sign.

 

If you are in Omaha, I might wait a little while before to see if you have an even team playing against them. This is the first team announced in the division, so there will be several more coming, and they should be in cities close to Lincoln. Omaha seems like a distinct possibility.

I've never had a professional outdoor team within 4 hours of me in my lifetime (Detroit), but I go to a lot of similar level games near me and always enjoy it.

And yeah, the league can be a bit hard to follow. Pretty much impossible to keep track of all of the regions. One tip that might help is the 1st division in any region is termed "Pro Premier", and the 2nd division, where they exist, is the "Championship". There aren't any 3rd divisions yet, though I saw mention one might be coming in SoCal.

 

Great breakdown on the league by @RiseAM.

The UPSL doesn't have a great vetting process. Some areas it's structured better than others. I'd suspect it's that way because of the teams operating more professionally instead of a glorified Sunday League team.

If I'm not mistaken, the Bugeaters have similar persons in place that were with a team that played in the CSL (Champions Soccer League) in 2017. The CSL went belly-up, and it was very similar to UPSL in terms of crap vetting of teams. Several teams from the CSL went to the UPSL.

 

call Poppa Warren...he has enough $$ to make it happen