That pushes USL D3 to 8 teams right now: Chattanooga Greenville Triumph SC Madison Orlando City B Richmond Kickers South Georgia Tormenta FC Toronto FC II FC Tucson USL is now at 36 teams for 2019. We'll see what else changes.
There have been some suggestion Penn FC (Harrisburg) may move down. I would also expect at least a few more MLS2 teams to make the move especially being Swope Park. For their sake hope Tucson does not end up out in their own little island out west, that would be some very costly travel for them.
Are you counting Ottawa as out? Or Penn FC? There are 33 teams -3 leaving +7 coming in = 37 unless I am forgetting a team that has decided to leave.
I wouldn't expect a team to leave that is as successful as Swope Park has been the last couple of years, but you never know. I have seen a some advocating the 2 teams drop down due to competitive reasons and some due to attendance reasons. I do agree with the 2 teams dropping down if they do not plan on being competitive in D2. I would not have thought Richmond would drop down though. Their dropping down does not fit the attendance narrative for going down. And they have been fairly competitive, too.
Trying to keep up with what the USL teams are doing is almost a full time job. Currently Rochester is planning on going D3 in 2020. But who knows? Ottawa has been linked by sources outside of their organization with going to the Canadian Premier League but nothing is coming from Ottawa. Crazy stuff.
It's more about SPR's off the field situation where they are near the bottom of the USL attendance with only 880 per game playing in a near empty MLS facility. They have also had not the greatest history with where they have played. https://www.thebluetestament.com/20...rk-rangers-vs-okc-energy-postponed-usl-soccer https://www.thebluetestament.com/20...moved-to-cmp-childrens-mercy-park-sporting-kc Ottawa had official announced that they are staying in the USL for 2019 rather than move to the new CPL.
They have always been a small-budget team. Will always be, as long as their ownership stays the same. I'm not sure, but I don't believe their facility meets D2 specs either. They don't even have their own locker rooms for anyone.
The problem with Richmond is the same problem with a lot of the OG MLS teams, they are cheap. They were use to being competitive year in and year out with a tiny budget but the sport has grown so much so quickly that the older teams don't want to change what worked for such a long time. I'm not sure about the locker room situation but the stadium itself holds 22k.
As far as 2 teams go attendance does not matter is all about getting the players playing time to develop.
And if you're SKC and the development is happening while playing in D2, why would you risk slowing that development down by dropping to D3 (for the sake of attendance).
I agree. I really don't see why any of the 2 teams that have dropped are doing it unless it has to do with eventually having he players closer to home at all times. I suppose costs may be an angle come to think of it.
Oh for sure I was one of a 196 people at a TFC2 game last week. USL was a D3 a few years ago before getting elevated back up to the D3 level so I wonder how big of a gap there will actually be between the two USL Leagues? If you got back even further before the USL/NASL split there was the USL 1 and 2 Leagues.
Good points. I would suspect that the gap will grow as the leagues grow. They will probably be pretty close at the start. It will be interesting to see the shake out process for the next couple of years.
Really, SPR could lower the experience level and get more Academy kids MORE game time and release some of their 23-26 age players (they have a few, but not many) and not try to find players that didn't pan out at their first MLS stop (like Hadji Barry and Kharlton Belmar, etc) and go even younger. This would potentially make them less competitive at the D2 level and I do think teams like TFC 2 who aren't competitive need to drop down to help development by being competitive ... so that's a possibility.
I'm not sure how much the level of the league really matters to the reserve teams. I mean they obviously need to play against a decent skill level, otherwise their development will suffer, but if the league is half MLS 2 sides and relegated D2 teams is that demonstrably different than what they have now? The aims of a reserve team is completely different than an independent: winning might be a nice side effect as a result of player improvement, but it's not really what they're setting out to do.
I agree, "winning" isn't really what they're set out to do, but I do think dropping to a less competitive league would potentially slow down the development curve. We know nothing about D3's level of play. Richmond very well may not have the same quality as they have in D2 (I'd assume they'll cut some payroll) when they are in D3, and the same goes for the MLS2 clubs (no way SPR doesn't put less quality out there as a D3 club than they do as a D2 club because like I said, they'll likely not pay for the Tyler Blackwood's, Hadji Barry's and Parker Maher's of the world). They even dropped the quantity of those types of players between last year and this year with the thoughts of getting "younger" ... and it's shown in their results. When kids that have signed Homegrown contracts like Busio, Lindsay and Kuzain that aren't starters at MLS and are hit or miss if they're in the 18 ... when they go play for SPR ... you want them playing in D2 and not D3. D3 won't develop them. I'm not positive D3 will be a huge step up in competition than USSDA U18/19 ... and MLS teams need there to be a step up or it's not entirely worth having an MLS2 team at all.
Miki Turner just wrote a piece about USL vs D3 through the scope of Sounders 2: https://socceresq.com/2018/09/14/so...for-a-new-name-but-what-about-a-new-division/
Lansing may be in USL D3 in 2019. https://www.lansingstatejournal.com...eam-likely-begin-downtown-lansing/1355555002/ It looks like the team will be called Lansing Ignite. The Lansing United PDL team is not connected to this new pro team although, according to this article, the minor league baseball team which is starting the Ignite has reached out to the United ownership and supporters.
The proposed stadium rendering in that article looks like a truly horrible place to watch a soccer game.