As the 2019 season starts to take shape with clubs leaving (MLS and USL 3) and new clubs coming into the league, the club count stands at 37. That may be adjusted as USL 3 adds clubs. I suspect a few clubs may drop down a division when it's all said and done. Nonetheless, it may be time for the league to consider three conferences to offset travel costs, better regionalize matches, and cut down on criss crossing the country especially midweek. Below is a potential alignment based on the 37 clubs. Eastern and Central Conferences have 12 clubs while the Western Conference has 13. I love to see a 34-match Regular Season with each club playing their conference foes twice (home / away - 22 matches) and 12 non-conference matches ( 6 from each conference) evenly split home and away. For the Western Conference, due to 13 clubs, they would play 24 conference matches (home / away) and 8 non-conference matches. As for the Post Season, I think a 16-club playoff is doable. The top 3 in each division automatically qualify for the playoffs. The remaining 7 clubs are wildcards determined by highest season point total irregardless of conference. Who knows how it will all shape up for next season. I tried to take a reasonable stab at it while bored off my ass thinking about my CO Springs Swtichbacks playoff hopes dwindling. Eastern Conference Ottawa Fury NY Red Bulls 2 Hartford Athletic Bethlehem Steel FC Penn FC Pittsburgh Riverhounds Loudon County SC Charlotte Independence North Carolina FC Charleston Battery Atlanta UNited 2 Tampa Bay Rowdies Central Conference St. Louis FC Indy Eleven Louisville City FC Nashville SC Memphis 901 FC Birmingham Legion FC OKC Energy Tulsa Roughnecks Swope Park Rangers Austin Bold San Antonio FC Rio Grande Valley Toros Western Conference El Paso Colorado Springs Switchbacks New Mexico Phoenix Rising FC Real Monarchs Las Vegas Lights FC Reno 1868 FC Tacoma (Seattle Sounders 2) Portland Timbers 2 Sacramento Republic Fresno FC LA Galaxy 2 Orange County SC
Time to consider it? In 2017 the USL said that they would go to three conferences when the league got to 36 teams. That's beyond consideration. https://newsok.com/article/5557301/usl-to-create-central-conference July 21, 2017 The question now is if there will be 36 teams in the USL next year since the USL-D3 is pulling some teams out. And if things will stay that big going forward. Obviously things have changed since the summer of 2017 but three conferences seems very, very likely.
Right now schedules are almost completely within the conferences. I think there were only a couple of inter-conference games this year. I would expect that when USL goes to three conferences that system to remain. If they can work it out to have even numbers of teams in the conferences then I would expect almost all games to in be intra-conference. Odd numbers might increase the chances of a few inter-conference games. Playing some opponents three times has not been a problem historically. As far as the playoffs, that gets a lot trickier. A lot of that depends on how the conferences are structured. If they can keep the numbers relatively equal they are more likely to go to a national seeded tournament. It is also possible that they might go to a larger Eastern conference and relatively small Central and Western conferences. That could mean a more regional tournament in the early stages.
Here is a more radical way that USL could go. Right now for 2019 there are 16 teams east of the Indy-Louisville-Nashville-Birmingham line including those 4. Why not put all of them in the East? Then divide the rest between the Central and West. Those conferences would be smaller for the moment but we know things will change by 2020 and beyond. For the playoffs, let 8 teams in the East qualify and have a seeded tournament to determine the Final participant. In the Central and West qualify 4 teams from each 10 or 11 team conference. Those teams would playoff within their conferences to determine the participants in a West-Central semifinal. Only 4 teams qualifying from an 11 team Central conference would be tough but four of the teams would be expansion teams so for the most part it would be 7 teams fighting for the 4 spots. Just a different way to go. Eastern Conference Ottawa Fury NY Red Bulls II Hartford Athletic Bethlehem Steel FC Penn FC Pittsburgh Riverhounds Loudon County SC Charlotte Independence North Carolina FC Charleston Battery Atlanta United 2 Tampa Bay Rowdies Indy Eleven Louisville City FC Nashville SC Birmingham Legion FC Central Conference Memphis 901 FC St. Louis FC OKC Energy Tulsa Roughnecks Swope Park Rangers Austin Bold San Antonio FC Rio Grande Valley Toros El Paso Colorado Springs Switchbacks New Mexico Western Conference Phoenix Rising FC Real Monarchs Las Vegas Lights FC Reno 1868 FC Tacoma (Seattle Sounders 2) Portland Timbers 2 Sacramento Republic Fresno FC LA Galaxy 2 Orange County SC
Penn FC is rumored to be going to D3 after this season. Nashville is gone after 2019. Chicago and East Bay are due in 2021. So.... What cities, if any, will join in 2020?
A quick look around and it does appear to be 2020. But I only found that in one article. The others are mentioning no date to start. Who knows?
Interesting idea and definitely makes travel easier on the Western conference teams. So the East is down to 15 teams with Penn FC going on hiatus for 2019 and dropping to League One for 2020. That should move one of the playoff spots to the Central. Nashville is gone for 2020 and Ottawa may well be also, possibly going to the Canadian Premier League. I wonder how many more changes we will see once the USL season is over. Edwards was quoted as saying that the conferences were expected to have 12-14 teams. They may have changed their minds.