With the NPSL and PDL having survived for many years and more regional amateur/semi-pro leagues popping up around the country it would be nice to be able to create some type of cohesive organized tiered system for these various leagues. What leagues would you like to see combine? What season would you like to see the leagues be played? How long of a season? How many tiers would you like to see? Promotion and Relegation? U23 teams, or no age limits? Teams having some players getting paid, or no player payments? I'll start it off. For the 4th division I would like to see the NPSL and PDL combine so that there could be more teams in each region. They could divide the country into lets say 8 regions. That way travel could be short and there would be plenty of competition. I would have the idea of age limits and player compensation be up to the clubs. That way if an MLS/NASL/USL club wanted to have a U23 development team they could still have one and have them play against older more experienced players, or a club that wanted mostly college players could have the same. For the 5th Division I would like all of the regional leagues like Evergreen Premier League, PPL, UPSL, CSLUSA, to band together. I guess they would all for the most part stay the same and stick to their regions. If, for example, one of these leagues covered two regions then those two regions would essentially be two different leagues just playing the teams in their region. Again the matters of age limits and player compensation would be up to clubs. Since the US has college sports this makes the issue of when to have semi-pro amateur leagues play more difficult. Do you cater to the college player in his/her off season and have a summer only league. Or maybe a spring league if the rules allow it? Or do you cater to the amateur player who isn't in school and is only focusing on soccer and maybe working part time? I would choose a balance. A split season (or two seasons per year) would be the balance. A fall season, and a spring/summer season so that way the non-college player would be able to play competitive soccer for most of the year, and the college player would have a way to play in the college off season. For promotion and relegation in the USA I am kind of neutral. I like this competitiveness of it. However, it is not always economically viable, and for these lower semi-pro/amateur leagues it could cause imbalances in travel in these regional leagues. Ideally we could have a 6th, 7th, 8th, etc, etc tier, and have each tier down have more teams in a smaller region. But I don't know if we would have enough teams for that in every region, and what would qualify them as being a part of this new pyramid? Would we start including city league, and sunday league rec teams in these lower tiers? I just wanted to share my thoughts on this subject and am curious to see other people's ideas and solutions. I also find the big picture structure type of stuff more interesting than the nitty gritty numbers. So if you want to do all the research for the numbers of the teams and divide them into all the regions, and leagues that would be great to see!
Needs to be organized by a clean, healthy Federation. First and foremost. Until leadership there is better, tiered structures don't matter. I'm 100% for pro/rel. But, I'm also realistic about it. Money isn't there to make it happen. No one is coming out of the woodworks to make it happen either. First, I'd split the country in east and west. Have two first divisions. The US is way too big to adequately sustain a nationwide league. Then, also have two second divisions, east and west. The rest of the divisions below that are all then even more "regionalized." I don't care to have PDL, NPSL, UPSL, CSL, PLA, etc. USSF needs to be their own tiers so these crappy league names don't exist. If they want to exist, they exist in their own right and have nothing to do with the US Soccer pyramid. Probably starting in the 3rd division, I'd make them north and south splits, or something similar. Or, maybe even just go with regions that already exist in USYSA. Ideally, I'd utilize all colleges and universities programs in this pyramid too. I don't see why not. Let them play, or play on their own with NCAA or whatever affiliation. To me, there's no reason they shouldn't exist in the pyramid. Lift the "eligibility" restrictions if they play in the pyramid. If a person wants to play, they play, but they also have to be a student. I think having a battle between these local clubs v. universities could be a lot of fun. I may be crazy to think, but I really don't think it'd be that hard to organize. Teams exist. They declare they want to play in the pyramid. Make it a draw OR put true requirements in that are stricter than what exists (waivers go away).
Excellent points, especially about having a healthy Federation and strong leadership. Agreed that pro/rel isn't realistic right now. I see what you mean about the country being too large, but at the same time two first divisions seems weird, and we already kind of have the east-west split. East-West second division split with each league champion meeting for a national championship would be cool! As far as all the different leagues with these different names, that's what I meant with combining the PDL, NPSL etc, they would all have one league name for each tier and be split into regions. For example in Germany the 4th division is called Regionalliga, and there are 4 Regionalligas. 5th division is Oberliga and there are yet more Oberligas. I forget how many. Integrating the NCAA teams into the soccer Pyramid is a great idea, but again it doesn't seem realistic because the NCAA is difficult to introduce new ideas to, even if they would be beneficial to all parties. I like your ideas though.
Thanks @Sactown Soccer! I just don't see two first divisions as "weird." No one in the west cares about the east anyway. I think having a TRUE first division for each just seems better. Balanced schedule -- home and home for each opponent. Easier travel for teams and fans. The current setup with east/west divisions with an unbalanced schedule (playing some teams 3 times, 2 times on the road, 1 time at home) is really strange. I included integrating the NCAA because it just seems to be more viable for a regional structure with D4-down. There have already been college club teams trying to compete in USOC, so it could essentially be the same setup. Then, colleges would have to make a decision on where they want to align: a true soccer pyramid OR this broken intercollegiate system that squanders money yearly. It wouldn't rely on NCAA at all, unless the organization itself decided to make a decision (which rarely happens they do it for the good). I love these discussions. I just wish soccer leadership and its investors would see the possibilities for the game in the US.
Haha you got that right. And I'm sure no one in the east cares about the west either. Still having a national champion of a national league makes the most sense for a 1st division. Besides we have already had this 21 plus years now and it works even with the weird schedule. Plus I don't think FIFA allows two 1st divisions in one country. Ah I see, this way it gives college teams a viable option outside of NCAA that could potentially force NCAA to make changes for the better of the game, or become irrelevant. Love it! A true soccer pyramid including college teams in the amateur divisions is ideal. In some other places like Japan or some South American countries university teams participate in the pyramid, I don't see why not here. It would also have the added benefit of instantly having enough teams to fill out all the regions in the country.
While it may be "two first divisions," it could be basically 1 first division with two different TRUE east/west distinctions. Take the top 1-2 and play for the "national champion" in the 1st tier and 2nd tier. Or whatnot. While the unbalanced schedule has happened for years, does it really "work?" Every year we talk about better structures. Every year MLS teams complain about the wanky setup. No one actually "supports" an unbalanced schedule. But...it still happens every year because there are odd numbers of teams in east/west. I'll use my favorite, Columbus Crew, as an example. In the first 40-50 days of the season they play Chicago Fire and TFC 2 times each. Those are their two biggest "rivals." They play 4 games against them in the first 40-50 days. They then play Chicago and TFC again later in the season. So, their biggest rivalry games are 66% done in the season's first month...basically! What sense does it make to play 4 of 6 rivalry games in the very beginning of a season? Not just that, it's not like fans get to see 2 home and 2 away against Chicago (and same setup against TFC). No matter which team you support in the rivalry, you'll get to see them once at home and twice away (or twice at home and once away), it's always uneven support for a rivalry setup.
Pre MLS, in the old APSL days (1990), the top US division "briefly" had a Western Conference and an Eastern Conference, with the National Championship at the end of the season...I'd be all for that for MLS future, and don's see why it wouldn't work, especially if there could be 18-20 teams in each conference...BUT, when there gets to be that many teams, you almost HAVE to have a pro/rel, just to keep the bottom teams competitive...