Stoppage Time Special: MLS, USL, and Beyond: Making Sense of American Soccer

As the FIFA Club World Cup captivates soccer fans around the globe, it feels like the perfect time to take a step back and revisit one of the most confusing—and often misunderstood—aspects of the beautiful game: how soccer is structured here in the United States. In this Stoppage Time episode of Pitch to Pro, we’ve pulled together highlights from Episode 10 that shed light on the U.S. soccer pyramid, including how Major League Soccer fits into the global game, why promotion and relegation don’t work the same way here, and what it means for young American talent coming through the ranks.

With the Club World Cup spotlighting international club competition, this is a timely refresher on how American soccer clubs position themselves in the broader landscape. Whether you're a diehard supporter or a newcomer trying to make sense of leagues like MLS, USL, NISA, and beyond, this episode offers clarity—and a little history—to help ground your fandom.

We also touch on the development path for players in the U.S., from youth academies and college programs to domestic professional leagues and overseas opportunities. Understanding this system is key not just for fans, but for aspiring players, parents, and even coaches trying to navigate the best route to the pro level.

With a wave of high-profile soccer events coming to the U.S.—including the 2026 World Cup—there’s never been a better moment to deepen your understanding of how soccer works stateside. Consider this your pregame warmup for the years ahead.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 0 (00:03):
Welcome to the Stoppage Time edition of the
Pitch to Pro podcast.
This is a highlight reel ofsome of the best moments from
the show so far, and every otherweek we will be bringing you a
special five to seven minutesegment featuring the best
stories, tales and moments ofthe podcast.
In 2025, you've got the FIFAClub World Cup.
So just like there's a WorldCup for countries, for nations

(00:27):
and national teams, you alsohave a Club World Cup.
So think of the biggest clubsin the world Manchester United,
real Madrid, barcelona, bayernMunich, paris, saint-germain and
others.
You have clubs, the best clubsfrom individual regions, from
all those six differentassociations from around the

(00:48):
world that I talked about.
Those guys are coming to theUnited States to compete in a
tournament called the FIFA ClubWorld Cup, which is coming in
2025.
So more to come there on venuesand all that kind of thing.
But I'm sure that Dallas willbe a venue, if not KC as well of
thing, but I'm sure that dallaswill get be a venue, if not kc
as well.
And then we also have the coupde grace the men's fifa world

(01:09):
cup in 2026 coming right here tothe us.
Kc will bea stadium, and it wasjust announced that dallas is.
It's been leaked and believedto be correct, so I'll caveat
that.
But I'm pretty positive thatDallas AT&T Stadium, jerry World
, is going to get the final forthe 2026 Men's World Cup.

(01:34):
So that's just five hours away.
Absolutely incredibleopportunity to be so close and
to be able to host such an event.
And then on top of that, afterthe men's world cup, we have the
potential, we're in the runningTo host the 2027 women's world
cup or, if not that one, the2031 women's world cup as well.

(01:55):
So we have bids in both, butwe're pushing hard for 27.
That's just this incredibleslate Of massive marquee
tournaments and it's a greattime to be a soccer fan in the
US, or even become a soccer fanin the US, and kind of get drawn
in there.
So let's come back and kind offocus in on the US for a bit.

(02:16):
We talked a little bit aboutthe global governing bodies and
how that operates and works andwhat falls underneath.
But now let's get into kind ofthe US and talk about the US
soccer landscape.
So again you have USSF theUnited States Soccer Federation,
sitting on top of soccer in theUnited States.
They kind of set the standardsand regulations again for the US

(02:40):
soccer pyramid.
So you keep hearing the term,or maybe you.
This is a new term for you, butit's a very common one all over
the world and it's called thesoccer pyramid and that's often
how professional soccer is stoodup all over the world, and at
the very, very top you've got aleague or leagues, depending on

(03:00):
the situation in the country,but in our case it's one league
for each men's and women'ssoccer.
So at the very, very tippy topyou've got division one, what
we'll call division one, you'vegot division two and you've got
division three.
We have three differentdivisions and tiers, if you will
, on that pyramid that equate toprofessional soccer in the

(03:22):
United States, and professionalsoccer just means that a player
can live and be successful, earna living wage on their kind of
compensation package from theteam.
So in the United States thesoccer pyramid has three
different tiers or divisions andwithin those three there are a

(03:43):
whole bunch of different KPIsand different metrics that the
leagues have to hit to fallwithin those tiers and qualify
for them.
But the two that are the mostcommon and easiest to understand
are stadium capacity andpopulation size.
So on division one you've gotmajor league soccer on the men's
side Be qualified to be.

(04:03):
You know, if you're a new team,you want to go into MLS, you've
got to have a population basein your market of about a
million million plus and you'vegot to come in with a stadium
soccer specific stadium with acapacity for roughly 20,000
people.
That's division one.
Division two you have and youstart getting into the USL
ecosystem.
On the men's side you have USLChampionship, the highest level

(04:25):
of soccer in the USL.
That is where our club willplay, and the minimum stadium
size there is 5,000 and marketsize around 750,000 in terms of
population base.
Then you drop down intoDivision III, which is USL
League One or MLS Next Pro andyou're talking about markets of

(04:46):
about 500,000 in that tier.
On the women's side you have theNational Women's Soccer League,
or NWSL.
On the women's side it's goingto be interesting you have the
USL Super League starting in2024.
That is where we will play onthe women's side and they meet
all the criteria for that USsoccer lays out in terms of

(05:09):
market size, stadium capacityand those kinds of things to be
called tier one.
I don't believe at this pointthey've got their sanctioning
yet.
So there'll either be divisiontwo or division one, but it's a
planned division one league asthey're making their launch here
in 2024.
Super exciting, and, again, thatis where we will play.
So we will play on the men'sand women's side at the highest

(05:30):
level of soccer within USL'secosystem and at least Division
II and potentially Division I onthe women's side, depending on
how that shakes out.
Underneath that.
Then you have some semi-proleagues within the USL ecosystem
that I'll talk about here too,which is USL League 2.
So in Arkansas we actually havea League 2 squad that does very
well the Little Rock Rangers,shout out to you guys and they

(05:54):
went really deep this past yearactually in the playoffs in
League 2, and they drew crowdsat War Memorial of almost 8,000
multiple times, which is hugeand incredible at that level.
So congrats to those guys.
You also have the USLW Leagueand that is on the women's side.
In those two leagues, typicallywhat happens and what you find
is their seasons are from kindof like May through August, and

(06:17):
that is typically.
You find a lot of collegeplayers that are looking to play
at a high level out of theircollege season and that's
typically who makes up thoserosters.
So again.
Division I, ii and III areprofessional.
You have MLS Championship inthe USL and League I in the USL
to round out the men's side, andthen on the women's side you've

(06:39):
got NWSL D1, and potentiallyUSL Super League in either
Division I or Division II.
Nothing today on the DivisionIII side of the women's pyramid,
but then you have USL W Leagueand Division IV semi-pro.
So that is the US soccerpyramid.
Thank you for joining us forthis stoppage time special of
the Pitch to Pro podcast.

(07:00):
If you've enjoyed theconversation, you can click
watch the full episode here.
Be sure to tune in nextThursday for a new episode of
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