This made me so happy to see that I looked up my nearest USL team and will take the family to some games this year. I want pro/rel real bad, and am willing to pay for it.
I think a big part of the hesitation is exponentially increased cost as travel moves from small regional “bus” leagues to more frequent long distance travel. The geographic footprint of Championship and League 1 is coast to coast in both, so it may be a doable change. I’m not sure how moving leagues would affect attendance or revenue. That will probably vary a lot from team to team. For example, if Madison moved up, they wouldn’t be able to increase attendance much without a bigger venue, which may wind up hurting them in the long run. It would be interesting to know the revenue and cost differences between the leagues and teams.
a big part of the hesitation is exponentially increased cost as travel moves from small regional “bus” leagues to more frequent long distance travel.
I think that can be addressed by profit sharing from the league. One of the things I learned from “Welcome to Wrexham” (which of course makes me fully qualified to be a club manager), when you’re promoted in the English system, your club gets a higher “allowance” which you can use to offset higher salaries, travel costs, etc. I’m not sure where that income comes from (TV revenue, maybe?), and clearly the USL isn’t making squat from it’s current deal, but in the future that might be a way to help the smaller clubs handle the higher expenses.
if Madison moved up, they wouldn’t be able to increase attendance much without a bigger venue
Even the popular clubs like Forward Madison don’t sell out every game, so you have to figure there’s room for improvement in attendance and moving up would attract new/casual fans. Look at Cincinnati or Nashville as examples. They drew good crowds in the USL days, but really got big crowds when they moved up to MLS. Detroit has had consistently larger crowds since moving up from NISA, and that’s without a change in venue.
That being said, I think every club should be looking to improve their housing situation until they have their own, high quality SSS. As much as I dislike MLS, I give them credit for their stadium requirements, and have to admit I’m jealous of some of their facilities. I love Keyworth, but would also love to see DCFC build their own place with some of the charms of the old stadiums.
So the TLDR response is I agree there would be major hurdles, but in the long run I think it can work. It’ll be interesting to see how the vote goes.
