USL becomes the first professional sports league in the U.S. to adopt this global model, creating an interconnected three-tiered men’s professional soccer system.
DALLAS — For the first time in U.S. professional sports, there will be a promotion-relegation (pro-rel) system, a historic decision that could reshape the future of professional soccer in America.
The United Soccer League (USL) announced Wednesday that a supermajority of club owners voted to implement the pro-rel system, nearly one month after the organization announced it would launch a Division 1 tier soccer league in 2027.
Once implemented, the USL — which already has a Division 2 tier league (USL Championship) and Division 3 tier league (USL League One) in existence — will have an interconnected three-tiered men’s professional soccer system, where teams earn promotion to a higher division or face relegation to a lower division based on their performance during the season.
This is the global model followed by the world’s top leagues — including the Premier League (England), La Liga (Spain) and Bundesliga (Germany) — where promotion and relegation raises the stakes of every match, drives fan engagement, and elevates the overall competition of the game.
The top sports leagues in the U.S. — including MLS, which is the only current Division 1 tier soccer league — do not follow the pro-rel model. The new Division 1 soccer league being created by USL would be a direct competitor to MLS.
WFAA spoke with the owner and chairman of USL Dallas, Matt Valentine, days after the USL’s Division 1 league was announced. USL Dallas is slated to be an expansion team in USL Championship (D-2), debuting in 2027. Valentine told WFAA that the club’s brand and logo would be unveiled in May. He also praised the idea of establishing a pro-rel system.
“U.S. Soccer needs to have that. I think it’s anti-soccer to not have promotion-relegation, where every other league in the world except for ours has it,” Valentine said at the time . “But we’ve been dealing with a closed system at the highest level for a long time, so this is exciting. I commend the USL leadership for their boldness, their vision, to allow the potential for promotion-relegation to take flight.”
In a statement released Wednesday morning, the USL Dallas ownership group said:
“American soccer has long awaited the introduction of promotion and relegation—and now it’s finally on the horizon. The electrifying moments this system will deliver are set to forge club legacies, create legends, and deepen the connection between fans and their teams like never before.
The stakes have never been higher. Dallas, are you ready? We are.”
The USL’s Division 1 League will launch in 2027, coincidentally the same year USL Dallas is set to make its debut. We asked Valentine if they would consider trying to start in the Division 1 league rather than its currently slated expansion slot in the USL Championship.
“The first division hadn’t been announced when we did this,” Valentine told WFAA. “I’ve always thought that eventually that would be a reality. I didn’t expect it to be this soon, so we were slated to be in the championship, which is Division 2 in the United States, but still the top division in USL. We are talking about “do we go into the first division?” We haven’t made a decision. There’s still a lot of information we need to gather, but it’s definitely on our radar and something we would eventually aspire to be.”
There are a lot of differences that would come into play if USL Dallas were to pursue starting in the Division 1 as opposed to Division 2.
By U.S. Soccer standards, a Division One league must have at least 12 teams in the Eastern, Central and Pacific time zones, with at least 75% of the teams playing in metropolitan markets of at least 1 million people. All of the league’s stadiums must be enclosed with a minimum seating capacity of 15,000 people.
The bigger stadium requirements and player salary requirements come with bigger costs.
Valentine told WFAA the club “is currently reviewing the opportunity, but we have not made any decisions at this time.”
“Our commitment is to our supporters, our community, and to creating the most exciting fan experience. One thing is for sure – we will be a USL team when we hit the pitch in 2027,” Valentine said.
Texoma FC will make its USL League One (USL’s Division 3 league) debut in 2025, where they’ll play in Sherman, Texas, at the city’s high school football field for their first two seasons. Plans for a soccer-specific stadium in Sherman are still in early stages.
Texoma FC lost its first ever match as a club, 2-1, in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup.
Under the pro-rel system, Texoma FC could, in theory, win USL League One and be promoted to USL Championship, where they could play against the USL Dallas club. Or vice versa: USL Dallas could finish at the bottom of USL Championship and be relegated to USL League One, where Texoma FC currently plays.
