As the postseason begins, taking account of the USL Super League
It hasn't been a great first season in all honesty but a better future should lie ahead
The USL Super League, a designated D1 league by the USSF enters its four-team postseason on Saturday when the Tampa Bay Sun hosts the Dallas Trinity at Blake High School in Tampa. On Sunday, the Carolina Ascent will host Fort Lauderdale United FC in Charlotte.
In some respects, USL deserves full marks for getting this league off-the-ground and getting through the season without any disruptions. The professional presentation USL has provided at venues as well as on broadcasts (handled by USL Productions and aired on NBCUniversal streaming platform Peacock) has been excellent. We are in a women’s sports moment in the US, so the league felt like it had launched at the correct time.
A difficult first year
Despite the positive presentation, the very obvious takeaways from the league is that the level of play is nowhere near that of the NWSL (the established D1 league in the US), nor has the attendance or local media interest in most markets justified the “D1” tag. And this begs the question many have asked privately as to why USL did not wait until February 2025 or even August 2025 to start league play. (Note: I am told this was related to USSF sanctioning, but my sense is it could have been worked out.)
One clear problem is that most teams did not have the appropriate ramp-up time to truly make a difference locally. Tampa Bay did well and Spokane jumped on the backs of the men’s team launch, but the other six clubs all had substantial flaws in the ramp up.
While we have obvious exceptions - Tampa Bay Sun have done well on the local media side, while Spokane Zepher FC and Fort Lauderdale United both did well in terms of local sponsorships sales, the product doesn’t feel or look anything like a division one league to be honest. In addition, USL itself seems so focused on its Division 1 men’s push as well as its implementation of promotion and relegation on the men’s side, it feels the league hasn’t really strongly pushed the Super League since the turn of the year.
Not only has the play been uneven and the stands largely empty at many if not most venues, but the lack of local media interest or even coverage in the mainstream women’s soccer press has been telling. Even here at BT90, we added men’s content (mostly Tampa Bay Rowdies stuff) to our Florida Soccer Report podcast which was focused on the Super League because the numbers were so low and did not justify continuing. Unsurprisingly once we added the Rowdies (as well as Miami FC and FC Naples) content, the weekly numbers for the podcast more than quadrupled.
Nonetheless, the league has some very positive potential going forward.
Hope for the future
Sporting Jacksonville FC who will begin play in August 2025 already appears to have more of a local presence than any currently-playing USL Super League entity. This reminds me of my own time in the NASL when after a rocky 2011 inaugural season (where our attendance leader Montreal left for MLS and the team that had the second highest average attendance, Fort Lauderdale, was only filling under 25% of a stadium that sat 18k) San Antonino joined the league and before they kicked a ball, they were already setting a new standard. NASL survived as long as it did because we brought San Antonio into the league and its no coincidence the collapse of NASL began in earnest when they departed. I get that same sense from Sporting Jacksonville - they will force the current USL Super League entries to up their game or perish.
Having made it through one season, DC Power and Brooklyn FC both now have a grounding as to what it takes to compete in a market where NWSL currently has a club. My sense is both will improve its attendance and sponsorship sales having been exposed to this reality.
Dallas Trinity and Carolina Ascent both have shown signs of developing some local relevance as the season wore on, though both have lots of work to do still.
One major challenge could be expansion. My reporting indicates several of the existing USL men’s professional clubs that field women’s entries in the amateur USL W-League are continuing to take a “wait-and-see” attitude toward Super League.
While each individual case is different, some clubs are waiting for increased incentives from USL to move into the women’s professional space, while others think it’s too risky at the moment. This means USL might have to start tying men’s expansion, of which their is plenty of interest to Super League, to try and build this league out properly.
Plainly put, the current sprawling geographic landscape of the league does not lend itself to clubs being able to manage costs effectively. Keep in mind both Phoenix and Tucson dropped out of the league’s first season just before sanctioning and the ownership of the DC club passed from Loudoun United to DC United, creating an organization that was flat-out unprepared for the inaugural season from a marketing and sales perspective. The loss of the Arizona clubs made Spokane and Dallas geographically isolated, and made it more difficult to sell men’s clubs in the Southwest or California on entering a women’s team in the Super League.
The geographic challenge is similar to USL League One, where in spite of a compelling on-field product, some clubs are draining cash at an alarming rate. But with promotion and relegation coming to USL’s men’s leagues, a full geographic build-out of the D3 level (L1) is likely. Whereas, USL has no such mechanism on the women’s side to sell teams or populate geographic holes without difficulty.
The launch of WPSL Pro could also provide a challenge to the USL Super League’s ability to secure expansion clubs, but that at this moment is theoretical. While investors I speak to are compelled by WPSL Pro (a D2 league), I have evidenced yet any club that was a prospective Super League entry jump to the new WPSL D2. Thus far NWSL’s new D2 league isn’t impacting USL Super League either.
Nonetheless, USL Super League has gotten this far. So in a sense it is a job well done, but one that must show increased signs of maturation next season.
Really enjoyed this because you covered quite a lot of ground.
Just a few thoughts:
I only attended one Super League match this season when DC Power hosted Brooklyn at Audi Field in March.
I realize that it was the inaugural year but with DC United trying to stick it to the Spirit (just my opinion based on what I’ve heard locally)—my match day experience was subpar. Not by a little. By a lot.
The sales kiosks had inaccurate information on what gate to purchase tickets. They had already played the fall season. It should not been so hard for me to spend $40 to buy a walk-up ticket to watch a team that most people ins our area do not know that exists. I very politely communicated to the staff my disappointment with that. I missed the kick off possibly the line up announcements.
To then sit in a cavernous stadium. Despite having drawn youth clubs to the match, the supposed 1300 at the stadium gave a competitive match the feeling of a minor event at a major venue. Usually not a good look.
I think DC Power re-imaging and changing the crest was an improvement over what they were originally going to go with.
DC being half-heartedly involved with the project is typical of the overlap of leagues operating in US soccer. It leaves me with more questions than answers
Men’s side or women’s side. What are we doing and why are we doing it?
Excellent post. Thank you.