Pro/rel is still on the table, European schedule is not and other key takeaways from the USL preseason press conference
Pro/rel is still maybe coming, the USL League One cup is likely to expand, and the CBS TV agreement is a bigger deal than I initially thought.
Those are my key takeaways from a press conference USL hosted with USL Championship President Jeremy Alumbaugh and USL League One President Lee O'Neill earlier today.
They didn’t break a lot of news over the course of the hour, but we didn’t really expect them to. This was a chance for about two dozen reporters and weirdos to ask a few questions just before league play kicks off this weekend. (And to the league’s credit, they didn’t do the “one question each, so make it good” thing.)
Listen to our special edition:
Here are a few of my key takeaways from the hour:
Pro/rel is still on the table. It took about a half hour for someone to ask, but we knew someone would. Alumbaugh said it’s still being discussed “almost daily,” but it would represent a “monumental change for the sport in our country, and it's not as easy as just kind of flipping a switch.”
A shift to the European schedule is not. Alumbaugh made it clear that any talk of shifting the schedule to a fall-through-spring season happened before he and O’Neill arrived, and the idea is no longer being discussed. We didn’t get a chance, unfortunately, to ask why they’re making the women do it, but we’ll be sure and bring that up another time.
The USL League One Cup isn’t going to stay in League One. No specifics here, but as we’ve all suspected, the USL League One Cup was instituted this year with a clear intention of expansion. “The important thing for us was to get it launched,” O’Neill said. “I think it opens the door to exploring in different leagues, both up in our current Championship and our League 2 model as well and what that could look like in the future.”
The CBS TV deal is bigger than I thought. When USL announced that CBS would carry 100 matches on its various platforms, I really just thought a few games every week would end up buried on Paramount+. X follower Richard Hall Jr wanted me to ask whether we’ll see a weekly USL show on CBS or ESPN and I modified that question slightly to ask whether there would be any USL focus on CBS outside of the match broadcasts, and whether or not it’s important to get that conversation going around the league, beyond the 90 minutes on the pitch. Turns out, I should pay closer attention – CBS already had Charleston Battery head coach Ben Pirmann on, and Sacramento Republic president Todd Dunivant is scheduled to appear next week. As we used to say in politics – if it’s not on TV, it didn’t happen. And as I said, like, last month – sports is a TV show. It’s an attention economy. As important as the gameday experience is for fans, the long-term growth of the sport all depends on the attention it can get, how much people talk about it. Getting a legit platform like the Golazo Show talking about our league is massive, and I get the sense that both CBS and USL really understand that and are going to be aggressive about that moving forward.
USL Premier is still on the table. Jonathan Tannenwald from the Philadelphia Inquirer channeled a lot of USL fan energy when he asked, basically, whether USL leadership was prepared to declare the USL superior to MLS. Alumbaugh and O’Neill demurred, saying it doesn’t really matter whether they think it’s superior – they need players to think it is. Or, at least, they need players to want to play in this league. In response to another question, Alumbaugh and O’Neill said they’re working with ownership groups on stadium projects and other operational standards with at least some aspiration of seeking division one sanctioning at some point. Achieving that on the women’s side is an advantage, Alumbaugh said.
We got more clarity on the USL Forward DEI initiative. Forward Madison is one of five clubs who got a preseason assistant through the league’s new DEI initiative, matching talented young coaches from marginalized communities with training and development opportunities. When the announced the initiative they made it clear that it would grow but didn’t say exactly how, but when I asked they were able to provide a bit more detail – namely, the five coaches who’ve come in this preseason will also get “check-ins” over the course of the season, and in the fall will spend several days at USL HQ “talking about the other side of it, how to be in the boardroom, working with agents. how to work with club chairmen, ownership groups,” Alumbaugh said. “This is a full process.” And will certainly involve more than five clubs in future years.
There were a few other items about stadiums and player development and Open Cup but those were the things that stuck out for me. I’d love to hear your thoughts on what you heard and what stood out to you.
League play gets underway Saturday (!) and your Mingos take the field (!!) in Statesboro on March 16. See you all soon!