Professional US soccer leagues look fairly similar to their counterparts in other American sports, and always have for the most part. You have a league with teams located in (mostly) large towns dotted across the entire continent. And once you get enough teams, it's broken into regional divisions for scheduling purposes. MLS, USL, NISA, and […]

As expected, Leeds United named Sam Allardyce as the club's new head coach on Wednesday. The deal will apparently also include an interesting stipulation should the team avoid relegation. The Daily Mail is reporting that the Yorkshire club will pay Allardyce a base salary of about $627,000. There are only four games remaining on the […]

The latest episode of the World Soccer Talk Podcast is presented by Sling. Hosted by Christopher Harris and Kartik Krishnaiyer, this episode focuses on what makes relegation is appealing to watch, as a neutral. Plus, we take a closer look at the race to avoid relegation, sharing our predictions of who will get relegated. The […]

England's WSL – Women's Super League – has risen to become one of the top women's competitions in the world. With big-name clubs, and an ever-improving roster of players, the WSL continues to evolve. The 2022/23 season has seen two English sides, Arsenal and Chelsea, reach the semifinals of the UEFA Women's Champions League. The […]

The latest episode of the World Soccer Talk Podcast is presented by Sling. Hosted by Christopher Harris and Kartik Krishnaiyer, this episode debates promotion and relegation in the USA. It's a bigger topic now more than ever, and we dissect the pros and cons of the system. Some of the questions we answer are: Can […]

Promotion and relegation, aka pro/rel, is a controversial and hotly debated topic in US soccer circles. The United States is one of only a few countries worldwide that does not use the system that allows for the movement of clubs between divisions based on competitive merit. But how things could have been so different. When […]

If you're a new soccer fan, getting into the sport can feel a bit overwhelming. This is especially true in the US, where the sport works a little differently from the rest of the world. Soccer also sits lower on the totem pole behind other domestic sports when it comes to mainstream sports media coverage […]

Morning Footy, the anchor show for CBS Sports Golazo Network, once again brought up the hot discussion of pro/rel in the US. The first edition of the show displayed the drama that is promotion and relegation, using Wrexham's dramatic win over Notts County in the fifth tier as a primary example. On Wednesday, the four-person […]

Wrexham co-owners Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds were in the stands to watch their team play Notts County on Monday. The game had anticipation as the biggest National League fixture of all time. After all, the two clubs entered the match both on 100 points, far exceeding any other team in the fifth-tiered division. As […]

The Australia Football Association received 32 bids of interest to join a second division underneath the A-League. Football Australia confirmed teams across eight Australian states and territories submitted expressions of interest (EOIs) to join the league. However, the proposed team count for the second division is between 10 and 16 teams. Right now, the main […]

The topic of promotion and relegation in MLS has been debated for decades. Fans, pundits, and league officials have gone back and forth on the subject tirelessly. In recent years, league commissioner Don Garber has addressed the idea multiple times. The topic keeps coming up again. This week, Garber once again toyed with the idea. […]

MLS purists have long battled against the notion of promotion and relegation in American soccer. This position has often been backed by franchise owners. However, moving into 2023 it appears as though the winds of change are swirling with the success of MLS Season Pass. In a survey conducted by ESPN in 2019, 64% of […]

After The Athletic released an interview with Inter Miami manager Phil Neville, the club banned the publication from its media day event. The interview with Neville included criticism of the lack of a finite playoff structure a week before the regular season started. However, the most interesting note was Neville's support of promotion and relegation […]

The argument for promotion and relegation in Major League Soccer has now reached its coaches. Phil Neville, manager for Inter Miami, is firm supporter of pro/rel in MLS, citing that the concept can help the league's competitiveness. In an interview with The Athletic, Neville talked about the growing pains of Inter Miami in Major League […]

Chelsea Women manager Emma Hayes has asked for soccer officials in the UK to consider a closed league. Like all professional soccer leagues in the UK, the England's Women's Super League currently operates a promotion and relegation system. Hayes has experience in similar situation "I've worked in that in the United States," said former Chicago […]