New USL Stadiums In Sacramento And Beyond Key To Division One Vision

Jared Timmer of Sacramento Republic greets fans at Heart Health Park on May 21, 2024 in Sacramento, Calif.

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There were two pieces of major stadium news made in the USL Championship last week, and both of them are critical for the league operator’s future.

In Sacramento, builders actually put shovels in dirt to begin construction on a 12,000-seat, easily expandable facility for the Sacramento Republic, a club that was once given the green light to transition to MLS but then saw that move dissolve after key investor Ron Burkle pulled out of the deal.

In Michigan, Detroit City FC unveiled its plans for a 15,000-seat venue. The club still needs to go complete the public approval process, but has communicated that construction could begin as soon as late this year.

And in Western Pennsylvania, the owners of the Pittsburgh Riverhounds announced their intentions to expand their Highmark Stadium to 15,000 seats, though that project may not begin until 2028 or later.

Taken together, the projects would drastically improve the inventory of facilities in the division, which is currently the only league sanctioned as a second-division men’s pro league in the United States. They’d immediately become three of the nine largest venues in the 24-team circuit, and three of the four largest venues in the league where the USL team was the primary tennant.

The Importance of 15,000

And maybe more importantly, they would take USL closer to an inventory of stadiums that could help its recently announced “Division One” project receive sanctioning from the United States Soccer Federation as a top-flight competition that rivals MLS.

The USSF has several mandatory criteria for any men’s league applying for Division 1 sanctioning, including having a minimum of 12 teams by the first season and 14 by the third. But the toughest for the USL’s current clubs to meet may be the requirement that every club play in a stadium with a capacity of at least 15,000.

Only four USL Championship clubs currently play in stadiums that meet that threshold: Birmingham Legion, Miami FC Louisville City, Oakland Roots. The three aforementioned projects could take that total to seven, given that Scramento’s facility is designed to be easily expandable to 15,000. And the purpose-built facilities at Rhode Island FC, San Antonio FC and Phoenix Rising FC were all built with expansion in mind, which takes you to 10 venues where a capacity above 15,000 feels realistic.

Top-Flight Feel

But maybe the most important part of these projects for the USL’s top-flight vision is their capacity to give future Divsion One matches a look and feel similar to the MLS experience.

That’s not just about getting 12 founding clubs into 15,000 capacity venues. It’s about getting them into venues that size that also feel first and foremost like soccer venues, rather than multi-purpose stadiums that happen to be used for soccer.

That’s the norm now in MLS, where 80% of teams will be the primary tenants of their venues once projects at New York City FC and the Chicago Fire are completed. And even many of the clubs that share venues with American football teams do an excellent job of making those venues feel well-attended and intimate. To date, Atlanta United, the Seattle Sounders, San Diego FC and Charlotte FC have the four highest average attendances in the league, which significantly mitigates any negative impression that might be caused by sharing larger venues.

Even if USL’s Division One achieves top-flight sanctioning, it will only succeed if it can convince fans that it’s worthy of that sanctioning, much in the way the old American Football League had to prove itself relative to the NFL in the 1960s. These new stadium projects may go a long way toward making that possible.