Michael Page @MichaelPageFB

You may be right, that could end up being the path. But I think our job, if we actually want pro/rel, is to make the case for it now, not just wait for MLS to be forced into it. That case has to be made financially, competitively, and most importantly in my view, on legacy. These are billionaires. Money alone won’t move them, being remembered as the ones who took the bold step might.

In The Open Field, I argue MLS is best suited to lead the transition to an open ecosystem. Not to diminish the USL's work, but because of it, and because of the grassroots foundation laid by the UPSL, NPSL, and other adult leagues. With their Division One announcement, three levels of pro/rel by 2028, USL has captured the intellectual and operational heart of this movement, betting real capital that open competition and a merit-based structure can work on American soil. But a pyramid can't be unlocked from the middle down. MLS holds the stadiums, the media rights, and the commercial platform to open it from the top. Without that, American soccer stays two fractured stories instead of one connected system. If MLS leads, it doesn't make USL's or the grassroots leagues' work obsolete. It finally validates it, and in doing so, creates the legacy of fully unifying the American soccer pyramid for the first time. If MLS doesn't lead, the USL will, and it's the USL that ends up owning the narrative of being the authentic, merit-based version of this sport in America, a narrative MLS cannot afford to cede.

Fair points on the money side, but I think a couple things get lost. $500M isn’t really the baseline, San Diego FC is the only club that’s ever paid that. Most owners got in for less and many for far less. And the bigger issue is the argument against pro/rel focuses exclusively on defensive risk avoidance while ignoring offensive value creation. That D1 to D2 cliff only exists because the system is closed in the first place. Open it up and you’re not just splitting the same pie, you’re growing it. D2 clubs don’t just get real commercial value overnight, they unlock new capital, plus new media deals and fan interest because every match on the table actually means something.

@MartyMacMiller Read again. I never called USL grassroots, only UPSL and other amateur adult leagues. I’m also aware of the USL league operating format. I’ll just say I’m pretty sure the club owners wouldn’t have voted for pro/rel if they weren’t comfortable with the future revenue sharing.

@SkyPointSteve @starsnstripesfc Is this a genuine ask, or just a rhetorical challenge? Are you saying you agree an open ecosystem with promotion and relegation is the better model, if the financial piece can actually be worked out to the owners' satisfaction?

The pro/rel debate in American soccer usually gets framed too narrowly, focusing only on competitive pressure at the top. But the true systemic power of an open ecosystem runs from the grassroots upward. In a closed system, talent identification is concentrated. MLS academies scout broadly within their reach, but below that level, investment drops, scouting is inconsistent, and the path to the pros is tenuous at best. The result? Thousands of players are left out. If you don't live near an academy, can't afford expensive club fees, or happen to be a late bloomer, the system misses you. An open ecosystem changes the incentives entirely. When promotion, relegation, and roster value exist at every tier, every club, from the local UPSL side to League One, becomes an active talent identification node. Finding and developing a talented young player in their own backyard offers real competitive and commercial value. Instead of a centralized, expensive system trying to cover a massive country, an aggregate scouting network naturally emerges. Thousands of clubs, each pursuing their own growth, collectively comb the American landscape with a thoroughness no single entity could ever replicate or afford. When every community is scouted and every player is given a clear path forward, opportunity becomes universal. It's not just that the cream rises to the top, it's that the cream gets forged along the way, tested by real competition at every level, in a system our current one never puts them through. What could be more American than that?

A few days ago, it was pay to play. Today, everybody's debating whether Pochettino was the right hire. I'm personally fine with the hire. But we need to be debating something far more important. The coach shapes culture. He doesn't shape the ceiling. That's set by the depth of the player pool, and ours isn't even close to deep enough. England can leave Phil Foden and Cole Palmer off their World Cup squad entirely and barely blink, because Morgan Rogers and Eberechi Eze are right there on their heels and a dip in form cost them. We don't have that luxury at a single position. Until we have a system that's actually incentivized to produce that kind of depth, from youth to pro, our ceiling stays pretty much where it is, regardless of who's on the sideline. We should be debating how we build that depth. Not who's on the sideline.

@ManagerTactical I like Poch but it doesn't really change the ceiling. That only rises with player depth. England can bench Foden and Palmer because Rogers and Eze are waiting. Until we have a system that's incentivized to produce that depth, our ceiling stays the same, regardless of coach.

@AlexiLalas The coach matters, but doesn't really change the ceiling. That only rises with player depth. England can bench Foden and Palmer because Rogers and Eze are waiting. Until we have a system that's incentivized to produce that depth, our ceiling stays the same, regardless of coach.

Check out my latest article: From the Inside Out: Why I Wrote The Open Field linkedin.com/pulse/from-ins… via @LinkedIn

It all comes down to what our actual goals are. If the goal is developing world class level players, competing to win World Cups, and filling matches with real stakes and genuine passion then we need pro/rel. If the goal is simply protecting owner investments then closed leagues are the way to go. They may own the league/teams but the game belongs to the fans. We should be the ones deciding what matters most.

Open entry is the part that makes those words real, anyone can enter the pyramid at the base for little or no cost and rise purely on merit. It’s the developmental engine the great soccer nations have built, and American soccer has not. No version of American soccer greatness arrives without it.

I think most people, even strong MLS supporters, would likely agree an open ecosystem with promotion and relegation is the better model. What they’re pushing back on is steamrolling it through, or the idea that owners who’ve invested hundreds of millions over thirty years owe it up without a business case. This has to work financially for the people who built what exists. It also has to weigh the national team’s ceiling, developing world class players, and a legacy worth leading. The real work isn’t proving the model’s right. It’s building a plan that makes the business case too.

An open ecosystem with pro/rel from youth to pro is essential for the growth of American soccer. Without it, the floor can be lifted by addressing the symptoms but the ceiling will stay the same. Unfortunately, US Soccer doesn't have the will or leverage to mandate that shift. IMO, it has to come from MLS. We must align the business case for MLS owners: an open pyramid isn't a threat—it’s the key to higher enterprise value, deeper talent for the national teams, and a lasting legacy for the sport in the US.

💯 Here’s a tidbit from my next book I’m working on, “The youth sports industry in America is a masterpiece of market engineering. It has taken the most natural thing in the world, a child who loves to play, and constructed an elaborate, expensive, anxiety-driven ecosystem around it that serves almost everyone except the child and the family.”

The case for an open ecosystem isn’t built on criticism of what MLS has done. It’s built on what MLS has achieved. They’re the only entity with the capital, infrastructure, and credibility to take American soccer into an open ecosystem with promotion and relegation. It’s easy to be a critic. It’s harder, and far more useful, to find common ground and build solutions. So the real question isn’t why MLS is holding this back. It’s how do we convince them to lead it. That means making the financial case, why this makes sense for ownership, not just for the sport. It means showing the competitive value, what real stakes do for clubs up and down the pyramid, not just at the top. It means connecting it to the national team, because a domestic league built for real competition is what actually produces world class players. And it means legacy. The owners who lead this won’t just be remembered for a smart business decision. They’ll be remembered as the generation that finally built the system American soccer was always capable of having. Billionaires have thick skin. Criticism alone was never going to move them. Making the case might.

@KAssigbe All are symptoms of a system without the right incentive structure. We improve all of them without fixing the incentive structure then we raise the floor but ceiling stays the same.

Agree re your analysis on economic incentives, but expecting U.S. Soccer to lead this is wishful thinking because I believe the federation lacks the leverage and institutional strength to mandate a structural reset of this scale. Right now, we are running a sugar daddy economy masquerading as a soccer pyramid. Expecting lower tier owners to absorb endless losses while building equity for a closed top division eventually hits a hard ceiling. In my opinion, MLS is best positioned to lead this transformation. The real task for promotion and relegation advocates is convincing MLS owners that opening the system on their terms represents the greatest commercial opportunity in American sports today. By anchoring a fully connected pyramid, all that lower tier investment starts growing the overall pie instead of fueling fragmented competition. That is how MLS captures the real economic upside of American soccer, helps make our national team more competitive and leaves a genuine legacy for the game here.

@PaulSpacey @Jon_Mackenzie Shoot barefoot. Best way to develop that feel IMO

Thought experiment: if failure wasn't a risk, no financial downside, no operational headache, and you were just designing the best system to make America competitive on the world stage, youth through pro, which would you build? A closed system, or a fully connected open ecosystem? Most people, if they're honest, land on the same answer. An open pyramid. That tells you something. The disagreement was never really about whether an open ecosystem is the better model. It's about whether it's financially and operationally viable to get there from here, and whether what gets built is stable enough to last. Fair question. But it's a different question, and conflating the two is what keeps this debate stuck. If we agree on the destination, the conversation should shift from "should we" to "how." What does relegation protection look like? How is revenue structured so clubs don't collapse on the way down? What's the transition path that makes the whole thing durable? Those are solvable problems, the same way every country that's built this has solved them. That's what my book, The Open Field, actually spends time on: not just the why, but the how. Mapping a real, stable plan to get there. Not the final answer, just a starting point for the conversation the sport actually needs to have. The Open Field. Link in bio.