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Strength In Numbers

Now that we know there will be 12 teams at the Division II level for 2010, here’s the revised list of how many teams there have been at each level of the US soccer pyramid since MLS launched in 1996:

Year Div. I Div II Div III PDL TOTAL USL
1996 10 28 27 34 92 86
1997 10 24 39 30 103 93
1998 12 28 39 33 112 100
1999 12 30 26 42 110 98
2000 12 25 22 44 103 91
2001 12 21 17 45 95 83
2002 10 18 18 47 93 83
2003 10 19 13 50 92 82
2004 10 16 12 55 93 83
2005 12 12 9 54 87 75
2006 12 12 10 59 93 81
2007 13 12 10 63 98 85
2008 14 11 10 67 102 88
2009 15 11 9 69 104 89
2010 16 12 6 68 102 *80

(No, I’m not counting the NPSL. Yet. And *I’m going to count half of the teams in this new USSF D2 league as “USL” teams - the ones playing in the “USL Conference” - as USL teams for 2010. Next year we’ll break things out further if we have to.)

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 7th, 2010 at 2:44 pm and is filed under soccer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “Strength In Numbers”

  1. chuck Says:
    January 9th, 2010 at 10:43 pm

    Any thoughts on the trendline, Kenn? Is there any point of having Div. II or Div. III soccer in the US (absent pro/rel)? Is US Open Cup and the possibility of playing a higher division team or even in the CCC Champion’s League sufficient to justify lower divisions?

    The current system - with young players playing for their college during the season and often for a PDL team in the off season - is what we have and does not seem to be going anywhere soon. In fact, it looks like that part of USL has grown tremendously. I think this system has real flaws, but regardless of its flaws, I don’t see a ‘raison d’etre’ for Div. II/III soccer. Why not just have PDL/NCAA and MLS?

  2. David Fellerath Says:
    January 11th, 2010 at 4:00 pm

    Interesting data. Thanks for compiling. It’s striking to see how D2 and D3 have hollowed out, with doubling of D4 and steady increase of D1.

  3. admin Says:
    January 12th, 2010 at 4:05 am

    Chuck:

    As long as there is demand for the product, it makes sense. If the people in Charleston want a team and someone is willing to foot the bill, more power to them. It doesn’t have to be about pro/rel or player development.

  4. chuck Says:
    January 13th, 2010 at 8:22 am

    That’s true. I guess, exestentially, there is no real reason to have any league.

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