It ain’t cheap to run in USL:

Across the board, the costs of running a professional team in the US remain high. Reporting from Backheeled estimates the annual expenses of a first-year Championship club to be $24m-$29.5m, and for non-expansion teams to spend $3.7m-$8.4m per year. For League One, those figures come in at about $7.6m-$11.5m for debuting sides and $2.4m-$5.4m for returning teams.

Public records also show that one Championship club (Orange County SC) ultimately spent over $300,000 on TV and radio costs in 2024. Teams pay annual dues exceeding $300,000 as of 2025, while the USL’s franchise agreement ensures $1.50 of every ticket sold across both leagues comes back to the USL itself.

As Dan Egner can attest, travel is also a considerable hit to operating budgets. The USL had hoped to regionalize League One to cut down on travel, but as of 2026, it’s still a fully national league like MLS and the Championship. The league hopes to enact third-tier regionalization once USL Premier debuts, but until then, clubs continue to incur considerable operational costs without league assistance.