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History of USSF Sanctioned Teams by Professional Division
A timeline of teams in professional leagues directly sanctioned by US Soccer
Posted on Sept. 1, 2025, 11:57 a.m. | Categories: DataIn the Modern Era of U.S. Soccer, the USSF directly sanctions a soccer league and its teams as professional. Those professional ranks are broken out into three specific tiers - Divisions 1, 2, and 3. The USSF considers only those leagues and clubs to be professional. All others are technically considered amateur leagues and teams by U.S. Soccer.
Prior to the 1980s, U.S. Soccer wasn’t so strict. While only a handful of professional leagues were directly sanctioned by the USSF, there wasn’t as formal a restriction on leagues and teams being considered professional. For most of U.S. soccer history, the federation left it to the state soccer associations to decide on the professional or amateur status of leagues and clubs within their purviews. So, the list of historical U.S. leagues and teams that were truly professional is actually vast.
As such, this timeline only consists of teams within professional leagues that were directly sanctioned by U.S. Soccer. It’s a much smaller group and, while still a work in progress, is much easier to compile.
Prior to U.S. Soccer’s formal creation of a hierarchy of Divisons within the “Professional Division”, professional leagues sanctioned by USSF did not have any official tier structure for those leagues. So, for this timeline I’ve used the term “Major” for those leagues that are widely understood to be the country’s major soccer leagues. Basically, that’s the original American Soccer League and the original North American Soccer League.
Other local professional soccer leagues proliferated in big cities during the first half of the 20th century. And a number of them were referred to as the “major” soccer league of that city. For example, the National Soccer League of Chicago (known by various names over time) was a professional league that was considered Chicago’s “major” league. But, it was not directly sanctioned by the U.S.F.A. but by the Illinois Soccer Association.
What’s currently missing on this timeline are the small number of professional leagues that the USSF directly sanctioned between the 1920s and the 1980s that weren’t considered “major” leagues. This includes the latter years of the original American Soccer League (1934 to 1983) and the North American Soccer Football League of 1946 and 1947. I will add these teams for the next iteration of this timeline.
The Majors
The Golden Age
The Golden Age of soccer in the U.S. is commonly referred to the time of the founding of the original American Soccer League. It can be roughly understood as the time from World War I to the Great Depression. The ASL’s first season was 1921-22 and it was widely acknowledged as the first true fully-professional soccer league in the U.S.
The “Soccer Wars” started at the beginning of the 1928-29 soccer season. The ASL voted to prohibit its clubs from taking part in that year’s National Challenge Cup. Three teams defied that ruling and signed up to take part in the NCC. The ASL fined each of the three clubs $1000 and suspended their franchise privileges.
When the ASL refused to back down the U.S.F.A. expelled the ASL and launched a new professional league - the Eastern Soccer League. The three former ASL teams formed the core of the new ESL. The ASL continued as an outlaw league.
The “Soccer Wars” continued through the 1928-29 soccer season and into the beginning of the 1929-30 soccer season. The U.S.F.A. negotiated a peace where, in late October 1929, the ASL disbanded and most of its teams along with the best teams from the ESL merged to form a newly-organized Atlantic Coast Soccer League operated by the U.S.F.A. The ESL actually finished its 1929-30 season with the remaining teams and limped through a 1930-31 season before disbanding.
The American Soccer League officially reformed after the summer of 1930 but, for all intents and purposes, it was a continuation of the ACSL. The ASL held seasons from the fall of 1930 through the fall of 1931. The league practically fell apart from spring of 1932 to spring of 1933 before being re-organized as separate Metropolitan and New England leagues under the ASL umbrella organization starting with the 1933-34 season.
The Silver Age
Soccer lost traction with mainstream sports fans in the U.S. after World War II. The England World Cup of 1966 sparked new interest in the U.S. and three groups began working on launching a new major soccer league. Two of those groups merged leaving the United Soccer Association and the National Professional Soccer League applying for official sanctioning with the U.S.S.F.A. The USA won the battle and planned to launch in 1968. The NPSL decided to move forward as an unsanctioned league beginning in 1967.
That competition made the USA push up its start date to the 1967 season as well. In order to do so, the USA franchises made deals with international clubs to loan their entire rosters for the summer league. So, in 1967, the USA was the officially sanctioned major pro league in the U.S. but played with imported teams. And, the NPSL was the outlaw league but made up of its own contracted players and had a television broadcast deal with CBS.
Following the 1967 season, the USA and NPSL merged to form the North American Soccer League as the officially sanctioned “major” pro league in the U.S. Huge losses saw the NASL all but disband at the end of the 1968 season but the league cobbled together a massively pared down 1969 season. Slow growth kept the NASL going through the early 1970s until a Pele-inspired soccer bubble caused massive expansion in the late 1970s. The NASL could not financially sustain itself and collapsed after the 1984 season.
The Dark Ages
Soccer interest spiked again after the U.S. won the rights to the 1994 World Cup. As part of that deal, FIFA required that the USSF have a Division 1 league in place by the time the World Cup launched in the U.S.
Building a soccer pyramid from scratch was a daunting task for the USSF to organize. A number of leagues across the country attempted to build up to becoming professional.
Anchored by the professional San Jose Earthquakes of the defunct NASL, the Western Soccer Alliance played as an informal competition in the summer of 1985. It became the professional Western Soccer Association in 1986. But, while professional, the USSF considered the WSA as a regional semi-pro/amateur league.
A new American Soccer League launched on the east coast in 1988. That league also had hopes of becoming a truly professional league. Following the 1989 season, the new ASL and the Western Soccer League merged to form the American Professional Soccer League. The merged APSL was seen to be the forerunner to the USSF's proposed Division I "Professional League" set for operation by 1992.
The APSL received “Professional Division” sanctioning starting with the 1992 season. But, the USSF did not formally give the APSL any specific Division tier status. In 1993, the APSL applied for Division I status along with a few other organizations. At the end of that year the USSF gave Division I sanctioning to Major League Professional Soccer, Inc. which planned to launch for the 1995 season.
The APSL begrudgingly received Division II status starting with the 1994 season. The other league receiving professional sanctioning for the 1994 season was the U.S. Interregional Soccer League which received Division III status.
The USISL began as the five-team Southwest Indoor Soccer League in 1986 and added an outdoor league in 1989. After a few name changes, the USISL began rapid expansion during its 1992 and 1993 outdoor seasons before applying for Division III professional status for the 1994 season.
The Bronze Age
Men’s Soccer
In 1995, with MLS unable to launch, the APSL re-branded itself as the A-League and again failed to gain Division I sanctioning. The USISL men’s leagues officially split into the USISL-Pro league which retained Division III pro sanctioning and the USISL-Premier league teams which contained all the organization’s amateur teams.
In 1996, MLS finally launched as U.S. Soccer’s first official Division I professonal league. The A-League continued as the country’s Division II league. And, the USISL split its higher-level Division III pro teams into a new USISL-Select league with the remaining Division III pro teams staying in the USISL-Pro league. During the 1996 season the USISL-Select league received provisional Division II sanctioning for the 1997 season.
The USISL and A-League merged after the end of the 1996 season. That merger saw the A-League become a division within USISL as that organization’s Division II pro league. The USISL A-League contained teams from the A-League and top teams from the USISL. The USISL was renamed the United Soccer Leagues in 1999 and, other than name changes, the men’s Division II and Division III leagues continued through the 2009 season.
WUSA
Following the home victory of the U.S. Women’s National Team at the 1999 Women’s World Cup, a group of UWSNT players began seeking investors to launch a professional league. In summer of 2000, the Women’s United Soccer Association was granted Division 1 status by U.S. Soccer. It would launch in 2001 as the world’s first fully-professional women’s soccer league. Although popular, the league folded soon after its 2003 season due to mounting financial losses.
Contraction
The loss of the WUSA was not the only contraction of soccer in the U.S. following the launch of the new American pyramid. MLS almost went under after a handful of years and had to fold its two Florida clubs. The USISL quickly peaked with 63 Division II and III teams in its first three years as a professional organization. But began shedding clubs in 1998. From that high of 63 clubs the USL dropped to 37 by 2001 and they way down to 20 in 2009.
The Modern Era
Resurgence
MLS began a slow growth process in the mid-2000s. That pace accelerated starting in 2009. Over the next four years MLS launched five new franchises. Not only that, but four of those franchises were former Divison II teams. While MLS had almost doubled in size in less than a decade, those growing pains were being felt in the other professional leagues.
WPS
At the same time that MLS was beginning an expansionist tear, the women’s professional soccer game returned. Efforts to revive a Division 1 women’s league began almost immediately following the demise of WUSA. A new league was organized in 2007 with plans to launch in 2008. The start was pushed back to 2009 to avoid competing with the 2007 Women’s World Cup and the 2008 Olympic Games.
Women’s Professional Soccer did launch in 2009. While WPS trimmed down the excesses of WUSA the league only stayed around the same number of years. WPS folded following the 2011 season due to internal organizational and legal issues as well as lack of resources. But stability for top-level women’s pro soccer was not far away.
Soccer Warz
In 2009, USL was sold which led to six USL First Division teams (plus a new St. Louis club) to break away from that organization to create a new North American Soccer League and apply for Division II sanctioning. Due to the legal turmoil surrounding the move, the USSF didn’t sanction either the USL First Division or the NASL for the 2010. Instead U.S. Soccer operated the USSF Division-2 Professional League temporarily for the 2010 season which included 12 teams from NASL and USL First Division.
The 2011 season would see the NASL begin their first season with eight teams and provisional Division II sanctioning. USL created a new USL Pro league with Division III sanctioning. The inaugural 2011 season saw 12 teams11 take the field around a core of a handful of USL Second Division teams plus a few Division II franchises.
In 2015, USL Pro rebranded to the United Soccer League and almost doubled in sized from 14 to 24 teams. This rapid expansion included a number of typical expansion franchises, but MLS also bought seven USL franchises for their reserve teams.
While popular, the NASL saw much more modest growth going from eight teams in 2011 to 11 in 2015. That year the Minnesota NASL club announced it would join MLS for the 2017 season. That fall the NASL announced its intention to be sanctioned as a Division I league. The NASL had never fully met Division II criteria and had been playing under provisional Division II status since its launch. U.S. soccer denied the NASL’s Division I application in early 2016 but again granted the league provisional Division II status.
The USSF granted provisional Division II sanctioning to USL for the 2017 season. The NASL, again also with provisional Division II sanctioning, dropped down to eight teams for that season which included the loss of a couple of teams to the USL. The latter league grew to 30 teams. The move by USL also meant that U.S. Soccer was without a Division III professional league for the first time since 1994.
In September of 2017, the NASL filed suit against U.S. Soccer on the basis of antitrust violations due to the USSF’s professional sanctioning criteria. The NASL lost a motion for a preliminary injunction then were denied on appeal. Because of these rulings the NASL canceled its 2018 season leaving the USL again as the lone organization operating professional men’s soccer in the U.S. below Division I.
NWSL
The Women’s Premier Soccer League was formed in 1998 as a competitor to the USL’s W-League for the top national amateur league in the U.S. In 2012, the organization launched the WPSL Elite league in response to the folding of WPS and the interest in a number of WPSL teams possible move into the professional ranks.
Eight teams took part in the amateur league. While formally an amateur league, the WPSL Elite league was made up mostly of professional teams. This included three teams that moved to WPSL Elite from WPS.
In November of 2012, the National Women’s Soccer League was formed as a newly-sanctioned Division 1 professional league. Operated at a lower cost structure and managed by the USSF, the NWSL launched in 2013 with eight teams, including a few surviving WPS clubs. With slow, steady growth the NWSL has survived a decade and grown to a dozen teams.
Continued growth
MLS has continued to expand at a rapid pace growing from 20 clubs in 2015 to 29 in 2023. The organization aims to add a 30th franchise soon. USL rebranded as USL Championship in 2019 and grew to 36 teams that year. The USL organization also launched USL League One that season as the first sanctioned Division III league since 2016. USL League One began with 10 teams that season and has 12 in 2023.
The 2019 season also saw the first season of a new Division III men’s league. The National Independent Soccer Association launched in the fall of 2019 with eight clubs. While struggling to survive, NISA continues with nine teams in the 2023 season.
A third Division III men’s league launched in 2022. MLS Next Pro serves as the developmental league for MLS’ reserve teams. Starting that season most of the MLS reserve teams playing in the USL Championship and USL League One moved to MLSNP. More reserve sides joined in 2023 growing MLSNP to 27 teams. These moves dropped USL Championship down to 24 teams in 2023.
The number of USSF sanctioned professional teams quickly grew from five in 1992 to 79 in 1998. That quickly collaped to only 33 teams in 2005 and 2006. That number stayed stable for the next handful of years. Growth began again in 2011. In 2019 the number of professional teams grew to 77 and has reached 101 for the 2023 season.
List of leagues in the above chart
- ▪ Major: ASL (1921-22 to October 1928); ESL (1928-29 to October 1929); ACSL (1929-30); ASL (1930-33); USA (1967); NASL (1968-84)
- ▪ Division 1: MLS (1996-present); WUSA (2001-03); WPS (2009-11); NWSL (2013-present)
- ▪ Division 2: APSL/A-League (1994-96); USISL A-League/USL A-League/USL First Division (1997-2009); USSF D-2 (2010); NASL II (2011-17); USL/USL-C (2017-present)
- ▪ Division 3: USISL (1994); USISL-Pro/USISL D3-Pro/USL D3-Pro/ USL Pro/USL Second Division/USL Pro/USL (1995-2016); USISL-Select (1996); MPSL (2003-04; USL-L1 (2019-present); NISA (2019-present); MLSNP (2022-present)
- ▪ Professional Division: APSL (1992-93)
- ▪ Non-sanctioned leagues: ASL (1928-29 to October 1929); NPSL (1967); WPSL Elite (2012)