It happened to me again just yesterday—twice in fact. I’m currently meeting with various soccer and community leaders as we launch a new USL D3 club in Madison, Wisconsin. In that context, two people who follow the American pro soccer landscape pretty closely told me that having too few teams in a professional league would wreak havoc to a team’s budget due to excessive travel costs.



This is a common theme for anyone interested in the business of lower division professional soccer. And it is a gross mischaracterization of the facts. While there is no doubt that having more teams and less travel per trip is beneficial to a team’s budget, the relative impact on overall expenses is greatly exaggerated.



The impact is directly related to the overall budget, which in general is related to the level of the league and the availability of direct flights. Amateur teams in the PDL, NPSL, and UPSL generally operate with annual budgets of less than...