The Statistics Behind the Recent Western Conference Dominance

Where We’ve Been

Professional soccer in the United States has a number of unique traits that are not apparent in any of the other prestigious soccer nations. Perhaps the most geographic of them is the implementation of conferences. The idea of conferences is found in all of the other American sports leagues but is also quite common in non-league soccer around the world.

What makes conferences important in American soccer is they determine who will make the playoffs. Like other professional sports leagues in America, clubs are placed into groups based on their geographic proximity and are in direct competition with the others in their group to qualify for the postseason. The USL Championship has gone through a number of different formats including a single table, multiple divisions, and now two conferences with varying numbers of teams qualifying for the postseason.

Predictably the debate about which conference is better was bound to happen. The USL has not always used the standard East vs. West setup. For the first couple of seasons the USL had the American and National divisions. For titles won during this time we will consider clubs based on what conference they would be in today. It is no secret that the first formative years of the USL were dominated and won by teams from the Eastern Conference. Regardless of size of the league, Eastern conference teams won 7 of the first 8 USL titles with three of the first championship matchups being teams both from the Eastern United States. The one time a team from the West did win was in 2014 when Sacramento Republic FC defeated the Harrisburg City Islanders.

However with the massive expansion of the league came the balancing of teams located across the nation. As mentioned before, the Eastern Conference was seen as the dominant conference with powerhouse clubs like Louisville City, Orlando City, and even some 2 teams like the Red Bulls II team winning a title. Then came the 2019 season when Real Monarchs upset the heavily favored Louisville City and stopped them from winning a third consecutive title. Since then it has only been the Western Conference on top of the USL. In came clubs like Phoenix Rising, Orange County SC, and last year’s winner San Antonio FC who hosted only the second USL Final in a Western Conference stadium.

Playoffs are now the ultimate determinant of a champion yet getting there is a challenge in itself. Conferences still matter in the grand scheme of things since the team with the highest regular season points total gets to host the USL Final.

Where we are Now

The 2023 season was the first time under the Eastern and Western Conference format that each team was able to play every other USL team at least once. Fortunately, our very own Producer Andy kept track of the inter-conference matchups from the year. To set the stage, each team from the West played a total of 12 games against teams from the East: six games at home and six away. New Mexico, Rio Grande Valley, Sacramento, and San Antonio will play their 12th game this upcoming weekend. The maximum number of points that teams can get from these games is 36 total points. Thus we can easily say that any team who earned 18 or more points did average in their games.

With that in mind let's look at the numbers behind this season so far.

There are a couple of interesting pieces of information to take away from this chart:

• Primarily, exactly half the teams have more than or equal to 18 points

• Two other teams (New Mexico/San Antonio) still have the chance to reach the 18 point threshold. Orange County currently has the best record against Eastern Conference teams even though they are tied for third with San Diego in overall standings. With one cross-conference game to play, Sacramento who are first in the West are third against the Eastern Conference.

• Coincidentally San Diego are currently next best to OC but could drop to 3rd in points if Republic bests Miami.

• The biggest surprise is San Antonio FC have only earned 15 points against the East. They do have a chance to reach 18 if they can beat Indy XI.

The rest of the table is pretty mundane and is a good representation of how the Western Conference standings are in real life. The lowly Lights were able to get 4 draws while Oakland and RGV who are both on the outside looking in might rue their chances against the East when the season is done.

stop the count!

Now that we have looked at the team-by-team records let us now look at the broader picture. There are still four inter-conference games left to play this weekend. One of those four will be played on Friday night as New Mexico will be playing for their playoff lives as they travel to Memphis. Then on Saturday RGV will host Loudoun, Sacramento host Miami, and San Antonio host Indy. However even if all of those Western Conference teams were to lose, the nod still goes to the West.

As of Thursday, October 12, in interconference games the West are a combined 58-47-34 for the 2023 season. As expected the majority of success has come when Western Conference teams are at home. Teams from the West are 32-18-19 at home while going a respectable 26-29-15 on the road. That is 208 points earned out of a possible 417 points. Officially speaking the Western Conference have won the series against the East in the first year of the new scheduling format.

Of course the regular season is not an indication of how well a team may do in the postseason. While the typical powerhouse teams in both conferences have stayed pretty consistent, the fact of the matter is that the West has had the slight edge over the East for about four years now. With the USL set to undergo another expansion phase, this time being focused more on the East, it will be interesting to see how the conferences will shape up in the not too distant future.