If you follow sports with the expectation of a championship, you’re going to be disappointed almost every single season. Contrary to popular belief, sports aren’t about trophies won or merchandise bought. Sports are about the memories we make with those closest to us. Five, ten, twenty years down the road, you won’t remember all the specifics of a game, but you’ll remember the feeling you had when you got to experience something special with family and friends. When the catalyst of those memories is suddenly ripped away, it can feel like a part of you has died.
For San Diego Loyal fans, that became a reality last week when it was announced that the franchise rights of the team were being sold. 2023 will be the last season in the USL for Loyal, just four years after their inaugural season.
I’ve had the pleasure of visiting Torero Stadium on a few occasions, and it is a damn travesty that the fanbase-led by the incredible supporters group known as The Locals-won’t have a team after this year. When you walk into the stadium, there is music, kids kicking soccer balls around, a ton of amazing food, and a packed supporter section that can rival any in the league. To top it off, throughout the team’s entire existence, they’ve given the fans something to be proud of. Whether it’s been their stellar play on the pitch or their commitment to standing up for the LGTBQ+ community, San Diego Loyal is and always will be some of the best that the USL has to offer.
On a more personal note, Loyal was the team that got my brother into soccer. His first soccer game was in 2021 when I brought him to Championship Stadium to watch OCSC. After that, he was hooked on the sport. And he was ecstatic to find his hometown had a brand new team. He had a sense of being on the ground floor for an exciting team in a city that has been screwed over in the world of sports time and again over the years. He has more Loyal kits than I do OCSC ones, and we make it a priority to go together to at least one of the two games when our teams play one another each year.
In all the games we’ve watched together, I can’t tell you the record OCSC holds against Loyal. I can’t tell you who the leading goal scorer is for either team in those matchups. But I can tell you how happy I was spending time with my brother, who had always been sports-curious but never a diehard. We won’t be able to make those memories anymore after 2023. At least not in the way we have been.
Unfortunately, San Diego Loyal becomes yet another casualty of the “soccer wars”, as fans in the US like to call the power struggle between USL and MLS, the league that will welcome a new San Diego team in 2025. I’m in a tricky position because Orange County Soccer Club is my local team. They’re the team that’s ten minutes from my home, the team I have season tickets for, and the team that was the gateway for my brother into the world of soccer. However, the team that was my gateway was Los Angeles Football Club in MLS back in 2019. So for me, I have a vested interest in seeing both MLS and USL succeed. But in the current structure of American soccer, this seems highly unlikely.
US soccer is a nesting doll of imbalanced power dynamics. MLS is the biggest doll, and USL is the smaller one. If you’re familiar with how these things work, the bigger doll consumes the smaller doll. After just four years of existence, San Diego FC will consume San Diego Loyal. And this is not a phenomenon unique to San Diego, they just happen to be the most recent casualty. OCSC fans will remember that just one year ago, there was a legitimate fear that the team was going to be forced out of Championship Stadium and down the inevitable path of destruction. The stadium question was kicked down the road for another year, but what happens to OCSC in 2024? There is absolutely no guarantee that the team will be back in Irvine, and there’s no guarantee that the team would survive if they find themselves without a stadium.
The vast majority of USL fans have come out in support of San Diego Loyal’s plight, but there have been a few folks reveling in their downfall. If you are a fan of a USL team, no matter how you feel about your team’s on-field rivalry with Loyal, absolutely no one should be celebrating a team being pushed out of the league due to a new MLS team. American sports fans have a warped understanding of sports finances thanks to the billion-dollar enterprises that are the NFL, NBA, and MLB. American soccer, even MLS, is not at that level. Even 10-15 years ago, subsequent seasons for MLS weren’t a sure thing. And MLS dwarfs USL in terms of money and capital. Every hit to the league is magnified because of how razor thin the margins are.
USL fans need to understand one thing: this league cannot survive if it continues to lose teams. The road of US soccer is paved with the remains of dead teams and folded leagues. The USL isn’t special; it can and will go away if the San Diego story is repeated with too many other teams. If you care at all about soccer in the US and you were gloating online when San Diego lost their team, you need to reassess your priorities and look at the bigger picture.
How does this problem get solved? I’m not sure. Moments like this will inevitably revive the popular promotion/relegation conversation, and that could be an avenue of salvation. But it could have little to no impact if implemented. And unless the USL gets a sudden injection of millions and millions of dollars (some guys called Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, I hear they know a thing or two about stuff like this), the league will constantly be in a state of unease.
What can fans do? For now, go out and support your team. Go to the games, buy the merch, engage in (friendly) discussions online. But more than anything, make memories. Understand that your team and this league, no matter how much you love it, may become a thing of the past at some point. Don’t take for granted the good things that local soccer can bring to you and your city right now. When fans look back at the games they watched and the stories they made, they’ll smile because it was theirs.
Find a Loyal fan and invite them to a game. Help them through this grieving period by showing them that they won’t be forgotten. They deserved better than what they got, and we all have a responsibility as USL fans, as soccer fans, to pick them up when they’re down.
Because tomorrow, it could be us.
“The hopeful depend on a world without end, whatever the hopeless may say.”
-Rush, Manhattan Project