Chalk this one up to constantly learning things and seeing new things happen when actions are taken. We’ve theorized for years about how promotion and relegation would help the game in the United States, but one piece that I never thought about was the potential consolidation of independent youth clubs, and strong standalone academy structures to professional clubs in their area to create a direct pathway to pro with increased resource resources for facilities, tactical training, tactical, teaching, and coaching excellence.

This appears to be happening in USL already.

Beyond the 90 is a reader supported publication where the majority of our community members have significant involvement in the domestic game here in the United States.

We never had problems until the last few weeks in our comment section and unfortunately I’ve had to take action as a result. I’m very sorry I dropped the ball on this- I should be monitoring the comments more carefully I admit.

Please watch this video and understand the ground rules for commenting in the future.

Thank you for your continued support of BT90.

Going from supporter to writer. Some tips from personal experiences and some of the mistakes I’ve made in the past.

The situation is fluid, but there are some conclusions that can be drawn from what has transpired in the last few months.

On this late week edition of The Third Half:

We take a look at the Gainbridge announcement and I give my thoughts on this massive news for the USL.

Buffalo has announced a stadium site for their home ground. Lets take a look at the pluses and minuses.

Louisville City and Lexington have announced partnerships. What do they mean?

Louisville City and Lexington also announced what they will be playing for as this new rivalry takes off.

I also take a look at the recent signings in the league and recap the two midweek fixtures.

As a reminder, due to travel this weekend there will be no early week edition of The Third Half. I do sincerely apologize and our regular schedule will resume with the late week edition.

I do apologize for any background noise that may have been picked up during recording.

As always, thank you for your support of both The Third Half and Beyond the 90.

How should the USL professional ecosystem be structured with PRO/REL? Some ideas here.

President Trump is unlikely to have a huge impact on whether people travel to World Cup 2026 or not as many of the concerns I have heard about coming to the United States predated his election, but the immigration and tariff situations as well as the uncertainties created by Trump’s policy meandering about are already negatively impacting the sport in this country.

One potential positive is that a weakening dollar may lead to more foreign clubs touring the United States. Increasing inflation may help USL but the potential of stagflation which could come from a protectionist economic policy could be disastrous for the professional game in this country.

We get into all of this in this video answering your questions.

We talk about all of the topics listed on the graphic in addition to discussing the need to properly staff clubs with ticket and sponsorship sales people.

Sorry for the delay this week - life happens. But we got around to recording on Monday afternoon and covered all the Loudoun United situation news and analysis as well as digging into the weekend’s USL Championship action.

The Third Half Podcast is available via the Beyond the 90 stream on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever you get podcasts

While, the financial arguments do deserve more critiques (next video in this series) the player development benefit around promotion and relegation are painfully obvious. But for those still unconvinced we dive into it here.