USL's Revenue-Sharing Vote Is the Third Piece of a Sequenced Build, Not a Standalone Deal

• USL's men's professional clubs approved a new revenue-sharing model around September 11, 2026, giving clubs a defined share of growth in national league revenue; the formula and percentage split were not disclosed.
• The vote followed, by one week, the ratification of a five-year CBA covering USL Championship and USL Premier; per USL's official ratification release, it also moves Championship contracts from 10 to 12 months and mandates ACA Silver-level health coverage league-wide, alongside Championship minimum compensation of $42,000 in 2026 and USL Premier's at $67,500 when it launches in 2028.
• Both deals closed under new President and CEO Paul McDonough, who took the role June 1, 2026, succeeding Alec Papadakis after nearly two decades.
• BellTower Partners, led by former Carlyle Group CEO Kewsong Lee, took a minority equity stake in USL in September 2025, and Weatherford Capital joined the investor group roughly five months later; neither investment's size nor USL's valuation has been disclosed.
• USL Premier launches in 2028 as the new top tier above USL Championship and USL League One, with the stated long-term goal of two national single-table leagues of roughly 20 clubs each.

The United Soccer League's men's professional clubs approved a new revenue-sharing model, a move corroborated as landing on September 11, 2026 (Inside World Football). The model gives clubs a defined way to share in the growth of national league revenue, while setting out a broader set of commitments between league and clubs. Neither the formula nor the percentage split has been made public. It comes under president and CEO Paul McDonough, with backing from BellTower Partners, led by former Carlyle Group chief Kewsong Lee.

The vote followed, by one week, the ratification of a new collective bargaining agreement covering the Championship and the new top tier, USL Premier, launching in 2028. Per USL and USLPA's joint ratification release, the deal moves Championship player contracts from a 10-month to a standardized 12-month structure, requires every club to offer health insurance at or above an ACA Silver Plan level (with that cost now excluded from minimum-compensation calculations), and sets up a group licensing and NIL rights structure across all four USL leagues through 2031. USL Championship minimum base compensation rises to $42,000 in 2026, an increase of $11,000, and USL Premier's minimum begins at $67,500 when the new division launches. The deal runs through the 2030 season, with provisions for extension.

McDonough inherited both processes in his first four months on the job. He was named President and CEO effective June 1, with Alec Papadakis transitioning to Board Co-Chair alongside BellTower CEO Kewsong Lee, who was elevated from Vice Chair. McDonough had served as USL President and Chief Soccer Officer since 2023, giving him three years of internal context before closing the CBA and the revenue-share vote back to back. The capital underwriting both moves predates his appointment: BellTower purchased a minority equity stake in USL in September 2025, with financial terms not disclosed, and Tampa-based Weatherford Capital joined as a strategic partner roughly five months later, also on undisclosed terms, rounding out a group that includes Advaya Capital and several family offices and ultra-high-net-worth individuals.

Three things in this sequence hold up under scrutiny.

• USL secured institutional capital before it had to fund new CBA-driven compensation minimums, closing the BellTower and Weatherford investments a full year and seven months, respectively, ahead of ratification, rather than negotiating labor terms from a weaker balance sheet.
• The revenue-sharing vote and the CBA were finalized one week apart rather than treated as unrelated workstreams, tying club economics and player economics to the same pre-2028 calendar.
• The league produced attributable, on-record support from club principals rather than a single institutional statement: Louisville City chairman John Neace called it "an important step that allows us to work more cohesively," and One Knoxville's Drew McKenna said the model "gives the league and our clubs a stronger foundation to keep investing in those communities."
• The CBA sets a league-wide healthcare floor, ACA Silver-level coverage at every club, rather than leaving it to individual club discretion, which is a verifiable standard-setting move ahead of a three-division structure where club resources will vary widely.

The model's existence is confirmed; its mechanics are not. USL has said the model creates a defined way for clubs to participate in national revenue growth, but no qualifying criteria, payout weighting, or dollar range has been published.

• USL ran a predecessor revenue-sharing plan starting in 2020 that rewarded clubs with more national TV appearances or greater participation in league programs with larger dividend checks, a formula-driven design the league is already familiar with operationally.
• Whether the new 2026 model replaces, extends, or runs parallel to that earlier plan was not addressed in any source reviewed.

USL's own ratification release details the CBA beyond the headline compensation figures, shifting cost and risk that the revenue-sharing model's undisclosed formula will ultimately need to absorb.

• USL Championship contracts move from a 10-month to a standardized 12-month structure, and every club must offer health insurance at or above an ACA Silver Plan level, with that cost now excluded from minimum-compensation calculations rather than folded into it.
• A group licensing and commercial rights structure covering player name, image and likeness spans all four USL leagues (Championship, League One, Super League, Premier) through 2031, and includes annual prize pools for the USL Championship and USL Premier Players' Shields.

Both investments closed before the labor and revenue commitments that followed them.

• BellTower's September 2025 stake and Weatherford's February 2026 follow-on were each purchases of minority equity, with financial terms of the transactions not disclosed in either case.
• BellTower's investment positions USL for its plan to launch a top-tier Division One men's league in 2028 with promotion and relegation, giving the capital a specific, dated use case rather than general operating support.

The board restructured at the same time leadership changed.

• McDonough's promotion came with Papadakis's move to Co-Chair alongside BellTower Partners CEO and founder Kewsong Lee, consolidating USL's longest-tenured executive and its lead institutional investor in the same oversight seat.
• Lee previously served as Vice Chair and played a key role when USL secured institutional capital for the first time in 2025, meaning the investor relationship predates and now sits above the operational leadership change.

USL's model is not being built in a vacuum.

• MLS's media agreement included a revenue-sharing component based on subscriber targets, funneling 50 cents of every dollar above the threshold to the league, a structural precedent for tying club-level payouts to collective media performance rather than individual club revenue.
• Guaranteed distributions from league offices help boost lower-revenue clubs in other leagues, which is the same stated rationale behind USL's 2020 Club Dividend Plan and, by extension, its 2026 successor.

• A published formula, including qualifying criteria and payout weighting, would let club-level operators model what the new revenue-sharing line is actually worth to their budgets.
• Disclosed figures for BellTower's and Weatherford's stakes, or an implied USL valuation, would let investors benchmark USL's minority-stake pricing against comparable transactions in MLS or other lower-division leagues.
• A disclosed per-club dollar range or percentage of national revenue distributed would clarify whether this is a material new income line or a formalization of an existing modest practice.
• Clarity on how expansion-fee revenue interacts with the new model would show whether this changes the dynamic in which that revenue has historically stayed at league headquarters.

USL has built much of its growth on expansion fees that, under its prior structure, weren't shared among existing clubs and didn't leave league headquarters, and eight USL clubs have folded or gone on hiatus since the end of the 2023 season, per Backheeled's reporting. A revenue-sharing vote and a labor deal don't by themselves resolve that volatility, and neither discloses the dollar terms that would show club-level economics have actually improved. Until the formula and compensation figures are weighed against each club's cost base, the announcements describe a commitment to share future growth, not proof that current club economics are stronger.

• Whether USL publishes the revenue-sharing formula or qualifying criteria before the 2028 USL Premier launch.
• USSF's sanctioning decision on USL Premier as a Division I league, which has not yet been granted publicly.
• Any disclosure of BellTower's or Weatherford's investment size in a future funding round or club-level financing tied to USL Premier.
• Whether additional USL clubs fold, pause, or are added between now and the 2028 launch, the clearest public signal of whether club-level economics are actually stabilizing.

USL closed a labor deal and a revenue-sharing vote eight days apart, under a four-month-old CEO and sixteen months of institutional capital already in place, a sequence that reads as a coordinated build toward 2028 rather than a standalone vote.