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MLS consists of 30 clubs split evenly between the U.S. and Canada, with 15 teams in each of the Eastern and Western Conferences. The sheer number of clubs makes it difficult for even dedicated MLS supporters to name every team, let alone stay fully invested in the league as a whole. Commissioner Don Garber has recently spoken out about potentially addressing this issue.
Given the large size of America's top soccer division, the concept of introducing a promotion and relegation system—a performance-based framework widely used throughout European football, including the English Premier League, Spain's La Liga, and Germany's Bundesliga—has come up on multiple occasions.
This model raises the competitive stakes throughout the entire season by dropping the lowest-finishing clubs into a lower division while elevating the top performers to a higher tier. It also controls the number of teams within any single league, establishing a structured pyramid of multiple divisions rather than one bloated pool of competing clubs.
To illustrate, England's top division, the Premier League, fields 20 clubs. Below it sits the English Football League, which comprises three additional tiers: the Championship, League One, and League Two, each containing 24 clubs for a combined total of 72 teams. Together with the Premier League, that accounts for more than 90 clubs across England and Wales—yet they remain well-organized across separate divisions, preventing any single tier from becoming overcrowded.
The long-term direction of MLS is once again under scrutiny, driven not only by the growing number of expansion sides but also by the United Soccer League (USL)—an independent men's professional soccer competition in the U.S.—which is set to introduce its own promotion and relegation system for the 2027–28 season, pushing Garber to consider following suit.
What Is Don Garber's Opinion on Promotion and Relegation for MLS?
Major League Soccer has functioned as a closed, fixed-membership league ever since its establishment in 1993. The only pathway for a new club to join MLS is through the payment of a substantial expansion fee, which in recent years has routinely climbed into the hundreds of millions of dollars. The league's most recent entrant, San Diego FC, set a new record by paying $500 million to secure their MLS spot ahead of the 2025 season.
Garber, who has held the role of MLS Commissioner since 1999, has nonetheless acknowledged that this closed-league structure is likely to evolve down the line.
"Who am I to say it will never happen?" Garber told journalist Andrew Marchand this week.
"Do I think that at some point in the future there will be promotion and relegation in the U.S.? I do. What I will say is that it is not going to happen while we are financing, with billions of dollars in debt, the very foundation of soccer in America and Canada."
It comes as little surprise, then, that much of the opposition to MLS promotion and relegation stems from those who have poured enormous sums of money into not only securing their place in the league—a position they have no desire to lose—but also into constructing dedicated stadiums built specifically for top-flight competition.
"At some point, the stadium in New York will be just like Yankee Stadium," Garber continued. "It's just Yankee Stadium, and nobody will care that somebody had to pay a billion dollars for it. Then maybe you'll have promotion and relegation."
"I do think at some point it will happen, but it won't happen while I am commissioner."