This morning, in a joint statement from CBS Sports and USL, a new multi-year right agreement was announced. The deal, which will run through the 2027 USL Championship and USL League One seasons, will put 100 USL matches annually across multiple CBS properties. Those include the CBS Television Network, Paramount+, CBS Sports Network and CBS Sports Golazo Network.

From the press release, Dan Weinberg, Executive Vice President, Programming, CBS Sports, highlighted on the benefits of the USL being on the network. “The United Soccer League – with its expansive and growing presence across the country – is an excellent addition to CBS Sports’ premium soccer portfolio. We look forward to making the exciting action of the USL more easily available to fans than ever before and elevating the league with coverage across our CBS Sports platforms. With the USL’s addition to our wide array of soccer properties and robust year-round match coverage, CBS Sports continues to be the premier destination for soccer fans in this country.”

It should expose the league’s products to a whole new set of soccer fans, who are clearly the target audience of the USL. CBS has done a tremendous amount of work to expand its coverage and offerings to American soccer fans over the last year. This move continues that expansion.

Dan Creel, host of One League Under the C, a USL League One-focused Protagonist Podcast, offered his take on the move. “It's a huge deal for USL to ink a four-year deal with CBS to broadcast matches for its two professional men's leagues. CBS provides a bigger platform and more cache to USL starting with the 2024 season.” He did, however, have some concerns regarding the amount of coverage.

“While the deal states that CBS will broadcast 100 matches per year across both leagues, that leaves the vast majority of matches not covered by the deal. In 2023, 600 games were played between USL Championship and USL League One. All of those were available on the ESPN+ platform.” That gap could mean some matches could fall through the cracks, though Creel offered this tip from an unnamed league source, “it seems like the local rights and any remaining match rights revert back to the individual teams. It's likely that means they will be streamed on USL's YouTube channel which it upgraded in 2023 in advance of this new deal." Another potential option could be that some matches may remain on ESPN+. According to one club’s Instagram account (Forward Madison), matches will continue to be streamed on that platform.

One final concern from fans of the USL’s expansion into women’s soccer, specifically the upcoming Super League, is where those matches will end up. So far the USL has yet to announce where those media rights will find a home, though given that the league aims to be a Division 1 level professional league, one might conclude that they might be negotiated independently of the other leagues.

- Dan Vaughn