
The tournament has crowned a champion for 103 consecutive years dating from 1914.
#Head soccer cha professional
Soccer’s National Club Championship, is an annual competition open to all amateur and professional soccer teams affiliated with U.S. Soccer Federation granted the USL Division II status beginning in the 2017 season, recognizing the significant investment and high level of operating excellence within the USL Championship and its member clubs. In January of 2017, after a thorough application review process, the U.S. The league’s current club owners also hold stakes in teams that compete in the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, Minor League Baseball and the NBA G-League. Over the course of the current decade, the sophisticated business model that provides the foundation for the USL Championship has allowed the league to grow into the largest professional soccer league in North America, with more than 35 current members that include world-class ownership groups. Among the league’s founding members were five longtime USL clubs with more than 100 years of operation among them – the Charleston Battery, Harrisburg City Islanders (now Penn FC), Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC, Richmond Kickers and Rochester Rhinos. The league was designed to help ensure the long-term stability of professional soccer in North America and featured 12 teams in a pair of six-team divisions during its initial campaign. The USL Championship was formed when two existing professional leagues were combined into a single league property before the 2011 season. The league also operates USL Productions, which includes a state-of-the-art facility that produced and distributed more than 500 league matches and more than 1,000 hours of original content to national partners, local affiliates and international markets throughout the 2018 season. The Championship has a national media partnership with ESPN, wherein all league matches are broadcast on ESPN+, ESPN3 and across linear channels. Through The Championship’s headquarters in Tampa, Florida, the league’s clubs are provided with unparalleled support with a growing team of more than 50 professionals across 17 departments, ranging from operations to marketing, communications and sponsorship.



Soccer Federation as a Division II professional league, The Championship includes a membership of more than 30 clubs across the United States and Canada. The USL Championship is one of the most successful professional soccer leagues in the world, reaching a population of more than 84 million and fueling the growth of the game across North America.
