Memphis 901 becomes Santa Barbara 805 (or something) – what does this mean?

Confirming media rumors from late yesterday, Memphis 901 and the USL announced today the closure of the club. The team’s franchise rights are being transferred to Santa Barbara Sky FC, with a plan to enter the Championship in 2026. No other assets are included in the transfer.

The reason cited for this somewhat surprising development was the inability of the club to come to a satisfactory permanent stadium arrangement with the city. Playing at the horrendous AutoZone Park was never a long-term option and other possibilities never fully materialized, thanks in part to the city reallocating funds away from a hoped-for revamping of Liberty Park.

This clearly comes with some ramifications for the rest of the league, and potentially the Legion in particular. Here are some of the changes we could potentially see coming out of this change.

Who are Santa Barbara Sky?

Santa Barbara (of California, obviously) already has a moderately long history with the USL. The club was formed in 2022 and was originally slated to join League One in 2024. That was postponed to 2025 and will now not happen at all with the team going directly to the Championship.

The team is owned by Peter Moore, who has had quite the interesting career. He has worked at Reebok, Microsoft, Sega and EA (largely on sports-related software) and currently is GM of Unity  Technologies, which apparently developed the engine on which many video games run. Along the way he was also CEO of Liverpool for three years and currently is an advisor to Wrexham AFC. A pretty solid resumé overall and likely a great addition to the USL family.

Sky will be a natural rival for Orange County, more or less. Their stadia are 153 miles apart (which is 91 miles closer than AutoZone Park is from Protective Stadium). That will be a good addition for the league’s southern California operations now that San Diego Loyal is defunct.

What does this mean for conference alignment?

Obviously, for 2025 the Western Conference will be down a team. Incoming teams for 2025 will be Brooklyn FC (joining the club’s Super League team) and Lexington SC. Sporting Jax (in Jacksonville), Ozark United (in Rogers, Arkansas) and the as-yet-unnamed Milwaukee Pro Soccer team are slated to join in 2026. Additions further west are more or less on hold – OKC Energy still technically exists (and is listed as a future club by the league); USL Pro Iowa and Buffalo remain in development limbo. A planned New Orleans team seems to have disappeared entirely. So big changes coming for 2026 potentially, but…

That means the league will have 25 teams playing next year, any further changes notwithstanding (the rumored Miami windup seems to be off the cards). With the current alignment there would be 11 western teams and 14 eastern teams. Obviously that won’t work. If the league wishes to stay with two conferences (I hate that label, by the way), then at least one eastern team has to switch coasts. And even then the conferences will be unbalanced. Indeed the only mathematical way to balance them would be 5 groups of 5. Ugh.

Guess who is currently the westernmost team in the east? Yep, the Legion. By 38 minutes and 57 seconds (based on stadium locations) over Indy Eleven. Roughly one-eighth of a percent of the earth’s circumference. Indy’s main rival, Louisville City, is slightly further east and there is little likelihood they would break the LIPAFC up anyway.

Personally I would have liked to see a three-division alignment, and given the geographic changes in 2026 and beyond that becomes far more likely. But for 2025 I’m guessing we are stuck with two conferences. The chances of the Legion ending up with a massive travel budget next year seem pretty high. Especially with no local rival any more (although we all hate Pittsburgh).

What about the players?

Well, simply put, they are all out of contract. Presumably they are now free agents. I’ll give you one guess as to who their top scorer this season was. And one more as to who the second-best scorer was. And then I’ll give you one more guess as to who their top two assisters were. Yes, you got it – first was Bruno Lapa with 11 goals. Second was Marlon with 9. And they both led with 5 assists each. Marlon I would take a pass on; Bruno is another matter as the Three Sparks desperately needs a distributor and has not been able to find a replacement for him. Would he be interested in a return? Perhaps, although his departure was not exactly on the friendliest of terms.

Another interesting player to approach would be Nighte Pickering. At 19 he fits into the club’s youth movement nicely (he has had age-group national team callups) and he is from Birmingham originally (although he learned his soccer chops in the FC Dallas system). Bring him home.

Other than that, the only other player I would consider of any real interest is Emerson Hyndman. he has played extensively in England and Scotland as well as Atlanta United. He has a great pedigree (his grandpa is the legendary Dallas coach Schellas Hyndman). However, he has never really shone too brilliantly at the top level but is a good second-tier player.

Memphis does have a pretty good goalkeeper in Tyler Deric, but he is 36 and the Legion doesn’t really need any more near-retirees.

And the other staff?

Memphis’s head coach was Stephen Glass. The Scot has been a coach in the USL Championship for quite some time, having run Atlanta United 2 for most of its time in the USL and Atltaanta Uiteds itself on an interim basis. He returned to his former playing club Aberdeen for a while before being sacked and picked up by Memphis. He could be a solid addition for a Championship team, but there is at least one better option out there right now. That is the newly unemployed Mark Briggs, who just left Sacramento Republic after 5 years “by mutual agreement” (ahem). If the Legion is looking to make a managerial change, he would be a far better choice in my opinion. Apart from anything else, he’s English, not Scottish. Obviously superior. His services are likely to be in great demand so action on him needs to happen fast.

What does this mean for the league as a whole?

Losing teams is never a good sign. That being said, it happens a lot in lower-level sports in the US, with perhaps the exception of minor-league baseball. This country is not set up for professional sports at anything other than the top tier. It also hurts that this was in a relatively major city. Many larger cities are hesitant to put up much money to invest in lower-league sports (Birmingham fortunately does not seem to suffer from that problem) and this clearly contributed to 901’s downfall. It’s a repeating pattern, sadly.

The good news is that, as discussed above, the league is still expanding. One name that we did not mention is the Maryland Bobcats. They currently play in NISA, which is an absolute joke of a league (Detroit City came from there). They were easily the best team in NISA this season, but were denied a spot in the playoffs due to some apparent failure to meet standards. The USL would likely welcome them with open arms, but possibly in League One, which, to be honest,m needs expansion more than the Championship.

Are there other teams on the bubble? Well, probably, but hopefully the pockets funding them are deep enough to keep going. Because, when it comes down to it, this is the best professional soccer league in the US. By far.