National 1 League

What is National 1 League?

National1 League is a new team based national league that brings together US Club’s National Premier Leagues (NPL) and US Youth Soccer’s National League (NL) totaling approximately 10,000 teams and 150,000 players. National1 League is a joint effort by US Club Soccer and US Youth Soccer in collaboration with U.S. Soccer. National1 League will be the highest-level team-based league in the country. Newcomp will take the place of US Youth’s National League and US Club’s NPL leagues and hold its inaugural season in the 2026-2027 seasonal year. 

*A team-based league is a competitive structure where individual teams qualify and participate based on their own merit, rather than on behalf of a club or because they belong to a certain club. 

Who will play in National1 League?

District 6 in National1 League, geographically, is the entire state of Utah. Because the National1 League district covers the same geographic area as our state competition league, the National1 League division will replace Premier 1 as the highest division of our state competition league. All teams that qualify for Premier 1 for the 2026-2027 seasonal year will automatically be placed in the National1 League division. Our Premier 2 division will then roll up and be the new Premier division. We anticipate only having one Premier division under National1 League. Promotion and relegation will happen between National1 League and Premier each year. A graphic of our general state league structure is below to help visualize the changes. 

*We will also have an application process for any teams who do not automatically qualify for National1 League, to be reviewed and potentially accepted into National1 League. This means that if your team has not been competing in our state league, you would be eligible and encouraged to apply to participate in National1 League.  All applications will be reviewed and decided by our National1 League alignment committee. We anticipate that applications for National1 League will open in early May. More info to come.

Does National1 League have a postseason?

The inaugural National1 League season will conclude in summer 2027 with participation in the ECNL Conference League Playoffs. This event will combine qualifying teams from ECNL Regional League and National1 League districts, creating the top team-based playoff competition in the country. Though we do not have all of the details yet, we anticipate the league winners of each National1 League age group will qualify for the National1 League post season playoffs.

Does this change State Cup or US Youth’s National Championship Tournament?

No. Utah Soccer Federation will continue to host our annual State Cup tournaments with winners advancing to US Youth’s National Championship Tournament. Playing in NewComp will allow your team to play in State Cup and the National Championship Tournament in addition to being eligible for the NewComp playoffs. We encourage all our NewComp teams to take advantage of this great opportunity and participate in both! 1.

Will there still be a “season” for these teams like they play now? Playing 8 games in both Fall and Spring against the other National 1 teams in Utah?

National 1 will be the league season. The younger age groups will still get their 8-10 games during each fall and spring season.

When will they play the other regional National 1 teams?  Will there be weekend travel to play those teams in addition to their season, or do the travel games replace their local season completely?

Our district for N1 is Utah. So at least this first year there won’t be any regional travel for the league portion. Top teams will qualify for a postseason event that will require regional travel. But otherwise there won’t be travel farther than St. George

How will the high school seasons impact National 1?

N1 won’t overlap with high school seasons. Players will be able to play their high school season just as they do now.