The United Soccer League (USL), a corporation that companies most of lower-league soccer in the USA, has added a brand new investor with a big-money background.
BellTower Companions, an agency run by former Carlyle Group CEO Kewsong Lee, has made what the league has termed a “strategic funding,” with the view to strengthen the group because it prepares to tackle Main League Soccer straight within the coming years.
The USL introduced earlier this yr that it's planning to launch a brand new US males's league with first-division sanctioning from US soccer, thus turning into the second such league within the nation alongside MLS. Moreover, the group introduced that it could turn into the primary sports activities league of any sort within the US to institute promotion and relegation between its males's divisions – a trademark of most soccer leagues worldwide, however not one which has been tried in MLS thanks largely to the league's single-entity construction.
The USL operates three males's leagues: the second-tier USL Championship, third-tier League One, and pre-professional League Two. It additionally operates the Tremendous League (Gainbridge Tremendous League for sponsorship functions), a D1-sanctioned girls's league that lately began its second season.
The Guardian understands that BellTower's funding is meant to assist the league launch its as-yet unnamed D1 males's competitors and promotion and relegation in 2028. BellTower is buying a minority fairness stake within the group and Lee will be a part of the league's board as vice-chair. Nevertheless, the USL shouldn't be disclosing the scale of the funding, the scale of the fairness stake, or the present valuation of the USL used for the needs of the funding.
From 2018 till 2022, Lee was CEO of the Carlyle Group, a personal fairness agency. Lee was co-CEO of the corporate together with Glenn Youngkin till 2020, when the now-Governor of Virginia left after what Bloomberg known as a “long, awkward power struggle.” Lee's run as CEO occurred inside a 10-year interval wherein Carlyle's portfolio of fossil gas firms got here beneath scrutiny for his or her contributions to the local weather disaster (claims Carlyle pushed again towards).
Reuters reported that Lee earned simply over $43m in whole compensation from Carlyle in 2021, and that he was paid $3.3m in severance after his departure from the agency.
Since leaving Carlyle in 2022, Lee based BellTower, which has invested in numerous completely different firms. This contains Patricof Co, a agency that assists athletes find funding alternatives. Patricof counts Travis Kelce and his brother Jason on a prolonged shopper record that additionally contains former NFL linebacker JJ Watt, who Patricof helped with an funding in English membership Burnley.
To USL, although, essentially the most related of BellTower's investments could also be in United Sports Development Partners (USDP), a Connecticut-based actual property developer that makes a speciality of mixed-use tasks with a stadium as an anchor. The corporate was answerable for the event of Centreville Financial institution Stadium in Pawtucket Rhode Island, the house floor of the USL Championship's Rhode Island FC.
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USDP has additionally been involved in a $600m proposal for a soccer stadium and mixed-use mission in Lee's dwelling city of Albany, New York – a mission that initially had targeted a team in MLS Next Pro, MLS's reserve league, however shifted focus to USL in early 2025.
Now, six months after that shift, Lee can have a robust foothold within the USL itself.
