Regardless of where people stand on details of the US Soccer system today, I'd have to imagine that overwhelmingly nearly no one believe that having 3 mens pro league systems makes sense or that all 3 will comprise an eventual endgame.

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There are a couple of ways this could be resolved.

1st Option: The leagues continue to wage an inefficient war – resulting in more dead clubs, more burned investors, more wasted resources, more tribalism, more supporters & communities spurned. Until one or two stand victorious.

2nd Option: Someone shows an ounce of leadership to pull parties together to create a cohesive and coherent league system and a sustainable path for the future.

Does the 1st option yield some positives? Sure. USL got more creative and better at execution because of NASL. NISA failed and had a terrible model, but learned from NPSL Pro to create a better set of ideas that might be able to be implemented more broadly.

But at some point the innovation yielded from zero-sum competition has diminished returns and increased corpses.

None of MLS, USL, NASL, NISA have it right. None. Some have some parts right. The game as a whole doesn't have it right as evidenced in the greed vs. a different greed (and corruption) battle we've witnessed in a very overt way in Europe this week.

And stateside, we're heading down the exact same path for the women's side. And the amateur side is an absolutely nonsensical mess. (And youth? Perhaps where it's the worst.)

We're so insecure and so afraid of losing it that we continue, paralyzed, down this path. Supporters are afraid of losing a club. We fear high-net-worth individuals pulling out. Journalists fear losing access or weakening a still fragile system.

There have been massive leaps and bounds over the last decade. Indisputable infrastructure being built and things being learned. A (slowly) widening interest in the sport domestically. But the efforts and resources expended will continue to inefficiently yield loss.

Someone needs to start some conversations. Show some leadership. Because there's very few ways this goes. And right now we are defaulting into the one that results in the most loss.