USL League One Announces 2020 Format

USL League One announced today that its board of governors has agreed on the revised scheduling format for the 2020 season. The new season will consist of 20 games per team, played over 15 weeks, starting on July 18. The regular season will conclude Oct. 24.

Each USL League One team will face 10 of the 11 other teams in the league. Each team has been assigned a regional rival and one team will be completely omitted from the schedule to reduce air travel. Orlando City B’s regional rival this year will be Fort Lauderdale CF, Inter Miami’s developmental team, while the omitted team is Forward Madison FC.

The Young Lions will face regional rival Fort Lauderdale CF four times during that period. They’ll complete a single home-and-home series against seven of the other teams in the league. The final two games will be single games — one at home and one away — against the remaining two teams in the league.

The league will remain a single table throughout the 2020 season but one playoff game will be eliminated. When the season concludes Oct. 24, the top two teams in the table will meet the following weekend, on Oct. 31, in the final.

One big change for this season will be the addition of two extra substitutions, something that has been used around the world since the return to play. The match-day squads will still be 18 players for each team, but they’ll have five substitutions instead of three. However, those five substitutions will need to be made during no more than three stoppages of play. Any halftime changes won’t count against the three opportunities to substitute, providing a team with four total substitution opportunities.

As expected, all USL League One games will still be on ESPN+ as the contract between the league and the streaming service continues through the 2022 season. The league hasn’t announced any specific matches yet, but stated that a full schedule should be expected in the coming days.

We’ll continue to keep you updated as USL League One and OCB prepare to return to action.