The 2025 edition of the Lower League USA March Madness will be following the rules listed below.

  1. The 2025 Tournament will consist of BOTH Mens and Womens clubs from D2 and below.
  2. Only 1 entry per club per entry(aka no B/2/U23 etc clubs if the main team is entered, includes Mens/Womens clubs (if sharing the same name) Ex: Jacksonville Armada U23 is acceptable as that is the clubs main team, whereas Chattanooga FC Mens and Womens team will follow under 1 entry)
  3. From March 9th, approximately at 1:00 AM EST, to March 23rd, 11:59 PM EST, we will have the form (https://lowerleagueusa.com/2025-march-madness-club-submission-form/) open for responses to enter clubs via the website and will have a social media post on each site for entries.
  4. You can enter up to 5 clubs ONCE via the form AND as many as you want via each social media. You can NOT enter the same club by the same means more than once, EX: You can not enter AFC Columbia three times on twitter, but you can enter once via website, once via Bluesky, etc.
  5. Social media posts for entries will gain bonus entries with every like for all clubs in that post. (EX: You nominate 5 clubs in one post, and it gets 100 likes, each club gets 100 bonus entries)
  6. The 2024 champion, Sioux Falls City FC, will be the #1 overall seed of the tournament.
  7. The remaining seeding will be based on how many times fans (and clubs) have entered a certain club. The more people suggesting the club, the higher their seed will be (and in theory the easier their journey to the finals will be)
  8. If clubs are tied in number of entries then the tiebreaker for seeding will be the combined follows for their Twitter and Instagram accounts.
  9. The remaining #1 Seeds will be revealed on March 24th, along with the first four participants.
  10. The Regions will be revealed between March 25th-28th (Full bracket revealed on March 28th with the final region)
  11. The dates of each round will be revealed with each release.
  12. Polls will be live on the website for 16 hours each round.
  13. If a matchup ends up tied after 16 hours, a 4 hour tiebreaker voting will occur the next day at an undisclosed time.
  14. Brackets will be updated on the website, and all social media (if issues don’t occur while uploading).
  15. Previous rounds and results will also be posted on the website.