MLS WITHDRAWS FROM 2024 U.S. OPEN CUP

So we won’t see Messi battling a semi-pro team?

A brutal blow strikes the U.S. Open Cup today right before it celebrates its 110th anniversary, having begun play in 1914. Major League Soccer announced that MLS first teams would no longer be competing in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup indefinitely, with reassessment occurring next winter to determine whether this year’s withdrawal serves the league in the way they desire. Instead, third-tier MLS Next Pro teams will occupy MLS bids in the tournament beginning in 2024. 

According to reports, MLS and the MLS Players’ Association (MLSPA) have spoken with U.S. Soccer and the players to determine that interest and facilities are not at the level MLS desires in the Open Cup, despite new rights contracts promising a hefty dose of viewership over the next few years.

Quotes from representatives cite the lack of top-tier venues and the more amateurish level of competition, especially in the early stages, as elements that MLS organizations and the players themselves are not keen on. 

MLS would prefer to emphasize the Leagues Cup, a matchup between Mexico’s top-flight LIga MX and MLS’s own top-tier teams, as well as the CONCACAF Champions Cup (formerly CONCACAF Champions League).

There is no current connection drawn between Apple TV’s exclusive broadcast rights contract for MLS matches and any issues with the U.S. Open Cup and Paramount’s broadcast of MLS teams featured this past year in the final rounds of the tournament. 

The key citation for MLS is the risk for MLS players in non-MLS competitive play. This past season, LAFC competed in 53 total matches—the record for single-season matches for an MLS team—due to their deep runs in the U.S. Open Cup, Leagues Cup, Champions League, and MLS Cup Playoffs. An issue of load management and stress is in the conversation. 

USL Championship now occupies the highest tier (second) of the U.S. Soccer pyramid in the U.S. Open Cup. It is worth noting that USL Championship team Sacramento Republic FC defeated three MLS teams to make the U.S. Open Cup finals in 2022. 

MLS’s statement implies consideration of the U.S. Open Cup as beneath the level at which they play despite the competitive nature between MLS teams and USL teams in recent iterations.

Given the U.S. Open Cup’s already precarious position as a tournament outside the jurisdiction and organization of the major U.S. Soccer leagues, this may serve as a death blow to the oldest soccer tournament in the U.S., one that prided itself on providing opportunities to teams and organizations not in the top-level of the U.S. Soccer Pyramid to cut their teeth and play with the premier players in the country. 

An outpouring of criticism and disdain for MLS’s decision hit social media upon the announcement.