A pleasant surprise? How MLS responded to the U.S. Open Cup controversy | Futbol Americas | ESPN FC 

I wonder if they could add divison 1 college teams , would only help the competition more,

@@MrVaDelux I'm not sure that's the case. College teams are not ever talked about when one talks about competitive soccer in the US. The fact that almost no players go from college to being a regular starter in MLS says a lot as well.

@@MrVaDelux I think college club teams have attempted it. Also plenty of college players play in the tournament for various teams. College players usually aren't allowed in the tourney until their semesters are over.

@@MrVaDelux That would violate NCAA rules, and make every player ineligible for the NCAA, and void their scholorships, never going to happen.

Its older than the NFL, NBA, and NHL - Only MLB is older and just by 10 years or so.

That's common practice in football/soccer cups. It should be decided by draw for last rounds.

The USL team are not out competing MLS teams in this tournament. The MLS teams are leaps and bounds better than the USL teams.

This is that tournament dude.

Many USL teams have deals or proposals to build their own new stadiums. Like at the Indy 11’s new stadium or Milwaukee FC. That doesn’t mean they have the talent to get division 1 status at all, but it’s worthy to note what they have accomplished as a lower league. The new Indy stadium honestly looks like it’s gonna be beautiful

​@Mrtacos456 that's great. I'm rooting for USL. I'm hoping they adopt pro/rel and fans start to gravitate there. But MLS has the advantage nonetheless

I was just about to say the same. The only way for this sport to grow is Pro/Rel in the leagues. It would be absolutely amazing to see rivalries pop up with teams. For example, if Racing Louisville was promoted perhaps FC Cincinnati, Nashville, or Saint Louis would have a rivalry with them. It would evolve at least… That’s part of why football is and MLS is destroying that joy. They’ll never be as successful as an other country because of that.

Herc contradicts himself, thanks to the apathy that MLS teams have on USOC he had the opportunity to play when he was a bench player, now USSF wants to deny the opportunity to young players MLSNP.

I could be wrong, but I believe it affects who the US can send to the CONCACAF Champions League- so it should matter to the MLS

MLS has nothing to gain from playing against "lesser" teams. If an MLS team won, people will say it's only against "lesser" team. If they lose, they get all the negative publicity. It's the same reason why most top European teams prefer not to play local teams when they tour in the summer.

@@KingOfNaraka Wrexham played Man United and Chelsea on their summer tour of the US but MLS ducked them, which is bizarre considering Wrexham's immense popularity and fan appeal.

​@@saylortusk8489MLS was busy playing the Leagues Cup.

@saylortusk8489 my reason stand. Popularity has nothing to do with it. Quality gap between an MLS team and Wrexham is not as large as between a Premier league team and Wrexham. Losing to Wrexham would embarrass MLS and winning brings nothing. Chelsea/Man U already knew losing to Wrexham was unlikely. Even if they did, it was only a pre-season.

What MLS get for getting someone that don't understand soccer/football to be their commissioner

They want it that way. MLS is threatened by the USL. It’s not like the EPL‘s relationship with the EFL in England. MLS believes, wrongly in my opinion, it cannot advance as long as the USL exists.

Before hand I apologise as being British I'm pretty new to your league, well was the only way to get to still watch Messi! So teams are not related or prompted, was expecting 100 goals for Messi thinking they had gone down? The more I watch, the more I regret!

@@b3564 no worries. I have no problem explaining some of the reasoning as to why there’s no relegation. I don’t think you want an entire historical recitation so I’ll just run over some of the current/relevant points. 1. MLS owners have to pay a large fee to participate in MLS. Recently, in 2022 Charlotte FC’s owner had to pay the league just under $330M to get Charlotte FC into the league. Just a couple months ago the new owners of San Diego FC, the newest team to join MLS in 2025, had to pay just over a half billion dollars to the league for the right to have their team play. All the prior owners over the other 28 clubs also had to pay a fee, called an expansion fee, for the right to play. It would be an awfully hard sell to the owners that they made that investment into the league buy having to buy their way in and then they could get relegated. In the 1990s when MLS was started, there was no second division to get relegated too, at least not a professional or national one, and paying to participate ensured financial stability, collective effort to keep the league together when times got tough, and an assurance to American investors that their investment would be safe otherwise they wouldn’t invest. By the time that there was a somewhat stable pro second division there was too many teams for MLS to reverse course and suddenly have relegation. This model is how NFL/MLB/NHL/NBA, the major pro sports over here, run their leagues. There’s the worry that if teams got relegated American fans would stop showing, the team would fold, and they’d just move onto a different team in the top league. In Europe it’s about team and community, in america it’s about novelties and being the best, and if you aren’t…well…you have no fans. It’s an unfortunate reality of American sporting fandom. 2. Let’s assume that everything in bullet point one didn’t apply…there’s the issue of media deals. Everything in the states is money based. It’s all about size of market and potential viewership. If a Miami or New York City or Los Angeles team got relegated, they’d lose the media deal because it’s suddenly not as enticing for the tv company to make money. If New York City goes down, a city with a metro of 19.2 million people, and FC Tulsa is the promotion replacement with the Tulsa Metro having a population of around 950K…that’s suddenly 18.3 million net loss potential viewers. That means that the tv contract and the league arent as valuable, and their media deal may get caught for a more profitable alternative. The American tv market doesn’t work like Europe. It’s all about the $$$$$ and if you don’t have all of the biggest markets and biggest money potential, you’ll take the back seat to someone else who will. 3. All that excluded, MLS and the other leagues are constantly at odds. The USL makes up divisions 2-4 on the American pyramid and the MLS is division one. MLS views the USL as a threat and has been trying to undermine the USL and put them out of business since the day they started. Having a pro/rel system would involve them working together. MLS wants a monopoly on the sport regardless of potential development, the USL wants a healthy and stable national system that is inclusive for everybody. Whenever a USL team is finding success and has unlocked a market that cares, rather than promote the USL team up to MLS, MLS will find a rich investor and create a new team from scratch and just expand it into that market effectively putting the already existing USL team out of business. That happened with Nashville SC taking the place of Nashville United…it happened with St. Louis City SC taking the place of St. Louis FC, it just happened a month ago with the announcement that the San Diego Loyal are now going out of business and the San Diego FC MLS team is taking the field in 2025. Inter Miami has a similar story. Miami FC was int he USL Championship (second division) and David Beckum saw the fan support there and just created inter Miami CF in MLS instead. Miami FC, unlike the others, still exists but nobody shows up to home games and it is expected that Miami FC will have to self-relegate to the semipro level soon to pay the bills or just go out of business if fans don’t start coming back…because they went from averaging almost 17,000 fans per game pre-inter Miami to under 1,700 fans per game now that inter Miami is here. It’s just how American sports works, and how the MLS operates. Now as I was writing this I actually saw an update from MLS_Buzz on twitter, a reliable MLS news coverage page, that said that the MLS is planning to invest in non-MLS cities. This will likely mean putting the USL out of business by just adding a new team in every city that currently has a USL fanbase and team, but the post did say that MLS is looking at creating a multi-level internal MLS system similar to the J.League in Japan with internal pro/rel in response to the FIFA World Cup coming here, I’m guessing that FIFA told them they have to start pro/rel to meet the rest of the worlds standard. Either way it’s not good for the lower leagues and lower league fans because MLS will monopolize but hey…we might get pro/rel.

Hmmm... Coming up with some kinda fake news that was never meant to actually happen to cause more attention to be had and maybe get something to change? Are they really that clever? lol

He's always been an overated hack,

Cause he is a hack

@@wadeflores6978 Dan has the best sports commentary

Leagues Cup is actually a financial success for both MLS and LigaMX. They get great crowds for it unlike the US Open Cup where the crowd attendance is absolutely abysmal.

@@MichaelWalker-wu2pq it’s just because it was new. It’s also because it was MLS teams hosting Liga MX teams. Look at the crowd for MLS versus MLS… Awful except for the final.

That tournament was only a success for one reason: Messi. No Messi and who cares about that tournament. A lot of the games were half empty. People that showed up to the matches that weren’t Miami were there for the fun of it. Let’s not kid ourselves that the tournament was gonna be a success when it wasn’t the first couple times it was held. And in 2022 when the Leagues Cup was the “Leagues Cup Showcase” that were friendlies between MLS & Liga MX clubs (with a shootout after 90 minutes if tied) no one went “Hey where’s the Leagues Cup?” No one cared. And contrary to what others say that no one cares for the US Open Cup people do when promoted right. Birmingham Legion had their 2 largest crowds ever. And no it wasn’t cause the matches were against MLS clubs otherwise every USL club would sellout every home match against MLS. Monterrey (the USL club not Liga MX) had a good crowd against LAFC (who were throwing their young players to the wolves so to focus on the CCL which they fell flat in losing). Sporting Kansas City even had crowds cause their fans pushed the promotion themselves instead of the league. When promoted right teams can have a crowd

@@bigjoeofthe707 similar to what I said. Beyond the final end of the Miami games, nobody cared about leagues cup. Rail Salt Lake had a pretty good crowd against CF Monterey, but that’s because they had history against CF Monterey… For the most part, the stadiums were 50-70% full at most except for games like Nashville versus club America and Vancouver versus Tigres. And I was at both Birmingham Legion games… In fact I go to almost every Birmingham Legion home game during the season and every open cup game. This is my second year following the team. Seeing almost 20,000 people at that game was absolutely magical, and to see people say at this tournament means nothing makes me fighting mad.

@@gracielynn9623 I loved seeing Birmingham put a lot of butts in the seats in the tournament. I’m a state where there is no pro team in any of the big 4. Only in the minor leagues for the 3 of the 4 who have a minor league system. So for Birmingham to do that shows people will show up when promoted right. I think I heard a local politician even hyped up the club before the Miami match. Can’t remember if it was a City council member or the mayor. But I loved hearing from fans there that the club was being talked about. People forgot about Cincinnati and their run in yet e tournament when they were a USL club. Even had a round of 16 match on national tv and it was thriller.

It's not MLS's tournament. Why are we asking MLS to build a tournament that is run by US Soccer? Isn't their job to promote their tournament went their money?

For real! Making it easier for fans to watch it would really help.

There’s a reason why that’s not allowed. The Reserves (the clubs in Next Pro) use to play in USL and played in the tournament. But it became a conflict when the main team would call up a player to play in their match leaving the reserve club high and dry. And also gave the thought of the possibility of the main club having the reserves throw the game. So U.S. Soccer banned the reserve clubs from entering.

Would be a smart decision, but honestly just make it easier for fans to be able to watch this tournament. You can only watch this tournament if it live streamed on RU-vid or if you get BNsports sub or ESPN8 the Ocho. The fact that the fans can’t easily watch this tournament is what is killing it.

Nah

No it is not! If you think about it is more competitive than Spanish and German leagues because in those leagues there are like 2-3 teams who can ever win the league while MLS tends to be more competitive.

@@sakenu16 MLS does Playoffs end of season 😂

What do you mean?

@@MrMortyBaby what's not to love about a playoff system? It's one of the best things about American sports. You cut out all the absolutely awful teams that play in a regular season and now only decent to great teams play in the post season. It's why we respect Super Bowl, World Series, and NBA Finals champions so much. They had to play well in the regular season and then play even better to win post season.

Sac Republic went to the final 2 years ago… beat 3 MLS teams in the process

Exactly. Why would I want to pay money KNOWING that the outcome will be a MLS team beating some club of ammeters? There has not been a non MLS team to win this tournament since MLS started competing in it.

@@ucdwags00 they were beating bench players as coaches did everything possible to not have their starters get hurt in this tournament for a game with low attendance. Earlier this year Atlanta United did the same thing but they still won with their bench.

No.

Jokes on you because it was called soccer in England before it was changed to football. In fact, England called it soccer officially up until 1965.

Yeah it’s a shorthand slang for Association Football. When you look up the term football it’s a category of sports. So soccer is more accurate and the term originated in England. Association > soc > soccer. Same as. How some places call Rugby Football ruggers.

Japan also has a franchise system … but they have managed pro/rel systems between 2/3 leagues …… no reason mls cannot now it’s getting 30’plus teams

@@discodavid26 Japan also has a different professional sports model than the United States. Their American football league, for example, is backed by corporate sponsorships. So, again I say you have to find a business model that works with the way major sports are financed in the United States. What promotion/relegation advocates never seem to have an answer to is how you ensure teams can survive in sustainable ways once cut off from the first division. The Championship in England is full of teams that are over leveraged and some, like West Brom, that are on the brink of insolvency. It's an asinine business model (and make no mistake, this is a business). Say what you will about MLS, but the league has pretty much arrested the phenomenon of American soccer clubs folding.

The USL growing,,, is that not growing the game in the US?? You're giving more clubs in different/smaller markets exposure and if the leagues do become competitive with each other, that creates a new dynamic of competitive culture among fanbases not only across their league but now the entire rival league. The MLS couldn't care less about that though, the fans have never been a priority.