According to The Guardian, MLS plans to end its retreat from the US Open Cup and restore full participation by its American clubs next year. The league withdrew in 2023, sending reserve sides from MLS Next Pro instead of first teams. That move signaled the league's waning interest in the national tournament.
The US Open Cup is one of the few American sports competitions where lower-division clubs compete directly against the top tier. For smaller teams, that means gate revenue, media exposure, and a genuine shot at an upset. For MLS, it means accepting that a closed-league business model still needs at least one public connection to the broader soccer pyramid.
The tournament has run since 1914, surviving only the 2020 and 2021 pandemic shutdowns. MLS teams have typically dominated the event in later rounds. The league's 2023 withdrawal became a proxy fight about whether the biggest clubs in US soccer viewed the national cup as part of the sport's culture or just scheduling inconvenience.
MLS concluded the reputational cost of ducking the US Open Cup outweighed the sporting inconvenience of playing in it. A league that wants to be treated as a mature soccer power cannot keep sidelining the country's oldest competition and expect fans, smaller clubs, and the broader game to respect the brand. This is less a sporting decision than a political one.
Filed to the World desk · Sep 1