U.S. Soccer names 8 MLS participants for 2024 U.S. Open Cup

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Doug McIntyre

Soccer Journalist

The revamped 2024 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup tournament will look far different from years past, with just eight teams from Major League Soccer competing in the century-old competition this year, MLS and the U.S. Soccer Federation announced on Friday.

The participating MLS clubs are Atlanta United, FC Dallas, LAFC, Real Salt Lake, San Jose Earthquakes, Seattle Sounders, Sporting Kansas City and the defending U.S. Open Cup champion Houston Dynamo. Those clubs were selected based on the league-wide 2023 MLS regular season standings. MLS teams competing in the Concacaf Champions Cup were exempt except the Dynamo, which wanted the opportunity to defend the title.

It’s the first time since MLS’s inaugural season in 1996 that most of the country’s first division clubs won’t be involved in the knockout tournament, which is open to teams at all levels of soccer in the United States, from the amateur ranks to the pros. MLS, which has 26 U.S.-based clubs, has won the tourney every year since 2000. Just one lower division side has hoisted the trophy since MLS kicked off almost three decades ago – the Rochester (New York) Rhinos in 1999 – though second-tier Sacremento Republic reached the 2022 final, where the USL Championship side lost to MLS’s Orlando City.

The decision ends months of wrangling over the future of the U.S. Open Cup, which began in 1914. In December, MLS announced its intention to send its development teams for the third-tier MLS Next Pro to represent the top flight in the 2024 tournament. U.S. Soccer, whose rules for the competition require that every MLS team compete, initially denied the request.

That seemed to end the matter. Things changed last month, though, when the federation realized that it might not be able to legally to compel all MLS teams to participate if it came to that, sources told FOX Sports. That ultimately led to the sides reaching a compromise that resulted in Friday’s announcement.

The news wasn’t unexpected. The likelihood of MLS’s drastically reduced participation was reported by multiple outlets last week, and MLS commissioner Don Garber has made it clear on multiple occasions over the last year that he didn’t value the league’s continued involvement, at least under the status quo. According to Garber, the Open Cup has long been a financial black hole for MLS clubs who are dealing with an ever more congested match calendar. In a press release, the USSF said it will make “its largest-ever investment in the tournament in 2024.”

That probably won’t satisfy a vocal segment of American soccer fans, both of MLS teams and their minor league brethren. Because MLS doesn’t have promotion and relegation, the Open Cup is the only opportunity for lower-tier clubs and players to test themselves against the country’s top professional teams. While no lower division entrant has won the competition this century, they have routinely “Cupset” reserve-heavy MLS teams in the earlier rounds. Many of those matchups are also contested in intimate venues controlled by those smaller clubs, for which they are a significant source of revenue.

Despite featuring just a handful of MLS teams this year, the 96-team 2024 Open Cup will lean hard into the David versus Goliath narrative: No MLS team can face another unless or until results make keeping them apart impossible.

Doug McIntyre is a soccer writer for FOX Sports. Before joining FOX Sports in 2021, he was a staff writer with ESPN and Yahoo Sports and he has covered United States men’s and women’s national teams at multiple FIFA World Cups. Follow him on Twitter @ByDougMcIntyre.