Top 5: Fixing the US Open Cup

Hello everyone, and welcome back to American Pyramid! Currently I'm on the second of four articles focusing on fixing things in lower league soccer in the United States. As voted on by you, the readers, the first piece came out last week, Let The Conflict End, and you can read it by clicking Here.​

Before we go any further, I'd also like to encourage you to check out my other site for the National Amateur Cup. I'm trying to help generate more interest in, and put more eyeballs on, a competition run exclusively for amateur teams in the United States. Not only will you be able to see how the tournament progressed this year, but you can review all kinds of history, too. You can check that website out by clicking Here.

Today's article will focus on something that seems to be endlessly debated. Fixing the US Open Cup. There are a lot of things wrong with it, but for the sake of keeping things moving, I'm only going to discuss the five changes that I believe need to be made. Before we get started, here's an interesting point of comparison for a Cup competition in another country with a, for now, closed system, Australia. 
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A comparison of the Round of 32 for the US Open Cup & Australia's FFA Cup.

A-League teams in Round of 32: 10. Only 7 can advance, 3 all A-League games in the Round of 32, 9 teams from lower leagues can advance to the Round of 16. In the Round of 32, 3 teams are from what Australia considers Tier 3, 1 from Tier 4, 18 are from Tier 2.

MLS teams in Round of 32: 21. 5 all MLS games, 14 advanced to Round of 16, only 2 teams from lower leagues advanced, only 11 teams from the lower leagues competed in the Round of 32, 10 from USL Championship, 1 from the NPSL. The Round of 8 features 6 MLS teams, 2 USL Championship teams, and 2 all MLS games.

Granted, the A-League is smaller than MLS, but this will still give you a good idea of what level of imbalance exists in the US Open Cup.

1. The entire Cup happens in one year. Currently, qualifying for the 2020 US Open Cup will begin a couple of weeks after the final of the 2019 US Open Cup. This is an issue for amateur sides, as the players they use in qualifying in the fall, are the players they have to use in the spring/summer of the next year. Because of roster turnover, this severely reduces an amateur team's ability to compete should they make the cup proper.
2. Streamline how amateur teams get in. Right now, it takes something akin to an Associates Degree to understand how USSF divides Amateur slots between teams in the NPSL and UPSL, and amateur sides looking to qualify on their own.  Ideally, I would say use the USASA Region's map and divide all the Pro and Amateur teams between them, and hopefully fill the Regions in with Amateur teams to create even numbers in each region. Currently, I would say only let NPSL & UPSL Conference winners in, along with league champions from top Amateur leagues like Bay State, Cosmopolitan, Buffalo, Evergreen, and Gulf Coast leagues, and yes, close off letting random Amateur teams enter. Funnel them to the US National Amateur Cup. 
3. Everyone enters at the same time where possible. I qualify this with where possible because some regions of the country have way more pro and amateur teams than others. Cups flow best when it's an even number of teams. In some places that means Amateur teams might play each other first before the pros come in. That's just the way it is right now.
4. Alternate host and travel. With everyone starting at the same time, you alternate who hosts and who travels via a broadcast, best 2 out of 3 draw. If you host one game, you travel to the next if that home team won, otherwise it's another broadcast draw. This makes sure you don't see an MLS team hosting 3 of 4 games en route to the finals, and everyone gets a fair shake to host a game. On that note...
5. Make sure ESPN broadcasts every game, no matter who's hosting. This deal with ESPN is worthless if they aren't broadcasting from the home of a hosting amateur team, giving all of the game exposure, regardless of what level the team is playing at. 

What do you think? How would you do it differently? Where did I go wrong? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter, and until next time, support your local team!