In addition to doubleheaders helping the revenue and announced attendance for the game without the USA or Mexico, they also make sure the teams in each group have the same travel. In World Cup 2014 USA had their middle Group Stage game in Manaus, which was far away from every other site. To use examples for Gold Cup 2017, what if there was a game in San Diego where one team was coming from Houston and the other team had a much longer flight from Red Bull Arena in New Jersey?
If you regionalize it and organize the groups properly then the travel shouldn't be too egregious. You could do the eastern US one time and then the western US the next, which might also help keep it fresh. Regardless, we're trying to improve something for which there is no easy or correct answer. There will simply be too many minnows involved unless we invite other nations or until more teams in the region improve.
My proposal would be to regionalize the matches. For example, USA vs. Martinique in Tampa and Panama vs. Nicaragua in Orlando. USA vs. Nicaragua in Cleveland, Panama vs. Martinique in Columbus. Same with Mexico. They played their matches in San Diego (LA could be the other host site), Denver (Salt Lake and Denver have MLS stadiums) and San Antonio (Houston could host). But ultimately, this event won't be valued until it's a quadrennial tournament.
There are 18 Group Stage games, and the expansion to 16 teams will make 24 Group Stage games. Do you propose having every Group Stage game in a different stadium?
Not necessary, but you could spread it out. Especially when you use NFL stadiums for the Mexico and USA matches, and MLS stadiums for the other countries. I don't know why that somehow delegitimizes my idea. For example, you could have 16 host sites for the group matches; 6 NFL stadiums, 10 MLS stadiums. Let's use this year's tournament for an example. NFL Stadiums Nashville, TN Tampa, FL Cleveland, OH San Diego, CA Denver, CO San Antonio, TX MLS Stadiums Harrison, NJ Houston, TX Frisco, TX During the group stage, the USA played in Nashville, Tampa, and Cleveland. Mexico played in San Diego, Denver, and San Antonio. The other group played in three MLS stadiums, Frisco, Houston and Harrison. A total of 9 stadiums were used for group play, which means the tournament would need 7 more stadiums. We would probably have to re-use stadiums of MLS size, but the goal would be to put them in regional pairs. So here is a list that would suffice: For USA group: Orlando MLS and Columbus MLS are no-brainers. Unfortunately, Nashville doesn't have a logical choice, but Chattanooga has hosted USA matches before and is a "soccer" stadium by virtue of being the home of an NPSL team. For Mexico Group: Los Angeles MLS, Denver MLS or Salt Lake MLS, and Houston MLS would make the most sense. We see here that Houston is reused. For CRC group (group A): Philadelphia MLS is closest to Harrison; Kansas City MLS would make a nice choice to pair with the Frisco location. Houston might need to find a partner, but we could put it in either Denver MLS or Chicago MLS? Then, for Group D: We can basically reuse the MLS stadiums: Columbus MLS, Harrison, and Philly MLS would be good additions. Kansas City MLS, Orlando MLS and Chicago MLS. So, to recap, group match host sites would be: Nashville, TN Tampa, FL Cleveland, OH San Diego, CA Denver, CO San Antonio, TX Harrison, NJ (x2) Houston, TX (x2) Frisco, TX Chattanooga NPSL Orlando MLS (x2) Columbus MLS (x2) Los Angeles MLS Denver or Salt Lake MLS Philly MLS (x2) Kansas City MLS (x2) Then, knockout round matches could be chosen from the MLS site's NFL stadiums.
Until this and other CONCACAF tournaments are rotated between countries in the confederation all US tournament championships are somewhat tainted. I don't buy the excuse that smaller nations don't have the infrastructure. Bunk. This is the area of the world we live in. We have to deal with the conditions. There should be enough profit from the 2 decades plus of US hosted tournaments that improvements where possible can be made by CONCACAF for the poorer host countries. This is CONCACAF so there is always going to be a risk of fraud but Dr. Jack is no longer around; any reasonably competent leadership should be able to get this process started. The sooner the better; the longer the US continues to host these tournaments the longer we will be at a disadvantage where we have to travel to a tournament as we currently only have the World Cup for that sort of practice. For f' sakes we are hosting Copa America again...
There are 41 members of CONCACAF. Most are small countries, struggling economically, with inhospitable weather and terrible broken down infrastructure, like Guatemala, Haiti and Canada. They get one vote each. They like playing in the US because they make more money and you'll probably get more Panamanian fans at a game in Houston than you will in Panama City. And the US is probably the most neutral location because of the huge ex-pat communities here. It's also cheap to host a tournament here because you don't need to make stadium improvements. You could perhaps host a tournament in Central America during the MLS close season and the winter break between Apetura and Clausura but then a lot of the Caribbean players based in England and mainland Europe may not be available unless you can get FIFA to mandate it.
Right now, El Salvador is struggling with hosting the Central American+Caribbean Games. Event organization is so precarious that El Salvador allocated one stadium for 15 teams (7 male, 8 female), on artificial grass. COL teams said No Thanks after being invited. Unfortunately, few C'CAF countries have spare soccer venues while their national league is in progress. One must acknowledge however that USA has unfair advantage when visas are denied to athletes from any territory outside CAN.
Sure about that? Athlete visa applications in uscis.gov tell a different story: foreign federation affiliation is no factor for approval of athlete visas.
Agree. At the very least, I agree with others that the tournament should be regionalized. Maybe it's in the Northeast USA & Canada one year (with Canada hosting the finals or at least semi's), Southeast USA with maybe Jamaica, Haiti or another Caribbean nation hosting some games another year. Central USA/Midwest & Mexico another, and Western US/Canada/Mexico another year. The key is actually have the US be forced to play some knockout games somewhere else some years. Having some pool play in the US would still allow for some doubleheaders/revenue/nuetral games for some of the smaller nations.
Hosting in the United States is clearly favored by most of the FAs in the confederation even it does arguably cheapen the prestige of the tournament. While Mexico has suitable infrastructure for hosting a Gold Cup and even a World Cup on its own, and Canada has adequate stadiums (though mostly turf), the US remains the most practical and lucrative choice. Central American nations could potentially collaborate on a joint bid, as a couple of the national team stadiums are suitable facilities for major matches and finals.
Based on experience, more fans are likely to show up to their teams games in the US than show up to their home games, and they'll pay more of course.