I really need to agree with Kenn on this. Maybe the Seattle crowd makes more die hard fans want to show the support for their own teams in this competition. But since the teams are going to have small crowds maybe they need to use this as a loss leader marketing vehicle and to do that the teams would need some time. If the teams approached it as a true marketing activity they may even put on a better show on the field. But, it is hard to get excited by a small disinterested crowd. The NIT has some caché but still not the draw of an NCAA game but the universities do seem to easily get larger crowds than the 5k USOC average.
ENY State final for the US Open Cup Wednesday 12/8 7:00 pm at St. John's University stadium. NY Pancyprian vs NYC Albania, it shoud be a good game so whoever can, should get out there and watch it.
Whoa there, I didn't say that. Steve Clare's headline on Prost Amerika ABOUT my article was "Sounders FC and Fans Credited with Rescuing US Open Cup" -- which wasn't an accurate way to describe what I wrote. "Rescue" is WAY over the top, in my opinion. "...credited with giving the Open Cup a boost" is probably more accurate. My article was: "State of the US Open Cup: After 97 years, is the tournament finally starting to arrive?" http://thecup.us/2010-us-open-cup-c...is-the-tournament-finally-starting-to-arrive/ I was trying to be optimistic in that article. I was basically saying that maybe Seattle's attendance numbers and buzz created among the local media might provide teams a blueprint for how to market the tournament or to at least prove that it can be done. The reality is, like it or not, Seattle is just special from a fan perspective. If the final is hosted by, let's say, Dallas next year ... will they be scalping tickets and have a standing room only crowd at Pizza Hut Park on a Tuesday night in October? Probably not. I've been following this tournament long enough to have much of my optimism stripped from me. But maybe a pretty impressive spectacle like last year's final will make the USSF take notice -- but I think we all know that's unlikely. And to respond to rest of the thread ... I think GIO was well-intentioned by saying the match dates should be spread out. I agree. But the 9 or 10 traveling fans shouldn't even slightly factor into the discussion. Hell, how many MLS fans travel to road games in the regular season and the playoffs? (Save your Seattle Sounders examples) The reason why there should be more time in between games is because the home teams barely have any time to market a game they're hosting. Setting the entire bracket at the very beginning ... which is by far the easiest fix they could make ... could at least give the fans that care a chance to see who their team would play in future rounds and give teams a chance to hype the tournament a bit. ("If we win our first two games, we will play <insert a specific MLS team here>"). It's the biggest no-brainer that they could do to at least show some effort to market the tournament. Set the bracket ... print out 5 or 6 of them out (got a tight budget!) and pass them out at an MLS game. If they do that, I'm sure we'll have a NCAA-style bracket contest on thecup.us and it'll be fun. I'm not saying it'll revolutionize the tournament, but since it's clear that minimal effort is the key, that would indeed take minimal effort and might make a small dent in the awareness. Baby steps.
Thank you. I was trying to say that originally, but I had the traveling supporters in mind as well. But yes, if the US Open Cup Dates were a little more spread out promotion of the matches will be much improved.
I completely agree that there should be a set date for each round. Also If the tournament can be even further regionalized it would make fan travel even easier.