The question of cost and support comes up a lot in discussions on the tournament. So I went hunting for some info and came up with something I don't think any of us have ever posted before - the proposed budget figures from the USSF for the competition. If they have been posted in the past, sorry, but I didn't remember it so I'm taking credit. The info comes from the book of info (click on 2010 AGM book on the left-hand sidebar) published before the USSF Annual General Meeting earlier this year. According to the budget there (page 70 of the PDF), they spent $423,308 last year and brought in $207,155. The 2010 budget calls for $523,446 of expense and $300,950 of revenue. Now I have no idea of any breakdown for this. Pages 53 and 54 have the proposed report for this year's meeting with nothing much new except some schedule info. The financial breakdowns don't get into too much more detail that I could understand. So I'm not coming to any real conclusions except that they only make half of what they spend on it as far as budgeting and accounting purposes. Just thought it was another little nugget to consider.
The question for me is: Which way would the finances go if they had more MLS teams in the tournament? If we had data for older tournaments, we might be able to make a less wild-ass guess than we can now, because there was a time when all MLS teams were in the tournament. I'd like to think that if all the MLS teams were in it, there would be more attention on it and it would do better. But the tournament's losing $200,000 a year. That it's still going on at all makes me inclined to stop complaining about what we have.
I think MLS teams lose money on this venture they have to pay air fare hotel food for their players some thing thats nothing cheap... US Soccer should give the rights to FSC or GOL tv and demand a proper TV production, at this point sell the US OPEN cup naming rights to some company like the Toyota US OPen Cup or some thing like that.... if they want to cut coast perhaps some MLS games between certin teams can also double up as the knock out game in the us open cup as well..... its a long and rather prestigous championship with a long history it should be built up to the big deal it should be.... Pe3rhaps SUM could take the US Open Cup off US Soccers hands and see what they can do since the federation has really not been able to do any thing more than what they have done...
They should demand? I wonder how that will go for them. I would think extremely poorly. This has been done in the past and as I recall was pretty much universally hated, and deservedly so.
I like the sponsorship idea. FA Cup presented by E.ON does not ruin the FA Cup. Sponsorship should help out finances some. I also think it should be more like the FA Cup or Spanish Copa del Rey in that rather than dictate how many MLS teams make the Round of 16, throw all MLS teams in the draw for the round of 64 (like FA Cup) or round of 32 (like Copa del Rey).