Somebody's post on Houston being busy with MLS and CONCACAF Champions League games at the time of the U.S. Open Cup final (if Houston advances that far) got me thinking about making the six rounds of the U.S. Open Cup in six consecutive weeks in February and March played only in places where the weather is warm enough. It would be meaningful preseason games and reduce fixture congestion during the season. I don't think clubs make a lot of money hosting the U.S. Open Cup games so it wouldn't be a big deal to play them at neutral sites which has been done at times in the past according to scaryice's Climbing The Ladder blog. Here's my proposal for a tournament with nine host sites: Round 1 has 16 matches. Four sites could each host 2 Saturday games and two Sunday games or two sites could host 4 Saturday games (local starting times could be 1:00, 3:00, 7:00, and 9:00 with an afternoon session and a night session) and two sites could host Sunday games. Round 2 has 8 matches. The four surviving teams at each site would play in the same place as in Round 1. One site each would play a Saturday afternoon doubleheader, a Saturday night doubleheader, a Sunday afternoon doubleheader, and a Sunday night doubleheader. Round 3 has 8 matches and the MLS teams enter here. Four different sites from the first two rounds could each host two games. Like in Round 2, one site each would play a Saturday afternoon doubleheader, a Saturday night doubleheader, a Sunday afternoon doubleheader, and a Sunday night doubleheader. The quarterfinals have 4 matches. The four Round 3 sites would each have one game between the two remaining teams at their site. The semifinals have 2 matches. The final would be played at the same sight as the semifinals one week later.
The PDL teams would be unable to participate. This has already been brought. Quite recently I think. This idea would be great for MLS, but it wouldn't make them take the cup any more seriously. And it would pretty much hurt all the other competitors. I'll let others handle the other issues with this. I'm sick of repeating myself.
There's also the matter of MLS teams being in the CCL at this point too, which doesn't really solve much of anything.
The tournament's pretty much locked where it is, unless you like the idea of not having PDL teams involved (they can't use their NCAA student athletes before May 1 or after they go back to school). If you think of it as an "all-comers" tournament, you can't exactly leave out part of the pyramid. Some USASA teams may be in the same boat. I don't know how heavily they rely on college players, it seems to me that some of them, at least, have older-aged players, and they COULD, conceivably, play earlier, but they'd have to qualify even earlier than that. And, in many places in the country, that may not be meteorologically feasible. It's not really a question of when you play it, or how many ads you take out promoting it, or which lineup MLS teams use. It's that it's a tournament played on shitty dates with either unfamiliar or too-familiar opponents, the games for which aren't scheduled far in advance, and with dubious rewards for the winners (please, the CCL ----> WCC argument, enough already, nobody cares).