Folks, there is a pretty compelling soccer tournament happening right here on U.S. soil, and far too many of us are ignoring it.

And, no, I’m not referencing the MLS playoffs, which are months away. Nor am I writing of whatever collation of test matches will be inevitably slapped together for European teams to play before adoring masses, which I have in my head as a somewhat new summertime US soccer tradition, though may be something I’ve created in my head, rather than an actual thing.

As difficult as it may be to believe, the tournament in question is is actually more than 100 years old.

Despite being founded in 1914, the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup toils in relative obscurity, even as interest the sport itself continues unprecedented grown among U.S. sports fans.

Until recently, I was as guilty of anyone of neglecting this gem of an event. Considering my passion for the sport, you might could even charge me with being more guilty than most.

But I want to make it up to you, America!

I am a recent convert to what equates to our own version of England’s famed FA Cup (or Germany’s DFB Pokal, if you prefer, as I do). As a Eurosnob, though, my conversion does not come full-blooded. Despite the cup opening my eyes to the wider world of US soccer, which has appealed to the football-romantic side of my love of the game, it also has some very obvious and glaring problems that likely contribute to it having joined in the strengthening of the game domestically.

Fortunately, I have some high-profile support when I, a newcomer, say that the US Open Cup needs to make some radical changes.

Seattle Sounders head coach Sigi Schmidt publicly voiced several ideas for bringing more gravity to the US Open Cup, including disposing of regionalized draws, which has the Sounders facing Portland Timbers in fourth-round action next week, but also promises that the rivals could never deliver their “derby” to the cup final.

Instead, the first match for the two MLS sides in the tournament has just enough sizzle to be played in 4,500-seat Starfire Stadium, rather than the 60,000 CenturyLink Field, where Seattle routinely entertains more than 40,000 spectators. With higher stakes, a Seattle-Portland tournament meeting should be one of the city’s hottest sports tickets all year. Instead, they’ll hope to improve on the 4,223 sold to see the two teams in quarterfinal action last year.

Borrowing heavily from other successful tournaments, I hereby put forth my own (not fully original, admittedly) ideas for how to bring some heat to the US Open Cup.

Simplify Entire Tournament Structure

While the determination of the field is likely less complicated than I think it to be, it’s hardly as simple as it could be.

Looking at the Wikipedia page for this year’s tournament, there appears to be a preliminary round that consists of two matches. The two victors join 40 other clubs in the first round. The 21 to emerge victorious in the first round are joined by 21 more new entries in the second. You get nine new entries in the third round, but then 17 more in the fourth.

This is a bit much, don’t you think? Then again, I’m also against the semi-recent expansion of the NCAA basketball tournament from 64 to 68 teams which inserted an unseemly play-in round between the Sunday night draw and the start of the first round on Thursday morning.

And I don’t care what the NCAA insists on calling those first four games; they’re play-in games.

Let’s just start with 64 teams at the start and not add anyone after that. Get all 64 teams in the boat and let them duke it out in a single-elimination tournament, American-style.

I’m leaning heavily on Germany’s national cup tournament for the structure. It may not be the most-ideal way to handle it, but it’s pretty good. Pretending I have been given eminent domain over next year’s tournament . . .

Going along with the notion of the US Soccer pyramid, the top two leagues combine for 31 total clubs as of now. To make things easy, let’s add the 2015 champion of third-division USL to complete precisely half the tournament pool.

The remaining 32 slots will be filled by the winners of 32 regional tournaments throughout the United States. Though there would be some work in creating those tournaments as well, it’d be worth it to not only have a clear-cut path for soccer organizations throughout the pyramid to get to the big dance. As a side benefit, you now also have 32 annual regional cup tournaments for clubs from the third tier down to pursue. I think it’s great that a brand new operation like FC Tacoma 253 got to dream for a while about making headway in the Open Cup, even if they knew they’d never reach and conquer the final, but putting together a run through a regional tournament with a well-timed upset or two, resulting in both a bit of hardware and a publicly earned berth into the big national tournament?

Does that not sound fun?

Leverage MLS Popularity From the Start

I think it’s pretty clear that this proposal means that the MLS and NASL teams are losing their automatic berths into the later rounds. If not . . .

No more free passes for the big boys . . . sort of.

Without promotion and relegation (calm down, Ted!), MLS and NASL teams are technically already getting a free pass by having those automatic slots. Considering the performance of NASL sides this year, some might argue that to be unjust, but we’re going to stick to the pyramid as currently defined, okay?

But unlike the completely random draw for which my man Sigi calls for in order to be rid of the regionalized match-ups, which I believe are intended to minimize the fiscal burdens of travel, we’re going to let the more-moneyed clubs take that hit, while also leveraging the notion of their “big league” status to help boost interest in the matches in smaller markets.

The MLS, NASL, and the USL champion all go in one drum to be drawn as visiting sides in the first round, but their opponents, dear Sigi, will indeed be assigned completely by random draw. So while you might get New York City FC at Long Island Rough Riders in the first round, you will not get them at Red Bulls, at least not so early in the tournament.

More likely, you end up sending the NYCFC with its MLS brand and roster of known players to somewhere like Laredo, Texas or Des Moines, IA. Is it impossible that such fixtures would be win-win situations for both clubs, the tournament, MLS, and US Soccer, in general?

Let’s say we had that first-round match between NYCFC and the Des Moines Menace at Valley Stadium in West Des Moines. I think it’s safe to assume that draws better than the 1,641 who saw the Menace win 2:1 over the Madison (WI) Fire in the first round a few weeks ago. The capacity of the stadium is reportedly 13,000, so I’ll allow that maybe you sell somewhere between 1,700 and 13,000 tickets. For the first year, it’s probably closer to the former, but part of the project is to assure we eventually get to the latter.

The Des Moines team gets an influx of cash from additional ticket sales and maybe even some merchandising. Hell, you might even find some ultras making the journey from New York for the occasion. It might be just a handful that first year, but . . . let’s dream big, otherwise, what’s the point? NYCFC and MLS get a chance to promote, promote, promote in a new market in a very grassroots way. Treat it like a business trip and start making those connections with fans. It’s not hard to see a reality where in ten years there are a few dozen hardcore NYCFC fans in eastern Iowa high schools, all because some of those kids remember their parents taking them to that a pre-match event where they got to meet Frank Lampard.

The biggest win, though, is in the long game. It’s insisting that soccer and the US Open Cup is a big deal because MLS is a big deal. I’d think even the average Eurosnob would be compelled to snag tickets for a cup match if MLS was coming to their non-MLS neck of the woods.

Of course, MLS would have to play nice and be willing to let its brand strength be used to the betterment of US Soccer in general. It seems obvious that such a development would also benefit nobody as much as it would potentially benefit MLS, but maybe it’s just me. Otherwise, I think this would already be how things were done.

Besides, having seen teams use internet crowd-funding campaigns to raise money for carpools to deliver exhausted players to early round matches, the only way this can work is to take as much financial burden away from the lower-level teams as possible. They can’t afford it. MLS might claim poverty and protest the cash outlay, but if they and US Soccer can look at the return on investment, it’ll work out.. It might even payoff more quickly that one might anticipate today.

Make the Draw an Event

Again, let’s tip the cap to the NCAA tournament . . . and then one-up them.

The most-recent US Open Cup draw was “broadcast” only via Twitter, but it had its followers, even if the number of potential opponents for any individual participant were limited by keeping things somewhat regional.

Envision a televised draw in which 32 lower-tier clubs are waiting to see whether they’ll get one of the bigger MLS clubs coming to town, while the fans of the big-league clubs are hoping to be drawn into an alluring destination. Some of the best moments of the NCAA tournament bracket announcement come when cameras are on-site to catch the reactions of underdog teams when they see which big-time team they’ll face in their first game. Some of these smaller clubs might have draw-watch parties with their fans where we might see some similar reactions. Let’s face it; if you put cameras on site, people will at least give you a bit of a show, even if they draw, say, Indy Eleven and not Los Angeles Galaxy.

In covering a few of this year’s cup matches, I have been able to speak to a few players. The challenge of playing an MLS side is alluring to a lot of these athletes, probably due to being able to measure themselves against some of the best in the nation, as well as the exposure they can get as they work on their own careers. Drawing a visit from a professional club in the first round makes the first round seem like a happening, rather than just the first of two or three matches that must be survived before you get there.

Turn the Cup Start into a Soccer Celebration

Because MLS is the big dog in the US game, we may need to build this concept around that league and hope it either works for the other leagues or that the other leagues can adjust.

The first round of the tournament can, and should, take place over a full weekend, ideally the week before the MLS starts its season. By providing MLS clubs something that is something more than a test match just before the season starts, you might lure coaches into playing a full-strength squad in their first cup match, which is not necessarily what happens currently.

Use the full weekend as an announcement that soccer season in the USA has arrived. Have a small handful of Friday night games and maybe even a Monday night game, but spread the remainder of the 32 games over Saturday and Sunday afternoons and evenings, scheduling all for maximum attendance in the local markets.

Here, again, we would be asking MLS to use its marketing power and savvy to help make these opening-round matches a big deal in 20 markets. NASL too, actually, as they really do a good job in their own promotion, even if they don’t carry the same branding power. They do have some names and some history. Ronaldo is actually involved in Fort Lauderdale Strikers right now, meaning he could help make that team’s first-round visit as big a deal as maybe almost any other, considering the US penchant for intense focus on the World Cup.

That is, unless someone has signed Miroslav Klose? No? Well, then the guy who remains second on the World Cup goal-scoring list will have to do. Can we get Ronaldo to sign a few autographs for kids a few hours before kickoff? Make him an honorary of . . . I don’t know . . . Lansing United and sell some jersey-style t-shirts with Ronaldo “16” on the back?

It all seems fantasy-land, I realize, but, again, the only way this will ever grow into a tool for boosting the game here is if we think big. It wouldn’t take off instantly, but there is little left to lose right now.

Fix the Schedule

Again, we have to accommodate a lot of moving parts here, but so does pretty much every domestic cup competition.

Simply, these matches need to be spread out more evenly through the annual soccer calendar.

The first three rounds of this year’s US Open Cup took place on three consecutive Wednesdays. I do not know the logistics behind such scheduling, so I’ll just ignore that there might be very valid reasoning behind it.

In addition to these midweek tournament matches, the early-round participants also had their normally scheduled league matches with which to contend. In many cases, the teams were playing six matches in fifteen days. Nobody with much of a clue would argue that such scheduling provides the best atmosphere for strong competition. Then, should a lower-tier side survive that onslaught of competition to get to the fourth round and face an MLS side, they get just one week where they’ve only one game before they face their professional opponent which did not have to run ragged through May to get there.

No surprise the MLS teams do so well. Granted, they do have a talent-advantage, but does it make sense for them to also benefit from their opponent arriving in somewhat diminished form?

Because of the schedule crunch, teams are forced to strongly consider fielding second-choice players for their tournament matches. I know that Seattle Sounders 2, even with a trip to Utah to face MLS’ Real Salt Lake on the line, used several academy players in its first two cup matches, rather than using the full-strength squads it has used to get to the top of the USL standings.

This also speaks somewhat to how much value there is in the tournament, even for lower-tier sides.

A 64-team tourney requires six rounds of play. Even if you don’t insert breaks in the MLS and NASL schedules so the tournament matches can be played on weekends for maximum attendance and exposure, you don’t have to cram the first half of the tournament into fifteen days. Let the teams breathe a bit between rounds, while also letting the following match-ups marinate in the hearts and minds of the fan bases. Anticipation can be a good tool for such things.

The Final

In Germany, the cup final comes the weekend after the final round of league matches. I don’t think MLS would necessarily support the US Open Cup final upstaging the MLS Cup final by taking place the week afterwards, but it’s one scenario. Mid-December does bring a lull in the NCAA football schedule, so it’s not a horrible place to try to gain a foothold.

But what if the final was always held on Thanksgiving weekend and in a warm climate? Make it a destination event? If you’re going to be looking at mid-December, you already need to consider giving the cup a home other than one of the two participating clubs’ stadiums. Thanksgiving weekend gives people the flexibility to travel to the final and make a vacation of it.

Disney? Vegas? Hawaii? I don’t know what would work best, but I do know that it’ll be a tough sell, at least in the early going. Recent finals have all been home matches for one of the participants, drawing over 10,000 each of the last three years in a late summer affair. You hate to sacrifice the most-successful part of the tournament, but in a grander scheme, there is a bigger payoff to be had.

German fans like to chant “Berlin! Berlin! We’re going to Berlin!” in celebrating their cup successes. I’ve heard it used by fifth-division clubs when they even get their berth into the tournament, before they even know the name of their destroyer for their likely first-round exit. “Vegas, baby!” is already a thing, so . . .

As for television, Thanksgiving is already a busy sports weekend, but what’s one more game the disinterested can ignore. at least people are home a lot that weekend and might tune in, even out of curiosity. Don’t put it up against the NFL games, of course, but find another relatively sports-free time that might draw unoccupied eyeballs.

Dream on, Dreamer

“I know clubs don’t want to do that so there’s a lot of reasons for CEOs to say to me, ‘Hey, that’s stupid Sigi,’ and for coaches to say, ‘That’s stupid, Sigi.’ But at the end of the day, I think over a four-, five-year period of doing (random draws), I think the Cup will become more meaningful, will become a higher level of competition, you’ll get more people out to watch it and you’ll have more interest.”

See, while Sigi and I might appear to suffer from the stupidity that is assigned to the big dreamers, what we really are is visionaries.

And we are not alone.

A lot of the focus of energy for US soccer activists focuses almost exclusively on promotion and relegation. Not only is MLS utterly unwilling to consider it and has built a model that necessarily excludes it, but it’s simply not feasible right now. If we focus on building such a structure from the ground up, MLS might someday have to consider joining it, but that would only be after the system has been operating successfully for years, with clubs making the money they’d need to find themselves with larger travel budgets from one year to the next as they move up the pyramid. As things stand, many teams cannot even afford a single long road trip per year. We simply are not yet there as a soccer nation.

But this model can work right now! It’s not promotion-relegation, but it does benefit a lot of the broader areas of US Soccer the pro-rel crowd want addressed. You could even look at a strengthening of the US Open Cup as a first step toward building the system the critics want for domestic leagues. Yelling at MLS, wanting it to help bring promotion and relegation into the US from the top, is not the way. The US needs stronger lower-level programs to develop talent and interest first and foremost. It’s a much smaller ask of MLS to help with this via the cup than it is to have them overhaul their structure to the dislike of those who’ve invested heavily in it.

The US Open Cup can continue as it is, probably in perpetuity, as a semi-curiosity that is acknowledged by clubs throughout the US Soccer system, or it can move forward and play the bigger role in the game’s growth in which it was born to star.

It won’t simply happen, though. Bold steps must be taken. The sooner, the better.

Or, as Sigi says . . .

“You’ve got to dare to be brilliant. You can’t do something brilliant unless you dare to be brilliant. Well, you’re not going to have a US Open Cup that’s really meaningful unless you dare to make it meaningful.”