All 27 U.S.-based MLS teams will participate in the 2027 U.S. Open Cup, multiple sources briefed on the decision confirmed to The Athletic.MLS teams will enter the 2027 U.S. Open Cup in July in the Round of 64. The Open Cup final will be held in December. Sources said the tournament’s new format is mindful of Leagues Cup and won’t overlap with that MLS-Liga MX competition.The tournament has seen several improvements in recent years, including the doubling of prize money to $1 million in 2025. The Open Cup media rights were also sold to CBS for 2025 and 2026.It will be the first time since 2023 that every eligible MLS team participates in the historic competition, which dates back to 1913-14. The league controversially announced it was pulling out of the Open Cup in December 2023, just months after Lionel Messi arrived in MLS and his Inter Miami team lost — with Messi watching injured from the sideline — in the Open Cup final.
Backheeled first reported the news.MLS claimed it was pulling teams out of the Open Cup due to schedule congestion, but that came at the same time the league was rolling out the Leagues Cup, a commercially-driven tournament between MLS and Liga MX. There were other factors, including that, as a competition administered by the U.S. Soccer Federation, MLS is not in control of many aspects of the Open Cup, including broadcast rights, marketing, and competition standards. U.S. Soccer also collected a varying portion of ticket revenue from every Open Cup match – rising to as much as 50% for the semifinal and final.In a May 2023 meeting of the U.S. Soccer board of directors, MLS commissioner Don Garber said the Open Cup was, “a very poor reflection on what it is we’re trying to do with soccer at the highest level”.The decision also opened a door for MLS Next Pro teams to enter the tournament. The third-division league started by MLS was looking for a bigger stage and better competition for its teams, and MLS teams dropping out of the tournament cleared the way for those teams to participate.MLS’s decision received heavy pushback from other stakeholders in American soccer. After initially denying the request — the move seemed to violate U.S. Soccer’s Professional League Standards (PLS), which read that all “U.S.‐based teams must participate in all representative U.S. Soccer and CONCACAF competitions for which they are eligible” — U.S. Soccer eventually relented and allowed MLS to only enter some of its teams in the competition. MLS entered eight teams in the 2024 tournament and 16 teams in the 2025 and 2026 versions.
