June 20, 2007

US Open Cup 3rd round pairings

Well, here we go. The 8 remaining MLS teams head into the fray, and from the looks of it, most of them will be heading out of town.

You can look at the matchups here.

For those who don't know how it works, all of the remaining teams make a bid for each game. You can see that most of the MLS teams aren't willing to take the financial hit by hosting a lower-division team, therefore leaving the latter teams to make a better bid and get what's pretty much a guaranteed gate. Soccer Economics 101, people.

Which makes it very disappointing to see that the Silverbacks will be the only USL-1 team who won't host an MLS team if they all win out.

I guess they're figuring that since they did such little marketing for the Azzurri game that they'd probably do the same if an MLS team came to town.

Disappointed once again.

1 comment:

Longshoe said...

It's interesting to see who put up the money to host and who didn't.

Harrisburg offered more than DCU. Carolina put up more than Chicago, which makes sense considering their success at the turnstiles. FCD was the only MLS team to outbid both of their potential opponents, does that say more about Dallas or less about their opponents?

New England wanted no part of hosting a game, no surprise there since they give away CONCACAF games. LA also wanted no part of a game in this round, they probably want no part of the tournament itself, but they won their two play-in games. Houston and Chivas were also outbid by both of their opponents.