MLS walked away from the US Open Cup. Now all 27 US-based clubs are going back in.
Every US-based Major League Soccer team will compete in the 2027 US Open Cup, completing the league’s return to a tournament it abandoned less than four years ago.
MLS clubs will enter at the Round of 64 in July, with the final scheduled for December. The calendar has been designed to avoid a collision with the Leagues Cup, allowing both competitions to run without directly competing for the same dates.
It will be the first time since 2023 that every eligible MLS club has entered the competition.
For a tournament that dates back to 1913/14, that is a significant reversal.
From rejection to full participation
MLS withdrew its first-team clubs from the Open Cup in December 2023, ending a relationship that had been part of American soccer for generations.
The timing was particularly striking.
Lionel Messi had arrived in MLS only months earlier, and his Inter Miami had reached the Open Cup final—with Messi watching from the bench as an injury ruled him out.
MLS argued that its increasingly crowded schedule made the competition difficult to accommodate.
But the decision quickly became controversial.
The league was simultaneously investing heavily in the Leagues Cup, its commercially focused competition involving Liga MX clubs. Critics questioned why fixture congestion was suddenly decisive for the Open Cup while MLS was adding another tournament to the calendar.
MLS had other complaints
Scheduling was not the only issue.
Because the Open Cup is organised by US Soccer rather than MLS, the league has limited control over areas such as broadcasting, marketing and competition standards.
Revenue arrangements also frustrated MLS. US Soccer receives a portion of ticket income, with its share reaching as much as 50% of gate receipts for the semifinals and final.
Commissioner Don Garber made his feelings clear during an MLS board meeting in 2023, describing the Open Cup as “a very poor reflection” of the league’s ambitions for top-level soccer.
The withdrawal therefore looked like more than a scheduling decision.
It was also a dispute over control, commercial value and the place of the competition within American soccer’s changing hierarchy.
US Soccer pushed back
The move also generated a serious governance problem.
MLS’s withdrawal appeared to conflict with US Soccer’s own participation requirements, which called for eligible teams to enter sanctioned competitions.
A compromise followed rather than a complete break.
MLS sent eight clubs into the 2024 competition, before expanding that number to 16 in 2026.
Now the league is going all the way back.
The Open Cup gets its MLS field back
In 2027, there will be no reduced MLS contingent and no halfway solution.
All 27 US-based MLS clubs will participate.
The scheduling agreement removes one of the league’s central objections, while the return restores the possibility of the competition’s most compelling ingredient: MLS clubs facing lower-division opposition with everything to lose.
That means the inevitable upset is coming.
A smaller club knocking out an MLS side is precisely the kind of result that makes the Open Cup valuable—and precisely the kind of result that can make an elite league uncomfortable.
MLS has returned to the tournament.
Now comes the interesting part: seeing how it feels when the cup reminds everyone why it was built this way in the first place.