2025 Leagues Cup

[Gotham Gator]

How long until we hear an announcement that the 2026 Leagues Cup format will change so that this can't happen again?

 

[FootyLovin]

I don't care enough to be annoyed, but as I sit at home I'm pointing and laughing at the very predictable fruits of a poorly designed tournament with conflicting inconsistent goals:

• sell MLS to LMX fans
• sell LMX to MLS fans
• give LMX fans in the US a way to see LMX teams live and more likely remain LMX fans
• make money by playing entirely in the US
• be entertaining
• be competitively balanced

There's no format that can advance all of those goals equally. It's impossible because they are in tension. Sure you can hope to grow the pie but people have real constraints in money, attention and especially time. So every time you make it easier for a LMX fan in the US to see LMX games in the US, you make it a bit less likely they become MLS fans. Similarly, if you play in both Mexico and the US to improve competitive balance, it both costs more money to produce and generates less money in revenue. Plus the primary target audience for the tournament is LMX fans living in the US. I don't think either LMX nor MLS hold this tournament to market to LMX fans living in Mexico, the number of MLS fans in Mexico is probably too small to be worth targeted marketing, and I suspect MLS has little expectation of making MLS fans out of soccer fans in Mexico. So there's zero reason to hold any games in Mexico except of course for purposes of entertainment and competition, which arguably should be the primary goals but obviously they are very secondary. And so a Catch-22 arises: the only fan subgroup that really wants this tournament is LMX fans in the US. But to cater to them geographically, you have to make the tournament unfair to the teams they love.

A semifinal round with 4 MLS teams is a natural expected consequence of a poorly considered project, and this was obvious from its inception.

The irony is that if the main money maker for this tournament is giving LMX fans a new way to access their teams, the way they have structured to maximize that - all matches in the US - has led to this situation with zero LMX teams in the most lucrative final 3 matches. I wonder what the economics look like if they have 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 LMX teams in the final 4.