US Open Cup

The blog On The Pitch talks about way of improving the US Open Cup. You can read them by clicking here.

The US Open Cup is the second oldest tournament after England's FA Cup. It has a wonderful tradition that most all soccer fans in the US would like to see given more attention. It would be wonderful if teams celebrated winning it much like they celebrate winning the MLS Cup in November.

But can anything really be done for it to gain more attention? Would giving bigger pay outs give teams more incentives to play bigger stars in the games? Wouldn't that lessen the chances of the minnows beating the giants? Afterall, that's one of the features of the US Open Cup people celebrate. A lot of people were happy to see amatuer team FC Roma beat Chivas USA (pro team in the MLS). So I'm not sure that would help the tournament grow. But else could be done? Would more marketing do it? Afterall we just saw an insane amount of marketing for Snakes on the Plane and, well, it's done well but only in terms of the audiendce it was aimed at, teenage boys. Wouldn't more marketing for USOC just result in it getting more attention from soccer fans, people who are already giving it some attention as it stands now?

What would you do to improve the US Open Cup?