The Brief: The US Open Cup
What it is, why it matters, and what it could mean for Fort Wayne FC.
The US Open Cup is the oldest soccer competition in the United States, first played in 1914 and open to every professional and amateur club in the country regardless of division. The diehards know about it, but most fans have no idea what it could mean for a club like Fort Wayne FC.
What Is the US Open Cup?
The Lamar Hunt US Open Cup is American soccer’s oldest competition, first played in 1914 and contested every year since (except 2020 and 2021, when the pandemic shut it down). That makes it older than the NFL, older than the NBA, and one of the longest continuously running national cup tournaments anywhere in the world.
The format is straightforward: single-elimination knockout soccer. One game, one result, no second chances. Lose and you go home. Eighty teams entered the 2026 edition: amateur clubs, third-division professionals, second-division professionals, and sixteen clubs from Major League Soccer, the top league in the country. They all chase the same trophy.
The bracket works from the bottom up. Amateur clubs and lower-division professionals play in the early rounds. MLS clubs enter later, seeded into the Round of 32. Geography shapes the draw, meaning teams generally face opponents from their region before the field narrows nationally. The champion receives $300,000 and a berth in the CONCACAF Champions Cup, the premier club competition in North and Central America. The runner-up takes home $100,000. Even the furthest-advancing lower-division club earns $25,000.
No salary cap. No divisional barriers. One bracket.
Why It Matters
The Open Cup is the only competition in American team sports where a third-division club can legitimately draw and beat a first-division opponent in a meaningful game. Not an exhibition. Not a preseason friendly. A competitive match with real stakes against the biggest clubs in the United States.
That’s happened. Sacramento Republic FC, a second-division club, beat three MLS teams to reach the 2022 Open Cup Final. The Rochester Rhinos, also a lower-division side, won the whole tournament in 1999. In 2012, an amateur club called the Michigan Bucks, now known as the Flint City Bucks, a regional name Fort Wayne supporters may recognize from our USL League Two days, knocked out MLS’s Chicago Fire. These aren’t flukes. The single-elimination format means any club, on any given night, can end the bigger club’s tournament.
It also connects American soccer to something larger. Win the Open Cup and your club represents the United States in CONCACAF Champions Cup competition, the same tournament that features Club América, Cruz Azul, and the biggest clubs in Mexico. Lower-division American clubs rarely get that stage. The Open Cup is the only door that opens it.
Think of it as March Madness for soccer. Same bracket energy, same upset potential, same single-game stakes. A 16-seed beating a 1-seed. There is no other professional sport in America where a third-division club can knock out the biggest team in the country, lift a major trophy, and earn a spot against the best clubs in the region. David against Goliath. The Cinderella run. The underdog who refuses to lose. Few tournaments are built for this kind of story, and there is something deeply American about it. Dream big, execute, and the biggest prize is within reach.
What This Means for Fort Wayne FC
Fort Wayne Football Club won’t appear in the 2026 US Open Cup. The rules require a prior league season, and FWFC is in its first year of professional soccer. That makes 2027 the first year this club lines up in the bracket.
Mark the calendar.
Here’s what the path looks like. As a League One club, FWFC enters in the First Round against an amateur opponent from the region. Win that, and Round 2 arrives, likely another lower-division opponent. Win that, and the Round of 32 draws from the sixteen participating MLS clubs. The bracket is geography-based. For Fort Wayne, that means Chicago Fire, FC Cincinnati, Columbus Crew, or Sporting Kansas City are realistic opponents. Not hypothetical. Realistic.
Think about what that means for a minute. The TinCaps will never play the Chicago Cubs. The Komets will never host the Detroit Red Wings in a game that counts. To find the last time a top professional sports team played a meaningful competitive match in Fort Wayne, you have to go back to the Fort Wayne Pistons. The franchise relocated to Detroit in 1957. That’s how long it’s been.
The Open Cup would put Fort Wayne on the US soccer map. Two wins and Ruoff Mortgage Stadium could host a MLS club. A sellout crowd, a national television audience. Imagine Lionel Messi sitting at the counter of Coney Island eating a hotdog in our city. That’s not a dream. That’s the structure of the tournament.
Push further and the stakes grow. Win the Open Cup and Fort Wayne FC qualifies for the CONCACAF Champions Cup, the premier club competition in North and Central America. That’s the tournament that features Club América, Cruz Azul, and the biggest clubs in Mexico. Win that, and you earn a spot in the FIFA Club World Cup, the tournament that brings together the best club from every region on the planet. Real Madrid vs Fort Wayne FC. It’s possible. These aren’t friendlies. These aren’t exhibitions. These are competitive matches that count, on the biggest stage in club soccer. There is no other path in American sports that makes this possible.
The prize money is real. But it’s not the point.
The point is what happens to a city when its soccer club refuses to lose. New York has this stage. Los Angeles has this stage. For the first time in its history, Fort Wayne has a path to it too. Not through an expansion fee. Not through a billionaire owner. Through ninety minutes of soccer, repeated until someone says stop.
Fort Wayne Football Club is three years away from its first Open Cup. When that bracket drops, this city will have a chance to introduce itself to the rest of American soccer on its own terms. Win enough matches and the spotlight finds you. The players, the club, the supporters, and the city, all of it elevated, together.
Fort Wayne has never had this opportunity before. The Open Cup exists to give it to us.