The Brief: The USL Cup
What it is, why it matters, and what it could mean for Fort Wayne FC.
The USL Cup is a cross-division tournament that puts every professional club in the United Soccer League, 42 of them across USL Championship and USL League One, into the same bracket competing for the same trophy. It is the first interleague cup ever run by a U.S. soccer league, and the only one with cross-division matchups built into the schedule.
What Is the USL Cup?
The USL Cup, currently known as the Prinx Tires USL Cup for sponsorship purposes, is in its third edition. Previously called the Jägermeister Cup, it launched in 2024 with League One clubs only and was won by Northern Colorado Hailstorm FC, a franchise that no longer exists. The 2025 edition added Championship clubs, and Hartford Athletic lifted the trophy. The 2026 field is the biggest yet: 25 Championship clubs and 17 League One clubs.
The format is borrowed from the English Football League’s Carabao Cup, scaled for American geography. The 42 clubs are drawn into seven regional groups, six of six teams and one of seven, designed to minimize travel and maximize rivalries. Each club plays four group-stage matches, two home and two away, between late April and mid-July. Group winners advance to a single-elimination knockout round, joined by one wild card (the best-placed second-place team, with goals scored as the tiebreaker). Quarterfinals are in August, semifinals in September, and the final is played the first weekend of October on ESPN2.
One wrinkle. Group-stage matches can’t end in a draw. If the score is level after ninety minutes, the match goes straight to a penalty shootout. A regulation win earns three points, a shootout win earns two, a shootout loss still earns one. The rule exists to punish caution and reward clubs that play to win.
Why It Matters
The honest answer is that the USL Cup is a competition still figuring out what it’s for.
The obvious comparison is the EFL Cup in England. Same format: every professional club into one bracket, see what happens. Bradford City, a fourth-tier side, reached the 2013 final. Grimsby Town, a League Two club, knocked Manchester United out at Blundell Park on penalties. Giant-killing lives there.
But the EFL Cup offers something the USL Cup does not: a pathway to European competition. The winner qualifies for the UEFA Conference League, which is why even rotated Premier League squads take it seriously. There is a prize worth chasing. The USL Cup offers a trophy, a cash prize, and USL bragging rights. The 2025 Jägermeister Cup winner took home $100,000, according to USL Championship clubs’ own communications, though USL hasn’t published a figure for the Prinx Tires edition. A U.S. Open Cup win offers a place in the more prestigious CONCACAF Champions Cup the following year. The USL Cup does not.
So why should fans care?
Because for lower-division clubs, the Cup is the only place on the calendar where you get to measure yourself against the tier above. League One clubs don’t play Championship clubs in league play. The U.S. Open Cup is possible but never guaranteed, and the draw is national. The USL Cup is the one competition where those crossover matches are built in. For the Championship side, the risk is reputational. Lose to a League One club and the internet will remind you about it. For the League One side, every cross-division match is a chance to prove you belong on the same field as USL’s biggest clubs. And the stakes will keep growing. When USL Premier launches in 2028 and promotion and relegation enter the pyramid, three divisions will be chasing the same trophy. That’s a lot more room for cupsets.
What This Means for Fort Wayne FC
The Cup is where we get to define who we are among the mightiest clubs in the Midwest.
Louisville City FC, Detroit City FC, and Indy Eleven are three of the most established professional soccer clubs in our region. Louisville has built the deepest trophy case in modern USL history. Detroit has built one of the loudest supporter cultures in American soccer. Indy Eleven has been playing professional soccer since 2014. Three of the best non-MLS soccer markets in this part of the country, all within driving distance of Fort Wayne. The Cup’s regional format is designed to pull clubs like those into our schedule, and to put Fort Wayne FC into theirs. That matters more for us than it does for them.
The Cup is also the only place where Indiana’s two professional clubs are scheduled to meet. Without it, the state’s derby with Indy Eleven waits until promotion and relegation arrive in 2028. The Cup is what lets it start now.
There is a reason this kind of experience compounds inside a locker room. Professional players who have competed for trophies carry something their teammates can’t fake. Bernd Schipmann started in goal for Forward Madison in the 2024 USL Cup Final, one kick away from lifting the inaugural trophy on penalties. That’s the kind of knowledge that changes how a group prepares. It’s why it matters who a first-year club brings in. Players who have cup experience know how to balance league points and cup runs without losing either.
The trophy itself isn’t a ticket to the CONCACAF Champions Cup. The prize money won’t rebuild a roster. For an expansion club in our region, the real prize is exposure and identity. How close are we to the tier above? Does our on-field product match the ambitions of our off-field product? And one day, when another Midwest club is sitting where we are now, we want them to look at Fort Wayne the way we currently look at Louisville, Detroit, and Indy.
That’s the claim the Cup asks us to stake. From those Midwest Mighty, to THE Midwest Mighty. Our Fort Wayne Football Club.