Could the Leagues Cup boycott have worked at Orlando City SC and elsewhere?

Leagues Cup attendance for Orlando City SC and elsewhere hasn’t rivaled MLS ticket sales. But it has done better than the U.S. Open Cup.

MLS reduced participation in this year’s U.S. Open Cup to eight teams. The rest of the league’s tournament support went to the Leagues Cup. This triggered the call for a boycott of the Leagues Cup from supporter groups, including one in Orlando.

The reason for the Leagues Cup emphasis, as explained by MLS Commissioner Don Garber, is that when the league number crunchers and growth forecasters put calculators and spreadsheets to the U.S. Open Cup, it just wasn’t drawing people to the stadiums.

The first attempts to stage the Leagues Cup didn’t draw the numbers that MLS matches do, but they outdrew the U.S. Open Cup by three times.

So for now MLS intends to invest most of the effort in the Leagues Cup while keeping just a few teams in the U.S. Open Cup.

Supporter groups across MLS posted their calls for a boycott on Social Media. These groups include The Iron Lion Firm and OrlandoCityUK.

But the triple attendance figures continue. U.S. Open attendance averages 5,477, compared to the Leagues Cup at 22,154. Orlando City SC sold 17,057 tickets for its final match before exiting the tournament.

Could the Leagues Cup Boycott have worked?

Boycott or no boycott, the Leagues Cup comes closer to capturing the imagination of the MLS sporting public than the U.S. Open Cup. Yet, as the oldest soccer competition in the U.S., calling for respect for sports history is a noble gesture.

The boycott would never have driven supporters nor the MLS to abandon the Leagues Cup. But it could have been a much more visible boycott, and therefore more effective, if supporter groups had structured their participation differently.

The groups, including those of Orlando City supporters, held votes of their membership on whether to join the boycott. Thereafter, some posts were made on social media. The posts were copied and commented on by O-Town’s 11 and some blogs.

And that was it.

Sports photographers weren’t snapping and posting photos of boycotters in public areas before the matches. They weren’t getting called into sports show roundtables. The boycott never grew legs.

But the U.S. Open Cup and Leagues Cup are still here and will return. There’s plenty of time to plan a boycott presence that asks for less consideration by supporters for the Leagues Cup. However, it is important to show MLS that fans are interested in increased support of the Open Cup by increasing their attendance at those matches.

It still won’t work well. But it would work better.