Orlando City SC was getting ready for a Sunday Leagues Cup match with Atletico de San Luis of Liga MX. There’s an attempted attendance boycott and Olympics coverage to compete.
The Leagues Cup is only two seasons old, counting the 2024 matches. That is not enough history to fully capture the imagination of the sporting public. Yet, the tournament, which includes Orlando City SC, is moving in the right direction toward that goal.
The slate of matches from July 30 through Aug. 3 averaged 18,049 attendance. This partial second-week attendance, for the 15 matches reporting (18 total), is just under last year’s average attendance for the entire inaugural year of the tournament.
That included later matches when fans had figured out what the Leagues Cup was about and where this slate of matches was going. With the Sunday games pending in this second week including the Orlando City SC match, attendance has run from a high of 46,080 to a low of 1,020.
The low was at D.C. United vs. Santos Laguna, held at Subaru Park. The previous Leagues Cup match had 14,400 watching D.C. against Atlanta United.
So it’s likely that the Leagues Cup still has to capture the imagination of D.C. United supporters, rather than representing the only place where the call to boycott has worked.
U.S. Open Cup fans called for the boycott when MLS announced it favored support for the Leagues Cup by reducing participation in the history of the U.S. Open. MLS Commissioner Don Garber said the league is still developing and expected higher attendance in the newly formed Leagues Cup.
Not all Orlando City supporter groups pledged their membership to the boycott.
The high attendance for the Tigres UANL 2-1 win over Inter Miami was in the same orbit as this year’s record Leagues Cup attendance. That was set in the first week with 50,765 attending San Jose Earthquakes vs. Chivas de Guadalajara.
Fans haven’t seen enough to grasp the direction of this year’s tournament yet. However, the pace of attendance is running above last year.
For the first Leagues Cup match involving Orlando City SC, 16,033 attended. Last year in the tournament, Orlando averaged 15,159.
Total 2023 attendance last year at 38 U.S. Open Cup matches averaged 4,456.
Orlando is using the Leagues Cup to hone the skills they’ll need to forge a path into the MLS post-season. They battle MLS and Liga MX teams in the two-league, sanctioned tournament. If City finishes in the top three, they earn a spot in the 2025 Concacaf Champions Cup.
As Orlando City SC grows, so will the Leagues Cup. And so will MLS.