Fans the nation over clamored for something like March Madness but for soccer, as they collectively ignored the US Open Cup as a competition for the 103rd straight year.
Yeah, like this... with brackets and shit... but you know... for soccer.
"If only there was something like the NCAA March Madness tournament for US Soccer," stated Jefferson Branderburg. "Something like the FA Cup in England, but with soccer in the United States."
"God, it would be great," stated Harold Newberg of Bethlehem, PA. "If only there was some way to showcase US Soccer in some kind of knock out tournament. People could glue into their TV and watch the lowest of the low and the highest of the high compete against each other."
The Nutmeg News reached out to the United States Soccer Federation and received the following response, "We are aware of some kind of competition out there, but we don't know, yet, if it is worth advertising and publicizing and putting forth an effort to get the competition on television. We know OF the US Open Cup, but it appears that despite our absolute lack of advertising or publicity in any sense that no one seems to care about it. In fact, our research shows that 1 in 100 people don't know the tournament exists. One could make the argument that this is entirely our fault due to our inability to actually do anything with regards to publicizing and growing the tournament but those people are crazy! The fact that no one knows that the tournament exists is a good enough reason to never show the tournament, because we don't want to show the tournament if no one is watching it. And even if the only way that anyone would know about the tournament would be advertising it, why would we want to do that if no one knows what it is?! It's a very difficult problem to have. We don't want to spend any money on something that isn't going to make money for us right now like a new kit or badge that will directly fill our pockets. In the end, we rely on the tens of fans of the Us Open Cup out there to educate the general population about something that exists as it always has for 103 years."
Despite the completely idiotic manner in which the US Soccer Federation runs the US Open Cup, at least 5 people plan on tuning into the competition with many of them saying, "It's actually really great. Granted you have to watch the games on youtube and have to follow the right websites to even find out the game times, but if you DO all the work yourself it is a completely rewarding experience.
The Nutmeg News will have more on US Soccer on the hope that at some point they collectively pull their own heads out of their own asses and actually start funding initiatives to grow the game locally instead of paying millions of dollars to firms for a logo re-brand.