What is the Carolinas Cup?
The Carolinas Cup is a cup competition held twice a year tournament hosted by the North and South Carolina Adult Soccer Associations. South Carolina hosts the 8v8 tournament in May and North Carolina hosts the 11v11 tournament in December. For the purposes of this article we will be focusing on the 11v11 format.
Amateur teams across the two states flock to the Carolinas Cup every year for their shot at being crowned the best amateur club in the region for their division (Men’s, Women’s, Co-ed, O30, O40, O50). The competition is the only regional event where any amateur team can compete and it currently is the only way for clubs in the Carolinas to earn qualification to the National Amateur Cup.
Within the amateur circle in the Carolinas the cup holds a lot of prestige. Despite this notoriety, the competition is barely advertised, involves no streaming, and is not held during a time where the majority of clubs in the region are active. How can the tournament be the deciding factor for who represents the region in the National Amateur Cup when the majority of clubs do not even participate? In this article I will breakdown my suggestions on how the Carolinas Cup could be transformed into a more traditional FA Cup or US Open Cup style competition.
Before we dive into my suggestions, here is a quick rundown of all amateur sides that play in a state, regional, or national league in the Carolinas and their involvement over the past three years in the Carolinas Cup and US Open Cup. I have also tracked the names of all local league sides that have participated as well.
The Numbers
26 — The total number of participants since 2018
17 — The number of single year participants
14 — The number of participants in 2020
13 — The number of participants in 2018
12 — The number of participants in 2019
9 — The number of multi-year participants
6 — The number of non-local league clubs to participate
Find a Presenting Sponsor
The Carolinas Cup is a good name, but in order to have the competition take steps forward it needs to have a presenting title sponsor. The main goal here is to inject money into the tournament through the use of sponsors. Money coming in through sponsors should go into offsetting costs for streaming and travel costs. Sponsors can be extending through creative marketing as well, such as having select games be the highlighted match presented by a company.
Plain and simple, the competition needs to find sponsor money in order to expand the competition. Purists will claim it waters down the allure of the competition, but I believe the good outweighs the bad here.
Change the Format and Move to Spring
In 2018 only 13 clubs entered the tournament. 12 in 2019. 14 in 2020. Since 2018 there have been only 9 clubs that have returned to the competition year-to-year leaving a whooping 17 of the 26 clubs that have entered the competition only participating once. The data shows that participation in the competition has been stagnant and not a true representation of the amateur clubs across both states.
My suggestion to increase participation is to change the format of tournament from a single weekend event into a single elimination bracket spread out over multiple weeks in the Spring. Changing the format of the competition would align it to other beloved competitions likes the FA Cup or the US Open Cup. Other state associations have even used this format to good effect. For example: Maryland has two long running state cup competitions with the Rowland and Stewart cups.
The main issue with the single weekend format is exhaustion and injuries for the players. During my coverage of the 2020 Carolinas Cup I followed FC United (First Flight League — Jacksonville, NC) on their run. Their second match on Saturday was brutally physical and they found themselves nursing lingering minor injuries that would carry over into Sunday, where their starting goalkeeper ended up pulled a muscle. I’m not attributing their loss completely to injuries, but without time to recover (or a 30+ player roster for rotation) injuries are going to happen.
For those concerned about the competition taking up too much scheduling in the year, even if I take every club that has participated in the Carolinas Cup over the past 3 years and entered them into a tournament bracket they could easily be spread out over 5 weeks in a single elimination tournament bracket. So, if the tournament started at the beginning of March it could be concluded in early April.
Basic Tournament Wants
Since this article is one long wish list, I'm putting my specific rules wants and expectations for the associations to enact in a quick list:
- Every club starts at the same time.
- Early rounds are paired based on distance to minimize travel costs.
- Lower seed gets right of first refusal for hosting.
- Highlight matches through streaming.
- Promote, promote, promote.
There is nothing groundbreaking in these wants. Pairing based on location in the early rounds is important to have as many local league clubs participate as possible. Lower seeded clubs getting the right of first refusal remains important at this level for the same reason, travel costs. The associations streaming a match of the round to start out would go a long way to reaching a bigger audience and garnering more attention. Streaming also opens the avenue for more sponsor opportunities.
The competition following these basic wants would just be mirroring that of other beloved cups and would be a large step towards creating a competition that is easy to promote well.
In Conclusion
Imagine a cup competition in the Carolinas featuring over 50 active clubs from all over the region squaring off against sides that normally wouldn't play in a massive single elimination tournament. Every club would be seeded based on distance to keep early round travel minimal. The later round travel expenses would be offset by the added sponsors to help local league clubs who are not set up for travel.
The Carolinas Cup has the opportunity to grow and expand into a competition that can truly answer the question: “Who is the best amateur team in the Carolinas?”
US Open Cup
While I am on the topic of cup competitions, a byproduct of my research highlighted that North and South Carolina have be surprisingly absent from the ranks of amateur clubs looking to earn a berth through the local qualifying process. Since 2018 only 4 amateur clubs earned a slot in the prestigious tournament, and each time it was through their national league’s distribution of guaranteed slots.
According to TheCup.Us, in the modern era of the cup only 4 clubs from North Carolina have entered through the local qualification process:
- Tobacco Road FC — 2016
- Charlotte Sporting Academy — 2016
- Queen City United FC — 2016
- FC Cardinals — 2019
With so little representation in the region it is no wonder why clubs are hesitant to enter into the the local qualification process as the travel costs are currently immense. The local qualifying track itself is also often scrutinized as confusing and, in my personal anecdotal experience, that holds true.
During my time with the First Flight League I found myself often explaining the process to established clubs in the region that were unaware of how to qualify or believed, incorrectly, that results in their league would earn them a slot. As it stands only USL League 2 and the National Premier Soccer League have guaranteed slots in the USOC and are active in the region. Every other club would either need to win the National Amateur Cup or secure a slot through the local qualifying process.
The US Open Cup is at its best when amateur sides are taking on professionals and that unfortunately doesn’t happen enough. There are many issues with the cup ranging from the time-frame, what rounds leagues enter, hosting, and what resources are available to lower league clubs when they do fight their way out of the early rounds. Even with all of its faults, there is still that magical spark that we all share. That hope that this year an amateur club will make a run to the final and win it all.
