The next time you watch New York City FC play in the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup, it will be courtesy of CBS Sports thanks to a new broadcast agreement for the tournament announced today.
The new deal between the US Soccer Federation and CBS covers the 2025 and 2026 editions of the oldest soccer tournament in the United States.
The agreement will see every US Open Cup match from the Third Round to the Final streamed live on Paramount+ with select matches also airing on linear TV channels CBS Sports Network and Golazo Network.
U.S. Soccer & CBS Sports reach multimedia rights agreement for 2025 & 2026 U.S. Open Cups READ MORE » ussoc.cr/ixy
— U.S. Soccer (@ussoccer.com) March 26, 2025 at 10:11 AM
[image or embed]
This gives the Open Cup a much-needed official new broadcast partner. The tournament looked a bit like an afterthought in 2024 from a media perspective, as the MLS website and US Soccer's YouTube channels handled broadcasting the matches played from the First Round through the Round of 16.
Apple and MLS Season Pass then had the exclusive rights to air the final seven knockout matches of the 2024 tournament including the Final, but that's changing for the 2025 and 2026 editions. This counts as a win for those who don't want to have to enter the Apple streaming ecosystem to get their Open Cup fix, and for those hoping to see real new investments made in the old and potentially troubled tournament.
CBS Sports has gone big into soccer broadcast rights and content production in recent years. CBS is now an English-language broadcast home in the United States for Italy's Serie A, UEFA's Champions League, Europa League, Conference League, NWSL, Concacaf and the United States national teams, and more. It's a growing list and also includes non-match programming like Morning Footy and producing numerous soccer documentaries. It now also includes more of the Open Cup, though not all of the Open Cup.
The matches from the opening two rounds of the Open Cup still stream on US Soccer's YouTube channel, with CBS taking over once the top teams from USL Championship and the participating teams from Major League Soccer begin to enter the competition.
CBS also happens to have an existing broadcast agreement in place with USL, announced in 2023 and running through the 2027 season. USL Championship's 2024 championship match drew record ratings with a reported 431,000 viewers when it aired live on the big-time, national CBS Network.
The soccer-centric offerings from CBS Sports continue to grow with the addition of the Open Cup, and the network promises to do more than just air the Open Cup games. The official announcement of this agreement between US Soccer and CBS promises studio programming on Golazo Network, plus "content beyond games" focused on competing teams and the tournament's rich history.
One slight problem: You need to subscribe to CBS in some form to access all this. Paramount+ will have every single Open Cup match but it won't be free to access them all, nor was it last season when the tournament's final stages aired on Apple TV. That might just be the new reality of our ever-expanding streaming universe, which always seems to get a little bit more complicated when it comes to keeping track of how, by what streaming platform or network, you watch all the soccer you want to watch.
Gripes about another streaming service aside, the Open Cup as a tournament needed the investment it's likely getting as a side effect of this deal between US Soccer and CBS. The tournament has gotten some boosts in 2025, with this broadcast deal and the recent announcement that the pool of Open Cup prize money was increasing significantly in 2025.
A new broadcast partner and new, bigger prizes for performing well: The US Open Cup is on the way up. Next step: Maybe making sure all MLS teams get a chance to participate in it again?
Hudson River Blue Staff
