An improbable U.S. Open Cup run ‘re-ignites flame’ for Sacramento’s love of pro soccer
Sacramento hasn’t had much to cheer about when it comes to professional sports in the region in recent years.
The Kings, of course, are mired in the longest playoff drought in NBA history and have yet to christen Golden 1 Center with a postseason berth since opening the downtown arena in 2016. They are the only team in the major four sports leagues to call Sacramento home.
But Sacramento Republic FC is staking a claim to become a top ticket in the region. This comes after the sobering news that investor Ron Burkle backed out of his deal to lift the club to the MLS as an expansion team in February 2021.
“The flame is back burning strong and we have fantastic support, and we have some positive energy around the club now and around our city,” manager Mark Briggs said Tuesday.
On Wednesday, Briggs’ team will look to be the second lower-division team to win the U.S. Open Cup, the oldest soccer tournament in American professional soccer, which began in 1913-14. They take on MLS club Orlando City F.C. on their home field in Florida kicking off at 5 p.m. PST.
“I truly feel like Sacramento Republic has woken up the city of Sacramento, a little bit, on the sports side,” club captain Rodrigo Lopez said. “We truly feel the support and the love, the energy from our fans, especially this season.”
That feeling was palpable during a semifinal match July 27 in which Sacramento beat its third straight MLS opponent to advance to Wednesday’s final. Heart Health Park at Cal Expo was sold out within hours of tickets becoming available. The atmosphere rivaled the energy of an NBA or NFL playoff game, even with just over 12,000 fans in attendance.
Many of the fans stuck around to celebrate the victory over Sporting KC, which was capped by Lopez’s game-winning penalty kick that followed 120 minutes of gridlocked, scoreless football. The watch party for Wednesday’s championship match, which has been moved indoors to the city’s downtown convention center to avoid the 110 degree-plus temperatures, is expected to be “massive,” a team spokesperson said.
“I think the product that we’ve had on the field, and results, and the way we play, has really attracted a lot of people,” Lopez said. “I get comments from a lot of friends and fans around the city saying how happy they are with the team. They haven’t seen a team like this in a long time.”
For the semifinal game against Kansas City, get-in prices on the secondary market reached as high as $117 while the other semifinal in Orlando was in the $35-$40 range. This season, Republic says it has 20 new corporate sponsors while its developmental academy has produced three players that have been selected in the last two MLS SuperDrafts, three academy players on loan or transfer to MLS-connected teams, and three youth players joining national teams camps in the U.S., Guatemala and Mexico.
All while the plans to develop a stadium in the downtown Railyards remain ongoing behind the scenes. And the club hasn’t ruled out joining MLS, despite the previous Burkle deal falling through. For now, Las Vegas is considered the favorite to land the 30th MLS team, but an agreement has not been finalized.
As was the case with San Francisco 49ers and Golden State Warriors when they built their new home venues that opened in 2014 and 2019, respectively, in the Bay Area, momentum for those projects was generated by success on the field and the court.
The Levi’s Stadium plan was finalized while the team rose back to prominence during the Jim Harbaugh years, when the team went to three straight NFC Championship Games and a Super Bowl from 2011 to 2013. The Warriors, of course, won three NBA titles in 2015, 2017 and 2018 before Chase Center was constructed in downtown San Francisco.
There’s a chance Sacramento Republic’s jaunt to the U.S. Open Cup final has a similar effect on the club’s stadium plans. The team believes support from the mayor’s office, city council, the upticks corporate sponsorship and fan attention are positive indicators.
“I think it’s obviously had a massive impact on, first and foremost, the club,” Briggs said of the team’s run to Wednesday’s final. “But then you look at the outside elements, our fan base, our sponsors, it’s almost reignited the flame. The club’s obviously had some disappointing news over the past 18 months, which put a gray cloud over the city, over the club. And I think this group of players, this gentleman sitting next to me [Lopez], has shown a bit of light through those clouds now.”
