UPDATE: ESPN and FCC announced on Wednesday morning that the Cincy-Chicago match will now air on ESPN and ESPN Deportes; the broadcast begins at 8 pm ET.
There will be a few extra eyeballs on the Chicago Fire’s US Open Cup round-of-16 contest at MLS hopefuls FC Cincinnati on Wednesday.
It was announced on Friday that
ESPN2
ESPN
and
ESPN Deportes
will broadcast the match live, with Adrian Healey, Taylor Twellman and Julie Stewart-Binks providing the coverage from Nippert Stadium. The match will mark the first broadcast on ESPN networks of a Round-of-16 Open Cup match.
Cincinnati set an Open Cup record for a non-final match by drawing 30,160 fans to Nippert Stadium for their fourth-round win against Columbus Crew SC on June 14. The club announced on Friday that they’ve already sold over 18,000 tickets for next Wednesday’s game, which is scheduled to kick off at 8 pm ET.
FC Cincinnati were one of 12 groups to submit an expansion application to MLS in January. The club recently unveiled renderings of a proposed soccer-specific stadium, and are currently looking for a site on which to build the venue. MLS will eventually award four expansion teams from the group of 12 applicants, with the league set to announce the first two new clubs by the end of the year.
Prior to taking on Cincinnati next week, Chicago will host Orlando in MLS action on Saturday (8:30 pm ET | MLS LIVE).
