Warren County Sports Park in Lebanon will host games during the 2027 MLS Next Cup, a nine-day youth soccer championship expected to bring an estimated $30 million economic impact to Greater Cincinnati in June 2027.

The tournament will run June 5–13 at three venues: TQL Stadium in Cincinnati, Voice of America Park in West Chester and the sports park on Ohio 741, about 15 miles from Mason. The Cup opens and closes at TQL Stadium, with group-stage games spread across all three sites, FC Cincinnati announced on Monday, Oct. 5.

The MLS Next Cup is the championship event for MLS Next, the youth development league run by Major League Soccer. The 2026–27 season includes more than 53,000 players across 2,743 teams and 310 clubs, including all 30 MLS academies, according to a league announcement. The Cup will feature six age groups, U13 through U19.

The team count remains unclear. FC Cincinnati's press release listed 350 participating teams. FOX 19 reported 650. No public clarification has resolved the discrepancy.

Ben Huffman, executive director of the Cincinnati Sports Commission, said the event would fill hotels, restaurants and local businesses for more than a week. "There'll be travel parties of about a hundred per team in town, and they'll be throughout the city at our restaurants and our shops and our entertainment venues and then obviously our hotels as well," Huffman told FOX 19.

The sports commission projected 50,000 hotel room nights across the region.

Warren County Commissioner Dave Young called the sports park a natural fit. The park draws more than 1.4 million visitors annually and generates an estimated $113.4 million in economic impact, according to the county's 2026 State of the County report. It features 14 multipurpose fields and six baseball fields.

The tournament also includes an expanded Allstate Homegrown Division, growing from 32 to 48 teams in each age group from U15 through U19. A showcase competition will give rising juniors and seniors the chance to play in front of professional, national team and college scouts.

For Mason-area families, the MLS Next pipeline is already familiar. In January 2025, Cincinnati United Premier, one of the region's top club programs, moved its elite teams into MLS Next competition. The year-round commitment pulled players from Mason High School's varsity roster. Mason head coach Garrett Szabo told the Mason High School Chronicle in October 2025 that the shift "changed a lot of our identity, most noticeably in how we generate scoring."

The region gets a preview before the Cup arrives. The Ohio Regional MLS Next Cup Qualifier is scheduled for April 9–12, 2027, at Voice of America Athletic Complex in West Chester.