Liverpool’s Mo Salah signs autographis during a pre-season friendly against Arsenal in Philadelphia … [+]
It appears we have finally reached the point where everyone in the business of soccer has decided to invest in the commercial potential of the 2026 FIFA World Cup in the United States next summer. Almost every day it seems, there is a new initiative launched or intention announced.
In case you needed reminding, here’s a small sample of relevant soccer business developments in the last few weeks:
This flurry of events showing a desire to reap the benefits of the world’s biggest sporting event coming to the world’s richest economy recall words MLS commissioner Don Garber has spoken on multiple occasions about the World Cup’s potential, as early as 2018 when the United States, Mexico and Canada officially became the winning bid.
The tournament, he said, would be “rocket fuel” for the growth and development of MLS and the game at large in the United States.
It’s an apt metaphor, but also one with multiple dimensions. Rockets take off with a sudden burst to escape the Earth’s gravitational pull and send spacecraft or satellites into orbit. But often, the rocket components crash back to earth once they’ve fulfilled their purpose, plunging into the ocean and never be seen again.
And with all the investment coming into the American soccer landscape right now, it is quite likely some business efforts will achieve a steady orbit while others will have a much shorter airborne arc.
Consider the timeline of high-profile tournaments of major internastional tournaments on U.S. soil, beginning with last summer’s 2024 Copa America that was seen as something of a World Cup dress rehearsal.
- Summer 2024: CONMEBOL Copa America
- Summer 2025: FIFA Club World Cup
- Summer 2026: FIFA Men’s World Cup
- Summer 2028: Olympic Men’s and Women’s Football Tournaments
- Summer 2031: FIFA Women’s World Cup
This is in addition to America’s customary role as the permanent host nation for Concacaf’s bi-ennial Gold Cup, and potentially its continuing annual role as the host of the Leagues Cup, a tournament contested between Liga MX and MLS Clubs. There are also the now-traditional summer preseason schedules of European clubs who spend a few weeks in America playing before enormous crowds before kicking off their new seasons back home.
In some ways, this feels similar to the initial boom and subsequent contraction of the sports betting and ancillary sports betting content industries, a trajectory that began with a 2018 Supreme Court ruling that struck down a federal law banning sports betting in most states.
That prompted an initial rush of investors into the space, as states one by one took action to legalize wagering to varrying degrees. But as the majority of U.S. states and Canadian provinces completed that process, the market has slowed and many of the players in the space have contracted. Caesars Entertainment has undergone several rounds of layoffs, while BetMGM parted with 83 staff members from their New Jersey headquarters last October. Gambling-related media companies like Catena Media and Action Network have also been forced to cut staff. (Full disclosure: I worked as a freelance contributor for Action Network from 2021 through 2024.)
That doesn’t mean everyone has suffered though. FanDuel and DraftKings, two of the most successful companies in the space, have mostly avoided the pain of contraction and share similar roots in daily fantasy sports. That provided a customer base to build upon that other sports betting players couldn’t match.
At some point we are bound to reach a similar point in American Soccer, one of saturation or even oversaturation. And the question then will be which players are the FanDuels and Draft Kings of the American Soccer world.
If the principles at play are the same, then executives at Major League Soccer, United Soccer Leagues and the National Women’s Soccer League will like their chances because they’ve been building roots long before this sudden rush of investment. But they aren’t the only ones. The Premier League and Liga MX have long been the most successful TV soccer properties in the United States even though their teams play elsewhere. And the top brands in other European leagues are also ahead of the game.
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