No LA Galaxy players competed in the World Cup. The team capitalized anyway

You’d be hard-pressed to find a soccer club in America that hasn’t looked to leverage the World Cup for their own audience gains. From rec teams, to pro organizations that global superstars Leo Messi and Son Heung-min call home, to the governing body, it’s been front and center—even at the clubs that didn’t send any players to the tournament.

For the LA Galaxy, one of the original Major League Soccer (MLS) teams, that was the case. But with a long history in the league, the team wanted to honor its legacy, serve soccer fans in the greater LA area during the tournament, and give them a place to direct their fandom afterward, which remains a key focus for soccer organizations around the world.

Without a national team player to hinge their World Cup campaign on, the Galaxy took a different approach, placing heavy emphasis on community initiatives like watch parties to drive attendance that ideally continues with the MLS season, Tom Braun, president and COO of the Galaxy, told Marketing Brew.

And skipping a player-first approach, even in the case of necessity, certainly has its perks.

“It worked out really well for us, because you can create a plan around an individual player with the hopes that that player advances really far, but if he doesn’t, then you’re kind of left with no plan,” Braun said. “For us, it was more about local relevance and being in the community.”

Just keep watching

About a year before the World Cup, Braun and his team started discussing ways to “have a meaningful impact in the community” this summer, he said, including celebrating local legends. The Galaxy honored Landon Donovan, the all-time leading goal scorer for the Galaxy and the US Men’s National Team (USMNT), at an April 4 match, and on April 26, the team unveiled a nine-foot-tall bronze statue of Cobi Jones, a Galaxy legend and all-time leader in appearances for the USMNT.

When the World Cup kicked off in June, the Galaxy partnered with the city of Long Beach for a free event showing group stage matches. For the round of 32 and the round of 16, the team hosted watch parties at their home stadium, Dignity Health Sports Park. And for the semifinals and finals, the Galaxy partnered with the city of Hermosa Beach so fans could watch there.

Each of these events were at capacity almost every day, with anywhere from 2,500 to 5,000 people depending on the watch party, Braun told us. That amounted to more than 75,000 people in six weeks, he said, which also allowed the team to gather fan data and bring in new brand partners.

Michelob Ultra joined the Galaxy’s watch parties at the Santa Monica Pier for about two weeks during the group stage, donating proceeds from the beer sales to the LA Galaxy Foundation, Braun said. Existing team sponsors also wanted to tap into the community events, he added, including Herbalife, the Galaxy’s jersey sponsor since 2007.

On us

At each watch party, the team offered fans tickets to Galaxy games through a program called “First Game On Us,” which awarded two free tickets to anyone who hadn’t been to a Galaxy game since 2015, Braun said. About 3,000 people took the team up on the offer, and when those fans arrived at their first games, they were given stadium tours and other gifts, he added.

“We want you to have a good time and a good experience so that you’ll come back for a second, third, and fourth game,” Braun said.

Though the World Cup is over without Team USA getting particularly far, Braun told us he has high hopes for the future of soccer in the US, and that he sees a “newfound belief” among young people in particular.

The Galaxy is especially focused on youth initiatives through its community programming and foundation, he said, so the hope is that the team—and the broader US soccer ecosystem—continue to reap the rewards of a World Cup on North American soil beyond this summer.

“For us, getting kids in jerseys, playing the game, [has] maybe the biggest impact of anything that we can do,” Braun said, later adding that “the more people playing, the better it is for the sport.”