Inside US soccer leagues’ plans to make World Cup fans stick around

Experiencing a World Cup hangover? There may be a cure.

Both the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) Major League Soccer (MLS) resumed their seasons before the international tournament came to a close, meaning that new and veteran soccer fans technically won’t have to go a week without a game for another few months.

The post–World Cup period represents a big opportunity for the domestic leagues, which have for years been working to grow soccer fandom in the US, where the beautiful game isn’t quite as popular as it is in some countries, like World Cup finalists Spain and Argentina.

“When the World Cup ends, we want consumers to know that we play that same game with those same players—we had 45 [MLS] players in the World Cup,” Radhika Duggal, SVP and CMO of MLS, told Marketing Brew. “Same game, with the same players, on North American soil, all week, every week during our season.”

The situation mirrors what the NWSL will likely experience next summer, when it is expected to have a significant share of its players competing in the Women’s World Cup.

So far, the cultural impact of the men’s tournament has largely surpassed expectations, and as it comes to a close, MLS and the NWSL both have plans to keep the US’s newfound love of soccer from waning.

Cause a scene

The big play from MLS coming out of the World Cup is a multichannel marketing campaign called “Thanks World, We’ll Take It From Here,” which features MLS stars like Lionel Messi and Son Heung-Min; celebrity team owners like David Beckham, Matthew McConaughey, Magic Johnson, and Kevin Durant; and rerecord of A Tribe Called Quest’s appropriately titled “Can I Kick It?” It’s the largest marketing campaign in league history, both in terms of anticipated impressions and spend, Duggal told us.

When Duggal first joined MLS in 2024, one of her initial goals was to get stakeholders across the league on the same page about brand values: “energy and excitement and fun and entertainment,” she said. Working with agency partner Ogilvy, Duggal and her team wanted to communicate those same values to fans after the World Cup.

“We’ve started to come around to this idea that it’s not that the product of North American soccer needs to materially change; it’s that the product needs more spectacle and entertainment value,” she said.

As a result, the campaign features visually compelling shots of players and mascots, celebrity cameos, and a large musical component, with the cover of “Can I Kick It?” recorded specifically for the spot.

The NWSL has also looked to make a cultural impact around the World Cup. The league has driven a branded bus driving across the country, pushed out social media content with creators, players, and owners, and emphasized big games during its annual Rivalry Week series of matches this month.

The goal through all the content and experiences is to “get into people’s feeds with the excitement of the moment, but through an NWSL perspective,” CMO Rachel Epstein said.

“It is a way to mirror back to new fans that this is soccer culture that we have right at the NWSL, and it is the next place for you to turn to with your fandom,” she said.

Everybody loves a winner

While much of American sports fandom is driven through ties to culture and entertainment, sports fans and leagues in the US care about level of play, too. As the NWSL kicked off its 14th season earlier this year, the league had already looked to target a potential growth audience of “people who are interested in elite soccer,” Andrew LeRay, director of brand marketing, previously told us.

Epstein said the audience remains a focal point for her team, noting that the conclusion of the World Cup is an opportunity to foster the league’s relationship with existing fans by continuing to provide soccer content, while also intriguing potential new fans by showing them how the NWSL plays.

“The idea really is to have them see the NWSL as this landing place for their soccer fandom,” she said. “We are elite, world-class soccer, and so we hope to bring that newfound fandom into our league, and then continue to grow it from there.”

With a record number of players from MLS having competed in the World Cup, the league also has an opportunity to show their on-pitch bona fides to the world. Messi, for instance, has already had a major impact on MLS’s global image, and league execs want to capitalize on the success players like him had in the tournament.

“As we think about the millions of fans that have experienced the World Cup in North America in this last month, the idea [is] that they’re going to pivot their chairs, and Major League Soccer is in their backyard,” Camilo Durana, EVP and chief business officer of MLS, told us. “They’ve been wowed by Lionel Messi in his historic run, but he does that in Major League Soccer every single weekend.”

In the tournament, Messi plays for Argentina, not America, and Duggal and Durana both agreed that the performance of the USMNT, who were eliminated by Belgium in the round of 16 after an unusual red-card turnover, will have an impact on the trajectory of MLS fandom. It’s less of a concern for the NWSL and the USWNT, who have won four World Cups, but there’s runoff for the women’s league from the men’s World Cup, too, according to Epstein. So far, it’s been positive; ticket sales for the NWSL’s first week back after the summer break have been strong, she said.

Though the USMNT didn’t make it as far as some fans hoped, Durana said he still has reason to believe this year’s tournament will be a net positive for MLS.

“Short term, we’ll see impact on attendance, we’ll see impact on viewership, certainly merchandise sales,” he said. “But longer term, what was interesting about the last World Cup in Qatar was, coming out of that tournament, you’d be hard-pressed to find a schoolyard in the United States and Canada and not see a Lionel Messi jersey, be it a pink Inter Miami jersey or an Argentina jersey.”