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MLS works to bring in a new generation of fans as the World Cup comes to an end 44%
By Becky Sullivan68% NPR63%
7/19/2026, 9:39:12 PM
Keywords: Sports
BS Summary: This article contains 26 faulty reasoning types, including Post Hoc (False Cause), Halo Effect, and Availability Heuristic, with Attempt to Sell a Product or Service as the most egregious example at 30.2% saturation with 672 hits. Analysis detected 2,701 faulty-reasoning hits from 2,227 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 47.4% and a BS Rank of 44% (11,884 of 21,230 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 56.00% of the article peer group.
CHICAGO — For the past five weeks, a bar in Chicago’s West Loop neighborhood has become one of the country’s biggest World Cup watch parties, with lines stretching around the block for the biggest games.
This is all the doing of Chicago’s Major League Soccer club, the Fire.
By the time the final whistle is blown on the World Cup between Argentina and Spain on Sunday, an estimated 60,000 people or more will have come through at some point in the summer for a taste of World Cup fever.
This watch party and others like it around the country are one piece of Major League Soccer’s efforts to capitalize on this World Cup summer here in the U.S.
Hosting the 1994 World Cup was transformative for the sport of soccer in the United States.
World Cup fever led millions of children to sign up for youth leagues.
Many Americans saw games aired on TV for the first time.
And it led directly to the creation of Major League Soccer, as the establishment of a top-division men’s professional outdoor league was a condition of awarding the U.S. the tournament.
Since then, the league has done decades of work to grow its fanbase and stature in the world of soccer.
MLS kicked off in 1996 with 10 teams; last season it reached 30 teams, the same number as Major League Baseball and the NBA.
In the early years, only a few dozen games were on TV each season; today, every game is televised on Apple TV.
Now, MLS hopes that 2026 can be just as transformative as 1994.
The question is: how?
The Costco free sample experience
The Chicago Fire had a puzzle to solve.
The FIFA World Cup was coming back to the United States — and with it would come a once-in-a-generation opportunity to use the world’s largest sporting event as a potent accelerant to grow its fanbase, like harnessing a cart to a rocket ship.
But Chicago would not host any games, having sat out the bidding process at the behest of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who found FIFA’s demands for expensive renovations to the city’s premier stadium, Soldier Field, too much to ask of city taxpayers.
"At the end of the day, this is the biggest sporting event in the world that takes place once every four years.
And it’s not happening in Chicago," said Dave Baldwin, the Fire’s president of business operations.
"And we had a decision to make," he said.
"One was to just bury our head in the sand and just watch on TV like everyone else, or the other one was to really rally behind it, put some dollars behind it."
In the end, the Chicago Fire put just under $3 million to build up the space at the bar, called Recess.
It is massive, with ample space indoors and out.
In the center of the patio stands what looks like a jumbotron plucked from an arena nearby and set it down on a platform, with all four sides showing that day’s game.
Around the space are Chicago Fire decorations, sign-up sheets, contests and team merch for sale.
"I compare converting non-soccer fans to soccer fans to my experience when I go shopping at Costco, which is I never knew that I needed 800 teriyaki meatballs, but I was walking through the line, I had a chance to sample, and I said, ‘Oh my gosh, this is amazing,’ and I go buy one of those giant boxes," Baldwin said.
"I have met very few people that come out to a match and don’t want to come back."
As the MLS season kicks back into gear, 22 clubs are running a promotion called "First Match on Us" or "Next Match On Us," with free tickets for first-time attendees.
Casual sports fans view soccer differently today than they did in the 1990s, said Brian Bilello, the president of the New England Revolution, one of the teams participating in the promotion.
Bilello played a key role in bringing World Cup matches to Gillette Stadium, the home of both the Revolution and the New England Patriots.
The stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, also hosted France and Brazil in a pre-World Cup tune-up friendly in March.
The Revolution saw the World Cup as an opportunity to attract fans who aren’t diehard soccer followers, but rather the Boston sports fan who simply had yet to try a Revs game.
"One of the most important fans that we need to grow collectively in our league is that core sports fan that also likes soccer.
In 1994, I don’t think those fans were open to that.
They were just like, ‘Ah, soccer sucks.
I don’t like soccer,'" said Bilello.
"That doesn’t really exist as much anymore."
The Messi effect
This week, Major League Soccer rolled out an ambitious, eight-figure marketing campaign called "Thanks World, We’ll Take It From Here."
It includes a star-studded commercial that aired during both semifinal games and will run again during Sunday’s final, which is expected to be watched by tens of millions of American viewers.
The centerpiece of the ad is Lionel Messi, the 39-year-old global superstar and captain of the Argentina national team.
In 2023, Messi left a wildly successful career in Europe to join the MLS club Inter Miami, a blockbuster move that has already paid dividends for the league as a whole, with attendance and viewership up since his arrival.
"There were a lot of people that thought he was coming here to retire, and it's been the opposite," said Camilo Durana, the league’s chief business officer.
"Rarely do you see him getting subbed off.
He wants to play the 90 minutes.
He's intense.
He wants to win."
Messi's performance in the World Cup has been another advertisement for MLS, Durana said.
Argentina will play in Sunday's final against Spain; a win would be its second consecutive title with Messi at the helm and he's in the running to win the Golden Boot race for most goals scored in the tournament.
Messi has scored eight times and is in second place behind France's Kylian Mbappé, who has ten goals.
"What Messi's arrival did — and what this World Cup we believe will do — is it'll encourage more players to come," Durana said.
Players are the other big audience MLS is targeting with this World Cup.
Even as its quality of play has improved dramatically over the years, MLS is still dogged by a reputation for being a tier or two below Europe's domestic leagues.
MLS was directly involved in the U.S. bid for this World Cup to ensure that its teams' facilities would be front and center in the hosting plan.
Each host stadium was paired with nearby soccer facilities for visiting teams to train in the days immediately preceding each game; MLS worked to ensure those venues were, as often as possible, MLS team stadiums or training centers.
(Other venue training sites included Division I college soccer facilities, municipal sporting complexes and one NWSL stadium, the Kansas City Current.)
Additionally, each World Cup team chose a base camp in North America to stay and train between games.
Many chose MLS facilities.
That included high-profile teams like Argentina, which stayed in Kansas City to train at a Sporting Kansas City center, and Brazil, which trained at Red Bull New York's state-of-the-art Columbia Park Training Facility in New Jersey.
The goal was to show top-flight players from around the world what life could be like in MLS.
"Players talk," said Durana.
"Often before a player is transferred, they ask around and ask people what they think.
So it's really important for us that players have great experiences as they experience the World Cup."
Many American soccer fans still prefer watching higher-tier European leagues like the English Premier League or Germany's Bundesliga.
But improving the quality of players in MLS could lead to higher-quality competition — which then would draw more fans, MLS hopes.
"Major League Soccer players scored 10 goals in the group stage, and so I think that validates everything that we're doing, and it shows the quality that we have on the MLS pitch," Durana said.
Copyright © 2026 NPR
Transcript:
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
The men's World Cup final is this weekend in New Jersey.
The U.S. hosted the '94 World Cup too.
Back then, World Cup fever in the U.S. led millions of children to sign up for youth soccer.
It put the sport on TV for the first time for many American viewers, and it led directly to the creation of Major League Soccer.
With our colleagues at Planet Money, NPR's Becky Sullivan looked into how MLS is bringing in a new generation of fans.
BECKY SULLIVAN, BYLINE: For the past five weeks, a bar near downtown Chicago has had new life as one of the biggest World Cup watch parties in the country.
(CHEERING)
SULLIVAN: It's a massive space.
In the middle of the patio stands what basically looks like a giant arena jumbotron with games on all four sides.
For the biggest matches, more than a thousand people have packed in to watch.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Singing) Ole, ole, ole, ole.
Ole, ole.
SULLIVAN: This is the doing of the Chicago Fire, the MLS club here in Chicago.
There's team merch and sign-up sheets.
They've brought players by to sign autographs.
It's all one big pitch to people who've never come to a Fire game before.
Tag along to watch the World Cup, and maybe you'll end up feeling like this.
GINA SANTIANO: I've never seen a game, but I want to go now.
ANA GONZALES: Yeah.
I guess I would go.
VANESSA BETINO: Yes.
I would definitely be interested in going to a game.
SULLIVAN: Getting fans like these three – Gina Santiano (ph), Ana Gonzales (ph) and Vanessa Betino (ph) – to come out to an MLS game, that's the goal, not just for the Fire, but for all of Major League Soccer.
The question was, how to do it?
An especially tricky question for Chicago, which did not host any World Cup games.
DAVE BALDWIN: We had a decision to make, and one was just kind of to bury our head in the sand and just watch on TV like everyone else, or the other one was to really rally behind it.
Put some dollars behind it.
SULLIVAN: This is Dave Baldwin, the team's president of business operations.
Die-hard fans of the sport already follow professional soccer, so the team's strategy was to give more casual sports fans a taste of the Fire game-day experience.
BALDWIN: I sort of compare converting non-soccer fans to soccer fans to my experience when I go shopping at Costco, which is I never knew that I needed 800 teriyaki meatballs, but I was walking through the line.
I had a chance to sample, and I said, oh, my gosh, this is amazing.
And I go buy one of those giant boxes.
SULLIVAN: Twenty-two MLS teams are doing a promotion called First Match On Us, where they give away free tickets to first-time attendees.
The idea being, get them in the door.
Show them a good time.
Then the next thing you know, they'll buy their own tickets, pick up a shirt and a scarf, start watching games on TV.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Hey, Leo, can we kick it?
(SOUNDBITE OF WHIP CRACKING)
LIONEL MESSI: (Speaking Spanish).
SULLIVAN: This commercial is part of an eight-figure marketing campaign MLS rolled out this week called Thanks World, We'll Take It From Here.
The centerpiece of the ad is – who else? -Lionel Messi, the 39-year-old global star who captains the Argentina national team.
Three years ago, Messi left behind Europe's top leagues to join the MLS club Inter Miami, a blockbuster move that has already paid serious dividends for the league, says MLS chief business officer Camilo Durana.
CAMILO DURANA: There was a lot of people that thought he was coming here to retire, and it's been the opposite.
Rarely do you see him getting subbed off.
He wants to play the 90 minutes.
He's intense.
He wants to win.
And I think that's carried into the World Cup.
SULLIVAN: This is important because there's another big audience MLS is targeting with this World Cup – the players.
Durana says Messi's performance shows you don't lose a step by coming to MLS.
Also, the league worked really hard to make its stadiums and training facilities part of the World Cup hosting plan, to show them off to visiting teams, almost like a recruiting visit.
If more quality international players join the league, that could change the perception for players and fans that MLS is a tier or two below Europe.
DURANA: Major League Soccer players scored 10 goals in the group stage, and so I think that validates everything that we're doing, and it shows the quality that we have on the MLS pitch.
SULLIVAN: Messi scored six of those group-stage goals.
He has since added two more in the knockout games.
Now, on Sunday, Major League Soccer's biggest star will play on the sport's biggest stage, the World Cup final.
What better advertisement than that?
Becky Sullivan, NPR News, Chicago.
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