With the 2026 FIFA World Cup set to kick off in June, Major League Soccer is presented with a unique opportunity to showcase U.S. soccer fandom and introduce new audiences to the league’s culture.
The global tentpole event will be jointly hosted by the U.S., Canada and Mexico this summer from June 11 to July 19, with much of the tournament being held on American soil — including the final at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, which is expected to be the year’s most-watched sporting event globally.
To capitalize on the fandom, MLS CMO Radhika Duggal is focused on connecting stories about the league’s 30 North American clubs and their fans to World Cup hype.
“The global event is just the mega stage for us, but the message is the same. It’s about the club. It’s about the player. It’s about what makes that team so special, and that is always about the local culture,” Duggal said at the SportsPro NY conference earlier this month. “You take the stories that are so endemic to the sport, to the club and to the culture, and you share that across the world. Because at the end of the day, that’s what people are curious about, that fandom that is so intentional and so strong.”
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Embracing World Cup Fever
Duggal’s story-first strategy is already taking shape across the league’s social channels, as posts capture the fervor with which fans welcome a home team, celebrate goals and cheer the arrival of a new star player to their club. Recently, the MLS has been pointing a lens at league players who are either set to compete in the World Cup this summer or already world champions.
For instance, an Instagram video message to Orlando City supporters from French player Antoine Griezmann, a 2018 World Cup champion and incoming player for the Orlando MLS squad, received over 200K likes in its first 24 hours. Over on TikTok, a video of Colombia’s captain James Rodriguez — a just-signed attacker for the Minnesota FC — spotlights a touching moment when a fan bursts into tears after greeting the legendary player during an autograph signing.
The league also posted a compilation video — which racked up two million views so far — of celebrities who turned up to watch Inter Miami’s Lionel Messi, captain of reigning world champions Argentina, face off with LAFC’s South Korean star Son Heung-min. Another post highlights five World Cup champs playing in the MLS this season alongside the caption, “Champions of the world, now stars of our league.”
The key to growing the sport locally and internationally is to be “intentional” about the stories you’re telling, Duggal said, whether it’s the experience in the stadium, the diehard supporters chanting for their team throughout the entire match, or youth programs getting the next generation excited about the sport. Then, it’s a matter of “focusing on exporting that globally,” she said.
Going Beyond Local Fandom
MLS is tapping media and brand partners as well as content creators to reach and engage fan of the league outside of the local footprint. “Meet fans where they are, but think about the entry points of their fandom,” Duggal said. “How do we find the moments where people learn about Major League Soccer?”
Fashion is one of the alternative entry points for MLS fans via Adidas, the league’s official kit supplier. Duggal explained that it’s important to have a “connected journey” when, for example, Adidas is introducing a new jersey driving engagement online. “How do we grab that consumer’s contact information? How do we follow up with them? How do we convince them to buy that jersey? And how do we start a one-on-one conversation with them that hopefully can last over the course of weeks and then months?”
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On the creator side, MLS recently completed a social-first marketing campaign to promote the start of the new season. The national campaign, titled “The Call,” featured MLS players, basketball legend and LAFC owner Magic Johnson, and Celine Dept, an international soccer creator with almost 80 million followers across YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. Dept also covered LAFC’s season opener against Inter Miami, where a pair of TikTok posts of her saying hello to Messi after the match delivered 39 million views.
Data for the Win
To help segment messaging for different consumers, the soccer league is turning to targeting through data — a difficult task that is nonetheless critical, according to Duggal.
“I’ve worked in a lot of different industries and a lot of different sizes of companies, and no company is as far along as they think they are in that discipline of using data and technology to say, ‘Lindsay likes this, but Radhika likes this, so we’re going to serve her different messages at the right time.’ We’re really focused on building that infrastructure, not just for the league but for our 30 clubs, so that we’ll know which consumer wants to hear which story. That’s incredibly complicated, but in our opinion, the only way you’re able to serve up incredibly subjective content to the right customer at the right time.”
Asked which nation is going to win the World Cup, Duggal picked the U.S. “[But] I actually think the real winners will be the fans,” she said.