2026 World Cup, Day 35: The Bump-Free World Cup?

Whenever there's a World Cup, men's or women's, the prevailing attitude across American soccer tends to be along the lines of "well, people are watching, here's our chance."

It's an attitude that's not without precedent. The USA's quarterfinal run at the men's World Cup in 2002 more or less saved MLS; the league that had cut teams, and was down to three owners total across the entire league, thereafter managed to grow and expand and do things like "play on soccer fields instead of football fields" and "pay players something akin to a living wage."

The last time the men's World Cup was in the USA was also the dawning of the modern age of American soccer. It might be too much to say that the 1994 World Cup caused the explosion, in totality, but it certainly makes for a convenient Big Bang moment, leading directly to the beginnings of MLS and the development of the first actual American men's soccer stars (give or take a Kyle Rote Jr.)

The eyes of the world, including America, have been on this World Cup. TV ratings are NFL-adjacent. I might have the numbers wrong, but near as I can tell, more Americans watched England beat Norway than have ever watched an NBA Finals game. The final could approach Super Bowl viewership territory.

And it feels like an open question whether any of those viewers will become MLS fans.

MLS seemed to completely disappear, promotion-wise, during most of the World Cup. They've now begun a new campaign, which is centered around Lionel Messi, which is not exactly a new thing for the league. But if you look at the players behind him in the league photo, it's a little hard to argue with making Messi as big as the rest of the league combined.

Row 2: Son Heung-min, the second-biggest star in the league... and Charlotte defender Tim Ream, who is definitely the biggest American name in MLS , although that's not saying much.

Row 3: NYCFC goalkeeper Matt Freese, who ended the tournament less as "America's number one" and more as "future blooper reel participant," and Atlanta defender Miguel Almirón, who really explored the space at the World Cup in terms of finding new ways to get punished, acquiring both the tournament's first UNO reverse yellow card for diving, and the tournament's first red card for covering his mouth to insult another player.

Row 4: Evander, who's awesome but has nothing to do with the World Cup at all, and Cristian Roldan, who (unfortunately) got hurt and didn't play.

And so on. (The image at the top of this post is the Loons' Michael Boxall, who is in the picture, but is not exactly a featured participant.) And as far as using Messi for promotion, is there anyone left on the planet who would say for the first time, at this point, "Hey, this Messi fella seems decent, let's check him out?"

I'm sure that MLS itself is hoping that they can drive some Apple TV subscriptions from the World Cup, but it's going to be hard to separate that from people who are subscribing for MLS vs people who are subscribing to see "Ted Lasso," for example. And as for new soccer fans, will the World Cup drive them to watch MLS, or drive them to (for example) turn on NBC to watch the Premier League, the home of like 40% of the players on the four squads that made the semifinals?

Not for the first time, the real work in making fans is not going to come from the league office. It's going to be up to every team in the league (well, probably not Inter Miami) to figure out how they can use the World Cup to start making some new fans.

Minnesota United is probably doing as well as anybody here. They hosted a hugely successful series of World Cup watch parties in downtown Minneapolis; some of the crowds were kind of a shock, given that Minnesota was not hosting games. And they're running a promo - a real throwback to bygone days of American soccer, honestly - in which you can get two tickets for free if you've never been to a game before. Presumably, then, some of those watch-party attendees will be at Allianz Field for the first time this fall.

The bet, then, is not that all these World Cup viewers will tune in tomorrow night to see Toronto play Montréal. The bet this time around seems to be the same bet that American soccer teams have been making since even before the 2002 World Cup saved the league, one that has nothing to do with a league-wide marketing campaign: if you come to one game, you'll get hooked.