MLS works to bring in a new generation of fans as the World Cup comes to an end

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 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....