America Caught World Cup Fever. His Job Is to Capitalize on It.
The last time the United States hosted the men’s FIFA World Cup, in 1994, the country didn’t even have a professional soccer league.This year’s World Cup, which concludes with tomorrow’s final featuring Argentina versus Spain, kicked off in a very different soccer landscape.Major League Soccer, which was founded as a condition for the United States to host in 1994 and held its inaugural season in 1996, now has 30 teams (including three in Canada), a handful of global stars and a combined team valuation of around $23 billion.Team valuations in U.S.
leagues like the N.B.A.and N.F.L.
have skyrocketed with television rights for sports — one of the few types of programming that still draw large live audiences — in hot demand.And investors looking to buy into a sport with high growth potential have hung their hopes on soccer’s becoming as big in the United States as it is around the globe.The list of power players who have acquired majority stakes in M.L.S.
teams includes the hedge fund billionaire David Tepper, the Kraft Group C.E.O.Robert Kraft, the Home Depot co-founder Arthur Blank, the real estate mogul Stan Kroenke and the billionaire financier Philip Anschutz.
Private equity has also piled in.In April, M.L.S.
and KKR announced a strategic investment in M.L.S.Next Pro, the development tier of M.L.S., reportedly worth $150 million to $200 million.But the 30-year-old league still lags behind better-established U.S.
sports and European soccer.Don Garber, the M.L.S.commissioner, says he wants to harness the momentum of the World Cup, which has seen record U.S.
television viewership and overall attendance, to further close the gap.Garber, 68, has been running M.L.S.since 1999.
And as a member of the U.S.Soccer board, he helped put together the bid to bring the World Cup to North America.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
If you ar...