The World Cup is over. Spain has beaten Argentina 1-0 in extra time, the trophy has been lifted, and the largest World Cup in history has completed its 39-day run across the United States, Canada and Mexico. (AP News)
Now Major League Soccer gets the ball.
MLS throws nearly everything it has into capitalizing on the tournament, and the early results are complicated. Ticket sales are exploding in several markets. Television ratings, however, are mostly shrugging.
That disconnect tells us something important about where soccer really stands in the United States.
Let’s start with the good news, because it is genuinely impressive.
Multiple MLS teams report ticket-sales increases of more than 150 percent since the World Cup begins. The Philadelphia Union says single-game ticket sales rise 218 percent. Nashville SC reports a 161 percent increase in online sales. Red Bull New York offers more than 5,000 free tickets to first-time attendees, and every one is claimed. Charlotte FC sells more than twice as many tickets for a Wednesday match as it does for its previous midweek game. (Front Office Sports)
These are not marginal improvements. These are numbers that get executives excited, sponsors interested, and investors asking what comes next.
MLS clearly understands the assignment. Its “Thanks World, We’ll Take It From Here” campaign is designed to connect the global spectacle of the World Cup with the local experience of MLS. Clubs host viewing parties, build local activations and create promotional offers that make attending a match easy.
Philadelphia provides the clearest example. The city’s free Fan Fest attracts roughly 575,000 visitors during the tournament’s 39 days. The Union then works to translate that massive international event into something local, familiar, and emotionally connected to the club. (Front Office Sports)
That is smart marketing. It turns attention into action. But here is where the story becomes more interesting.
The television ratings tell a different story.
Fox’s MLS doubleheader following the tournament delivers an average of 587,000 viewers for Nashville against Atlanta and 504,000 for the LA Galaxy against LAFC. Nashville-Atlanta becomes the most-watched MLS regular-season match on Fox since 2020. That sounds encouraging until the numbers are compared with Fox’s pre-World Cup doubleheader in May. Inter Miami against Philadelphia attracts 578,000 viewers, while LAFC against Seattle draws 331,000.
In other words, the first game is essentially flat. The second improves, but the overall television response looks nothing like the surge taking place at the ticket window. Apple does not release its MLS audience figures, so the complete picture remains unavailable, but the publicly visible numbers show little evidence of a World Cup-driven television breakthrough. (Front Office Sports)
Several things can be true at once.
The World Cup creates genuine new interest in soccer. MLS successfully converts some of that interest into ticket purchases. When clubs provide free tickets, local events and an easy invitation to participate, people show up.
That is real momentum. But attending one game while World Cup excitement remains fresh is very different from becoming a regular customer, season-ticket holder or habitual viewer.
The ticket-sales increase tells us MLS is good at capturing curiosity. It does not yet tell us whether the league is creating commitment. That distinction matters because the long-term challenge is not filling a stadium for one night. The challenge is persuading people to care whether Nashville beats Atlanta on an otherwise ordinary Friday.
Back in the mid-1970s, the late Sy Roseman, my mentor with the Philadelphia Wings and Philadelphia Flyers, and then one of Philadelphia’s most respected sports PR execs, said something to me that has stayed with me ever since:
“Soccer in the United States is like kicking a dead horse in the ass.” Sy told me he had heard the line from someone in Minnesota who worked in the sports-branding business. It was crude, funny, and painfully accurate for the time. American soccer kept getting kicked, promoted, and relaunched, but the horse never seemed to move very far.
The line sounds less accurate today because the horse is no longer dead.
MLS is financially stable. Teams play in purpose-built stadiums. Expansion fees continue to rise. Supporter culture is real. Youth participation gives the sport a foundation the old North American Soccer League never possessed. The league also has a long-term media relationship with Apple that provides economic stability and global distribution.
But Sy’s line still contains an uncomfortable warning. Marketing can make noise. A World Cup can generate excitement. Free tickets can fill seats. None of those things automatically creates habitual demand.
I grow up watching the Philadelphia Atoms win the NASL championship in 1973. Later, Pelé arrives in New York, the Cosmos become fashionable, attendance rises, and everyone begins declaring that soccer has finally arrived in America. Then it collapses.
Messi and Inter Miami, and the MLS has that all-too-familiar ring.
The television audience never develops deeply enough. Casual fans drift away. Costs rise faster than sustainable revenue. The excitement is real, but the foundation cannot carry it. Yes, MLS is in a far stronger position than the NASL ever reached. It has better ownership, smarter financial controls, stronger infrastructure, youth academies and a business model built for survival.
But the underlying challenge remains familiar.
How does MLS turn people who enjoy watching the World Cup into people who care about a domestic league every week?
The current ticket surge suggests the league handles the first stage well. It captures attention and converts it into immediate action. The ratings suggest the second stage remains unresolved. MLS still struggles to create appointment television beyond its biggest clubs, strongest rivalries and most recognizable stars.
That does not make the campaign unsuccessful. It means the campaign is the beginning of the work, not proof that the work is finished. The next phase has to be about conversion and retention.
MLS needs to know how many first-time attendees return. It needs to track how many ticket buyers become partial-plan or season-ticket customers. It needs to connect local club personalities to the international players fans have just spent five weeks watching. It must turn the stadium experience into an emotional relationship that continues after the novelty disappears.
The league also needs to confront the media problem honestly. Stadium attendance and television viewing are not interchangeable. A lively building can create the appearance of broad cultural relevance while the national audience remains small.
Filling seats is important. Building a viewing habit is more important. The World Cup gives MLS something every marketer wants: millions of people paying attention at the same moment. The league uses that attention intelligently and produces meaningful ticket-sales results.
Now comes the harder part.
Football season is returning. The World Cup celebration is receding. The free-ticket offers will end. The casual fan will have dozens of other entertainment choices. MLS no longer needs to prove it can survive. It has done that. It needs to prove it can matter consistently.
The ticket window says the opportunity is real. The television scoreboard says the conversion is incomplete.
Sy Roseman’s “dead horse” is finally moving.
The question is whether MLS can keep it running when the rest of the world is no longer watching.
The revised version treats the World Cup as completed, retains the useful numbers, removes outdated speculation about the final, and makes the central distinction sharper: MLS has demonstrated event-driven demand, but it has not yet demonstrated sustained viewing behavior.