Major League Soccer’s headquarters in midtown Manhattan contains physical reminders of the league’s growth: more than two dozen hard hats sit outside commissioner Don Garber’s office and a red Chicago Fire FC shovel rests inside. Garber said he keeps a shovel for each stadium the league’s teams have built or renovated — 27 in all — and added, “We’ve been busy.” The league that nearly folded in 2001 and had six of its 10 teams owned by one person in 2002 is now a 30-team operation bringing in $2.5 billion in revenue, and Lionel Messi plays for Inter Miami.
The recent World Cup produced unusually large U.S. television audiences. More than 50 million people in the United States watched the men’s national team lose to Belgium in the round of 16, and Garber said he never expected a round-of-16 game to draw ratings comparable to NFL conference championship games. More than 60 million viewers watched the final, the most ever for a soccer telecast. During the tournament, MLS teams hosted watch parties that drew tens of thousands and ran free ticket promotions that attracted thousands more.
The league has moved to capitalize. MLS spent tens of millions of dollars on an advertising campaign with the tag line, “Thanks, world. We’ll take it from here,” which appeared on television and digital platforms and, the league said, represented the largest marketing outlay in its history. MLS also highlighted that its 45 players on World Cup rosters logged more than 8,000 minutes, the most of any league outside Europe’s top five, and plans to shift its season in 2027 to align with international leagues.
MLS’s commercial standing is notable even as questions linger about on-field quality. Sportico estimated the league has 18 of the world’s 50 most valuable soccer franchises, with several teams valued above $1 billion; Inter Miami is listed at $1.45 billion while Real Madrid leads at $7.7 billion. According to Global Football Rankings, MLS is the 10th-highest-quality league in the world.
Those facts underline a strategic choice. Expansion fees and new stadiums have driven growth but are finite, and six league executives told ESPN they are debating whether MLS should remain primarily a real-estate and game-day experience business or invest more heavily in player spending to pursue richer media rights — a debate that carries risk either way. Inside league offices, Garber remains bullish; at an event before the World Cup final he told about 250 reporters, “I’d rather be us than any other soccer league in the world.” Garber became commissioner in 1999 after a marketing career with the NFL.
