US Soccer chief claims soccer is No. 2 sport in America as figures highlight World Cup boom

Move over basketball, baseball, and ice hockey, because soccer is here to stay.

Soccer, or football as its more universally known, has seen a huge surge in popularity as a result of the 2026 World Cup being held across the United States, Canada, and Mexico this summer.

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Superstars such as Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Kylian Mbappe, Harry Kane, and Erling Haaland, have impressed on the global stage.

The United States Men’s National Team’s relative success all the way to the Round of 16 on home soil has also sparked World Cup fever all over North America, so much so that some believe that soccer’s standing as a major sport may have sky rocketed.

In the view of former longtime U.S. Soccer president Alan Rothenberg, soccer – the word’s most popular sport globally – may now be deemed as the country’s No. 2 sport behind the NFL.

Speaking with Front Office Sports, Rothenberg, who played a pivotal role in bringing the World Cup stateside in 1994, and was also the chairman of Major League Soccer from 1993 to 1998, is of the belief that the World Cup may lead to sustained interest in the sport from Americans.

“I think this is gonna be another rocket launch,” he told FOS.

The MLS appear to concur with this line of thinking, having launched an advertising campaign on July 13 based on the slogan, “Thanks World, We’ll Take It From Here” in order to seize the momentum of the summer tournament.

Whilst similar optimism was shared after the 1994 World Cup, the rise in interest in soccer appeared to be more gradual than many had expected, though since then, many star names have come and gone from the MLS, including David Beckham, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Heung-min Son, and perhaps the biggest of all, Messi.

The Argentina superstar, who is bidding to lead his country to back-to-back World Cup glory in the final against Spain at MetLife Stadium on Sunday, of course, currently plies his trade for Inter Miami – co-owned by Beckham.

While Rothenberg is expecting the success to all of a sudden suffer a sonic boom, he does estimate that the sport’s popularity will grow, perhaps faster than in 1994.

“It won’t be overnight,” he said, noting that average attendance figures in the MLS currently lag behind the NFL and MLB.

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MLS viewership predicted to spike after World Cup

However, numbers are now on par, and have outpaced, those numbers of the NBA and NHL in recent years, though due to both leagues having longer seasons, and some bigger venues, they still draw more overall attendees.

Furthermore, as it stands, MLB sits behind a paywall after striking a 10-year, $2.5 billion deal with Apple TV in 2022, which has undoubtedly impacted its viewership.

But Rothenberg is confident that interest in the MLS will spike following the success of the World Cup, which will, in turn, increase viewership.

“I think there’s gonna be greater interest from streaming services, as well as linear broadcasters, to go after soccer,” he added.

Again, this is a line of thinking shared by the MLS.

“As the water level for the sport grows, MLS has got a lot of boats on it,” MLS commissioner Don Garber told FOS on Thursday.

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“It’s on us to earn the trust, the respect, the fan connection in our beautiful stadiums to convert a newbie to the sport.”

The introduction of the MLS Next league launched back in 2020 with the sole aim of developing the next generation of soccer players, and the construction and official opening in May of the Arthur M. Blank U.S. Soccer National Training Center in Atlanta, has provided a much better infrastructure to be able to capitalize on the expected growth of the sport.

“There’s been steady growth of soccer at all levels, particularly at the MLS level and NWSL level, on an ongoing basis,” Rothenberg said.

FOX Sports, who paid $485 million to secure the English-language broadcast rights for the World Cup in the US, also saw huge dividends due to the surge in interest of soccer this summer.

For the USMNT’s Round of 16 clash against Belgium – albeit a 4-1 defeat for Mauricio Pochettino‘s men – Fox and Spanish-language counterpart Telemundo averaged a combined 50 million in viewership numbers.

This number surpassed that of the 47.4 million average for the two NFL conference championship games back in January.

While the public may not yet have accepted soccer as potentially becoming the country’s No. 2 overall sport, Rothenberg already believes that they may already have reached that point.

“I think within a decade, it’s gonna be pretty clear that soccer’s gonna be No. 2,” he said.

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