Can MLS Capitalize on Son-Mania?

As Son Heung-min’s last-minute strike kissed the post and bounced agonizingly away in LAFC’s 1–1 draw with New York City FC on October 17, the assembled crowd at Citi Field let out a collective groan.

Although it was technically a home match for the New York-based club, the seats around the makeshift soccer field were filled with fans wearing South Korea and Tottenham Hotspur shirts. The crowd reached a fever pitch every time Son touched the ball, hoping South Korea’s all-time top scorer could work another moment of magic at the tail end of his illustrious career.

“He makes me very proud to be Korean,” Paul Oh, a Seoul-born fan donning a South Korea kit who now lives in New York City, told Front Office Sports at Citi Field. “He’s just a great player; he has such a great personality, he loves his fans, and you can feel that from him.”

MLS is, in many ways, built on the Son formula. David Beckham’s global stardom helped launch the league into the mainstream between 2007 and 2012, and Lionel Messi has made Inter Miami matches the hottest ticket in town since joining the club in 2023. 

Son’s arrival at LAFC—alongside former Tottenham teammate Hugo Lloris—has taken that experience to a new level, and one that has divided MLS fans. Tottenham supporters clubs are now organizing trips to see the man who starred for their club for a decade play for LAFC.

In August, the Washington, D.C.-based Tottenham supporters group DC Spurs hosted an event titled “Captains in the Capital” in conjunction with LAFC’s visit to D.C. United. Named for Son and Lloris, both former Tottenham captains, the event featured a watchalong of a Tottenham match at a bar and a group march to Audi Field for the MLS match. 

Over 900 fans attended the match through the event after D.C. United provided DC Spurs a group ticket package, and the team and supporters club collaborated to donate a portion of the proceeds to local educational nonprofit DC Scores. 

Not everyone was pleased with the initiative. After DC Spurs posted on Instagram advertising the event, D.C. United fans filled the comment section with disapproval.

“Supporters group completely unaffiliated with any of the teams participating in the match is marching against the team from their city,” one fan wrote. “Support your local,” two other fans chimed in. DC Spurs defended itself in the comment section, saying the outing was “not about supporting LAFC or rooting against D.C. United.”

“We encourage everyone to celebrate our former Spurs players while also showing respect and support for our local club,” DC Spurs wrote.

Eric Kmetz, a treasurer and board member of DC Spurs, told FOS he hoped attending the match would inspire Spurs fans to become more involved with their local club. He cited a post-event survey the group conducted that showed more than half of respondents would attend another D.C. United match.

“If we have gotten just one person to end up starting to support D.C. United as a result of going to the event, I view that as a success,” Kmetz said.

New York Spurs, a major Tottenham fan group in New York City, also organized a trip for its members to attend the Oct. 17 LAFC match. Organizer Jade Lynch told FOS that NYCFC reached out to NY Spurs and said if enough people attended, the club could offer a discount and add an activation for children to participate in a pre-match high-five tunnel experience.

Lynch arrived with a group of 25 to 30 Spurs supporters, who sat together in the second deck of Citi Field and cheered on Son and Lloris. She said it was a particularly special moment for her 6-year-old son, who looked up to Son as an idol and cried when he left Tottenham in 2025.

“I think Sonny represents everything good in football in terms of his style and how generous of spirit he is,” Lynch said. “So he’s an easy player for people to fall in love with.”

After the match, Son told FOS he still notices Tottenham shirts at away matches across the country. “Everywhere I go I see Spurs shirts [with] my name [on the] back,” Son said. “It makes me so so proud. I’m just so grateful to see those kind of fans.”

Lynch said she thought most members of New York Spurs had little connection to NYCFC, and for those who did, their fandom didn’t have the same “passion and drive” as with Tottenham.

“If it wasn’t for [Son and Lloris], would we have come to support our local team together?” Lynch pondered. “Maybe as like a big social activity, but it wouldn’t be something that we as a collective would repetitively do and come to support.”

Walking the Tightrope

MLS marketing and ticketing departments face the challenge of capitalizing on Son’s superstar status while converting previously apathetic first-time attendees into reliable supporters.

Jake Lucas, D.C. United’s director of ticket sales, told FOS the club reached out to several Korean cultural organizations ahead of the LAFC match. The ticketing team sought to draw in some Korean fans by offering two-match bundles, including one for local Korean churches that combined a ticket for the LAFC match with one for D.C. United’s Faith and Family Night in September.

“We see it as an intro into the club,” Lucas said. “Quite a few people that have come in, when they are experiencing that atmosphere, they start getting on an escalator where they’re coming out to one more match, then they’re coming to two or three more matches, then they’re becoming a partial season plan member, and then ultimately a season ticket member with us.”

NYCFC took a similar approach to its home match against LAFC, which was initially scheduled for May but later moved to October. NYCFC vice president and head of marketing Lauren Scrima told FOS the club’s group-sales team reached out to the Korean consulate to connect with various groups in and near Queens; the game was played at Citi Field, not far from the borough’s Koreatown. 

“I think we do have this opportunity with some of these players who have name recognition, who could potentially drive interest in people that maybe hadn’t considered coming out to a match before,” Scrima said. “It’s our job to really create an engaging enough and impactful enough proposition for them to feel like they want to come back.”

The match was designated as Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Night, which an NYCFC spokesperson told FOS was meant to align with AAPI Heritage Month in May and was unrelated to Son’s presence. The club also invited the Korean Youth Choir to perform the national anthem before the match and during halftime.

Scrima said the club has always been cognizant of the line between engaging new fans and outright encouraging fans of the opposing team. For example, she said NYCFC was offered the chance to sell Messi merchandise when it hosted Inter Miami in March, but declined the opportunity, even though other clubs took advantage of it. (The New York Red Bulls drew criticism in 2023 for selling Adidas shirts that alluded to Messi when Inter Miami visited.)

“For us, it’s always been very clear-cut that we will never support the opposing team,” Scrima said. “That’s obviously not what we’re here to do. We are first and foremost here to drive interest and fandom for New York City FC.”

Meanwhile, deep in the heart of the Third Rail, NYCFC’s supporters section, diehard fans defiantly banged drums and sang “Dale, dale, dale, Nueva York.” Seamus Coffey, a Third Rail member who began supporting NYCFC in 2017 and has attended all but one home match this year, said he had mixed feelings about the surge of fans at Citi Field to see Son.

“I think it’s cool having people here, but we need people here for our team,” Coffey said. “It’d be really nice to see all the people here for the first time possibly come back and support our team.” 

Coffey pointed out that many have also argued Messi’s arrival in the league would lead fans to begin supporting their local teams, but he said he has yet to see evidence of that playing out.

“Everyone said he was going to grow the game, but I haven’t noticed or met anyone in here that’s [said], ‘Oh yeah, I saw Messi in the league, I started coming into NYCFC games,’” Coffey said. “I haven’t met anyone like that yet.”