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Tom Penn long believed hosting the FIFA men’s World Cup would be Major League Soccer’s second major boost, after Lionel Messi’s arrival to the league in 2023. Now that the tournament is over, the San Diego FC CEO says it exceeded his highest expectations.
“I always talked about the double booster on the league: the first one Messi, the second one the World Cup,” Penn told Front Office Sports in a recent interview. “As this thing came rolling closer, it was like, ‘Whoa, is it really going to deliver?’ And I think it’s exceeded in every way.”
Penn, who cofounded Los Angeles FC in 2014 and served as the club’s president and co-owner until 2020, called the tournament a “magnificent moment” for the U.S., North America, and soccer.
“It was arguably the greatest sporting event of all time,” Penn added.
Before his career in soccer, Penn was an NBA exec for the Portland Trail Blazers and Memphis Grizzlies, and later worked as an NBA analyst for ESPN.
Packed watch parties across the country were among the clearest signs of the World Cup’s reach, according to Penn. San Diego FC hosted its own watch party at Mission Beach for each game. “We had so much demand for our watch parties,” he said. “People just wanting to be there for that shared human experience.”
Penn believes that desire for connection also represents one of MLS’s biggest advantages as it attempts to convert World Cup viewers into regular-season fans.
Americans can watch the Premier League and other major European competitions on weekend mornings, he added. But MLS gives them a different kind of experience.
“If you want to go out on a Saturday night with friends, family, or others, and you want to high-five and hug somebody that you’ve never met, that happens in 30 stadiums around Major League Soccer,” Penn said.
The challenge is convincing people who enjoyed the World Cup to experience that atmosphere for themselves at an MLS game. “People come experience it, and go, ‘Oh my God, I had no idea. This is amazing,’” he said. “Go try it, and you’ll get a really cool vibe.”
MLS was steadily growing in the years building up to the tournament, Penn said, pointing to rising franchise valuations. Recent CNBC estimates valued Inter Miami CF at $1.6 billion, up 60% from last year, and New York City FC at $1.55 billion, with seven U.S. teams appearing among the world’s 30 most valuable, according to the publication.
“Part of what this World Cup will do is anchor soccer more in the sports culture of the major men’s leagues,” Penn said.
There are already signs that the tournament is driving fans toward MLS.
Multiple MLS clubs told FOS last week that ticket sales had increased by more than 150% since the start of the World Cup. The Philadelphia Union reported a 218% increase in single-game ticket sales, while Nashville SC saw online ticket sales rise 161%.
That momentum has not yet translated as clearly into television. Fox’s first MLS primetime doubleheader after the tournament drew 587,000 viewers for Nashville–Atlanta and 504,000 for LA Galaxy–LAFC, only a modest improvement from the network’s pre-World Cup doubleheader.
MLS will shift to a summer-to-spring schedule in 2027, a change Penn called “hugely important” for the league. He acknowledged that given the World Cup, this summer would have been an ideal time to make the transition.
“In a perfect world, we all would have wanted that,” Penn said. “This would’ve been the perfect time to do it.”
