Inside Major League Soccer’s Strategy To Convert World Cup Viewers Into Lifelong Fans

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**Don Garber** (0:56)
We've got to get very focused on the fact that we have the most diverse audience in professional sports. Our league represents more countries with players than any other sport. We've got the youngest audience in sports and we've got the only global streaming platform in our partnership with Apple. So for me, it's as important that somebody in Belgrade is able to see a game as they are in Brooklyn.

**Maneet Ahuja** (1:24)
Welcome, I'm Maneet Ahuja, Editor-at-Large at Forbes and Founder of Iconoclast. And I am thrilled to be joined by Major League Soccer Commissioner, Don Garber as well as Chief Marketing Officer, Radhika Duggal. Since 1999, Don has transformed MLS from 10 teams into a global sports powerhouse, partnered by an Apple partnership and stars like Lionel Messi.
Radhika is the force behind the league's ambitious World Cup-centered campaign, Thanks World. We'll take it from here, featuring stars like Beckham, Matthew McConaughey and Kevin Durant. Don, Radhika, thank you both so much for joining us.

**Radhika Duggal** (2:01)
Thank you.

**Don Garber** (2:01)
Great to be here.

**Maneet Ahuja** (2:03)
So I want to start with obviously the news of the day, yesterday's epic World Cup final, Spain defeating Argentina in extra time, and it's a really important moment for the world, but it's also a really important moment for US Soccer. So Commissioner Garber, I would love to hear from you on what this moment signifies for us here today.

**Don Garber** (2:25)
So it's really less about a moment as it's been about a period of time, from when we were granted the World Cup in 2018, we had this North Star that eight years later, we'd have this incredible celebration of the sport. We added seven teams, nine stadiums. We built a league that attracted the best player in the world.
And in many ways, we kind of built this expectation of what would happen during this past month, and it over delivered in so many different ways. It was almost like a love letter to our country, where fans from around the world were able to celebrate who they were, what nations they were from and what teams they loved and supported. And it gave our country an opportunity to embrace them. That gave us this showcase to say to the world, hey, we're a soccer nation, we get it. We're going to sell out stadiums. We're going to get people watching in bars and outside restaurants and massive fan fest all over the country.
And I thought it was best World Cup to ever happen. I don't think it will ever happen like this again.

**Maneet Ahuja** (3:36)
Like that again. And to your point, it set also a lot of new records, right? The all time World Cup attendance record, 6.6 million fans, 104 matches with stadiums averaging 65,000, I think 100% occupancy, but also 48 team format and a huge, huge moment. So with all of that, also recent analysis is suggesting that soccer is essentially now tied with basketball in terms of viewership amongst 25 to 44 year olds. And in your campaign, Radhika, Thanks World, we'll take it from here, is an important positioning at this moment, which hopefully is just the beginning of a very long trend. So I'd love to hear a little bit about that from you.

**Radhika Duggal** (4:22)
Absolutely.
Our campaign is really focused on two messages. First, gratitude. Thank you to the world for reminding us about the unity and the joy that only global soccer can bring. So that's the Thanks World part. But then it's the passing of the baton. 45 of our players played in the World Cup. That same game that those 45 players play and more, that's on our stadiums all week, every week during our season. And we are so excited to take that momentum and joy and unity that the World Cup created and play those matches. We restarted our season on July 16th. We're already going. And that campaign is just meant to say, gratitude to the world for reminding us what global soccer brings, but welcome every fan to experience Major League Soccer because we play that same game.