LEILA FADEL, HOST:
The men's World Cup final is this weekend in New Jersey. The U.S. hosted the '94 World Cup too. Back then, World Cup fever in the U.S. led millions of children to sign up for youth soccer. It put the sport on TV for the first time for many American viewers, and it led directly to the creation of Major League Soccer. With our colleagues at Planet Money, NPR's Becky Sullivan looked into how MLS is bringing in a new generation of fans.
BECKY SULLIVAN, BYLINE: For the past five weeks, a bar near downtown Chicago has had new life as one of the biggest World Cup watch parties in the country.
(CHEERING)
SULLIVAN: It's a massive space. In the middle of the patio stands what basically looks like a giant arena jumbotron with games on all four sides. For the biggest matches, more than a thousand people have packed in to watch.
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Singing) Ole, ole, ole, ole. Ole, ole.
SULLIVAN: This is the doing of the Chicago Fire, the MLS club here in Chicago. There's team merch and sign-up sheets. They've brought players by to sign autographs. It's all one big pitch to people who've never come to a Fire game before. Tag along to watch the World Cup, and maybe you'll end up feeling like this.
GINA SANTIANO: I've never seen a game, but I want to go now.
ANA GONZALES: Yeah. I guess I would go.
VANESSA BETINO: Yes. I would definitely be interested in going to a game.
SULLIVAN: Getting fans like these three - Gina Santiano (ph), Ana Gonzales (ph) and Vanessa Betino (ph) - to come out to an MLS game, that's the goal, not just for the Fire, but for all of Major League Soccer. The question was, how to do it? An especially tricky question for Chicago, which did not host any World Cup games.
DAVE BALDWIN: We had a decision to make, and one was just kind of to bury our head in the sand and just watch on TV like everyone else, or the other one was to really rally behind it. Put some dollars behind it.
SULLIVAN: This is Dave Baldwin, the team's president of business operations. Die-hard fans of the sport already follow professional soccer, so the team's strategy was to give more casual sports fans a taste of the Fire game-day experience.
BALDWIN: I sort of compare converting non-soccer fans to soccer fans to my experience when I go shopping at Costco, which is I never knew that I needed 800 teriyaki meatballs, but I was walking through the line. I had a chance to sample, and I said, oh, my gosh, this is amazing. And I go buy one of those giant boxes.
SULLIVAN: Twenty-two MLS teams are doing a promotion called First Match On Us, where they give away free tickets to first-time attendees. The idea being, get them in the door. Show them a good time. Then the next thing you know, they'll buy their own tickets, pick up a shirt and a scarf, start watching games on TV.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Hey, Leo, can we kick it?
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LIONEL MESSI: (Speaking Spanish).
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SULLIVAN: This commercial is part of an eight-figure marketing campaign MLS rolled out this week called Thanks World, We'll Take It From Here. The centerpiece of the ad is - who else? -Lionel Messi, the 39-year-old global star who captains the Argentina national team. Three years ago, Messi left behind Europe's top leagues to join the MLS club Inter Miami, a blockbuster move that has already paid serious dividends for the league, says MLS chief business officer Camilo Durana.
CAMILO DURANA: There was a lot of people that thought he was coming here to retire, and it's been the opposite. Rarely do you see him getting subbed off. He wants to play the 90 minutes. He's intense. He wants to win. And I think that's carried into the World Cup.
SULLIVAN: This is important because there's another big audience MLS is targeting with this World Cup - the players. Durana says Messi's performance shows you don't lose a step by coming to MLS. Also, the league worked really hard to make its stadiums and training facilities part of the World Cup hosting plan, to show them off to visiting teams, almost like a recruiting visit. If more quality international players join the league, that could change the perception for players and fans that MLS is a tier or two below Europe.
DURANA: Major League Soccer players scored 10 goals in the group stage, and so I think that validates everything that we're doing, and it shows the quality that we have on the MLS pitch.
SULLIVAN: Messi scored six of those 10 group-stage goals. He has since added two more in the knockout games. Now, on Sunday, Major League Soccer's biggest star will play on the sport's biggest stage, the World Cup final. What better advertisement than that?
Becky Sullivan, NPR News, Chicago. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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