Soccer Finally Won Over America but the 2026 World Cup May Leave Fans Behind

The 20th century approach to building soccer in the United States was best captured by, of course, The Simpsons.

In a classic 1997 episode, the Simpson family and many of their fellow Springfieldians flock to a game after seeing an ad with a man in a cowboy hat and fringe yelling, “Open wide for some soccer!” as he takes a soccer ball off his grill and holds it to the camera. A few explosions and a shot of a player surrounded by women in a hot tub follow.

Then they attend the game, quickly finding that it’s not as explosive as the ad implied. Such was soccer in the United States for many decades after the American Soccer League collapsed in the 1930s. Academic tomes on cultural identity and American exceptionalism put in stark terms what the country inherently knew — soccer was a tough sell anywhere north of Mexico. Attempts to sell the sport in the United States were often Americanized.

The 21st century looks a bit different. Fans can choose from a cornucopia of quality broadcasts, not just the longstanding Mexican soccer games on Spanish-language TV but a nonstop succession of games from England’s popular Premier League, Europe’s Champions League and several other soccer-mad countries. Anyone who wants to see games in person can choose from 30 teams in Major League Soccer, a league that now includes global GOAT Lionel Messi, or dozens of well-supported lower-division pro clubs.

So the sales task has evolved. Soccer entities don’t need to worry about selling everyday Americans on the sport. They need to worry about everyday Americans being shut out as the sport prices itself out of reach everywhere from youth level to the World Cup.

How Soccer Tried To Sell Itself To America

The Simpsons episode is revered by soccer fans because it’s in the classic “funny because it’s true” category. From the North American Soccer League to the multiple attempts to make indoor soccer the sport of the future, soccer was long sold to the United States with the same glitz and glamour as American sports. The New York Cosmos were under the Warner Communications corporate roof, so getting Bugs Bunny on the field to slap hands with Pelé was obvious corporate synergy. Indoor soccer turned the volume up to 11, introducing players with flashing lights and fireworks.

With and without the explicit support of FIFA, the sport’s global organizing body, U.S. soccer leagues literally changed the rules. The offside law was adjusted so it only applied within 35 yards of the goal line. The 35-yard line doubled as the starting line for tiebreaking “shootouts,” in which attacking players took turns dribbling toward the goal and trying to beat a goalkeeper one-on-one. Even after the NASL’s demise, leagues experimented with kick-ins instead of throw-ins, a shootout opportunity in regulation play if a team had seven fouls, bigger goals and clocks that counted down and stopped abruptly at zero.

The 2026 World Cup won’t have shootouts, unless you count the traditional penalty kick shootouts that determine who advanced after a tie in a knockout game. As far as we know, teams will take the field by marching out behind the referees and spreading out so that TV crews can stick cameras in their faces to capture their off-key singing of their national anthems, not jumping out from a flashing logo and trying to avoid a pyrotechnic accident.

But the Cup is planning at least one Americanization — a Super Bowl-style halftime show, “curated by Chris Martin and Coldplay.” (Why they specify “Chris Martin and Coldplay” and not simply “Coldplay,” of which Chris Martin is a member, is unknown.)

Not all of the Americanization will be driven specifically by FIFA. World Cup sponsors are gladly jumping in with an ad featuring an unlikely group chat featuring Steve Carell along with soccer legends past and present, and Truly Hard Seltzer is running a “Drink Like A Believer” campaign, which may land with a thud in a country of multiple minds about what it believes.

And that polarization is why “Americanization” efforts might struggle.

Soccer, Power And Polarization

The United States and its soccer fans have never been homogeneous. The 1994 World Cup succeeded because it united all the little pockets of fandom — European fans who shelled out money for pay-per-view broadcasts of their favorite leagues, Mexican fans who watched in large numbers on Spanish-language TV, fans of the defunct NASL who were eager to see top players in their home cities once again — into a critical mass. Such diversity has helped soccer turn into such a healthy enterprise, even if it has been difficult for any one entity (such as Major League Soccer) to appeal to all U.S. soccer fans.

But today, the differences are less about preferring Manchester City, Cruz Azul, Bayern Munich or Inter Miami. This World Cup is landing in a country that has been torn in two. FIFA President Gianni Infantino has made no secret of his infatuation with Donald Trump, even conjuring a “FIFA Peace Prize” to console the U.S. president after he did not win the Nobel. Like Trump, Infantino has had to fight off allegations that he has overrun every system of checks and balances while favoring the wealthy, most egregiously by steering the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia.

(Coincidentally, Trump Tower once housed the offices of CONCACAF, the federation for North America and the Caribbean. The organization’s eccentric general secretary, Chuck Blazer, lived extravagantly in the building until he ran into serious legal trouble and became an informant in a wide-reaching international soccer scandal. Blazer reportedly maintained a second apartment for his cats. CONCACAF has long since moved out, but Infantino recently opened a new FIFA office in the building.)

The wealthy also may be the only people who can even afford to go. Ticket prices have caused an international backlash, which the release of handfuls of $60 tickets aren’t likely to soothe.

Apparently, though, some people are able to fork over that much money. Prices are set by “dynamic pricing,” going up and down according to demand. If people weren’t willing to pay thousands of dollars for a ticket, the price would drop.

And so the World Cup has become a vivid reminder of the “K-shaped economy,” in which the top tier and lower tier of wealth grow while the middle is hollowed out.

In a sense, there’s nothing more “American” than that. But a lot of Americans won’t be too happy, and a glitzy halftime show might not make them feel better.