Wrexham’s players had no idea what to expect when they rolled into North Carolina for the first leg of their American tour, according to midfielder Elliot Lee.
So when he and his team-mates took to the field in front of a crowd of 50,596 people at Kenan Memorial Stadium in the University town of Chapel Hill, it opened his eyes to how big the club has become in the United States. For Ben Foster, who played for three Premier League clubs, the excitement from Wrexham supporters stateside is only comparable to what he experienced with Manchester United.
But not every club can be Manchester United — nor Arsenal or Chelsea, who have joined United in touring the United States this summer. In Fulham’s case, for example, tiers of empty seats at Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field for their match against Brighton and Hove Albion point to a perceived oversaturation of English clubs on tour in the States this summer.
Despite the massive crowd for their opener against Chelsea, the remainder of Wrexham’s tour has not reached the same heights. For their 4-0 win over reserve side LA Galaxy II, the announced attendance was 10,553, but it looked like far less were there. Even at the recorded figure, the fixture failed to reach half of the Dignity Health Sports Park’s 27,000-seater capacity.
Ten years ago, the Galaxy’s first team may have paused their season to welcome Wrexham’s significant following, but with the demands of the now 29-team regular season, the U.S. Open Cup, the CONCACAF Champions League and Leagues Cup, a mid-season tournament involving every club in MLS and Liga MX, it is no longer a viable option. The attendance is approximately the same as what Wrexham will expect to welcome at a sellout Racecourse Ground in League Two next year, but the strategy of facing an MLS reserve club in Los Angeles did not prove nearly as fruitful as fixtures against Chelsea and Manchester United.
So should things carry on as is or are U.S fans getting bored of paying sometimes up to $300 for non-competitive games? And will that realistically ever change?
The Premier League Summer Series match between Chelsea and Newcastle United at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on July 26, 2023 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo: Darren Walsh/Chelsea FC via Getty Images)
Like United, Chelsea are no strangers to the American audience. Over the past two decades, they have frequently swapped west London for the U.S. west coast, with Beverly Hills a favoured landing spot for former manager Jose Mourinho.
A year after Manchester United broke the mould and toured the United States in 2003, Mourinho brought Chelsea to play in the ChampionsWorld Series alongside United, Liverpool, Bayern Munich, A.C Milan, Roma, Celtic, Galatasaray and Porto, with whom Mourinho had lifted the Champions League trophy a month earlier.
European giants have traveled across the Atlantic to face off in front of an American crowd in pre-season exhibition tournaments as far back as the International Soccer League formed in 1960, but the ChampionsWorld Series was the watershed moment in paving the way for clubs opting for the United States as a primary destination for their pre-season tours.
Why? Many European clubs believe football in the United States has barely scratched the surface of its economic potential.
“The U.S. is the biggest sport market in the world. Soccer is rapidly growing, and so this is a really important market for us,” says Giorgio Furlani, AC Milan’s chief executive. “It’s top three in terms of international markets for us in terms of fan base. We have 16 fan clubs in North America: 13 (across the) the USA and two in California.
“We hope to welcome a lot of our fans from these clubs, other clubs and just from the country (across the tour). The U.S. is also important and strategic for us. We are American-owned; Redbird Capital owns AC Milan. They operate sort of at the core of the intersection of sports media: entertainment and culture. Los Angeles is a capital of all of these things.”
When Chelsea visited the States in 2004, they closed their tour by playing Milan at Lincoln Financial Field in front of 39,123 fans. At that time, Chelsea and Milan were among Europe’s top five clubs, and only filled a bit more than half the stadium.
For the fixture against Brighton and Hove Albion on July 23, the same ground welcomed 65,128 supporters, just short of Lincoln Financial Field’s 71,000 capacity. That Chelsea, who finished 12th in the Premier League last campaign and Brighton, who will be playing European football for the first time in their history next season, can attract such a crowd illustrates how their brand has grown significantly in the U.S. since 2004.
Since the ChampionsWorld Series, European clubs travelling to the United States has become ingrained in the football calendar. This year, Barcelona, Arsenal, Juventus and Real Madrid have joined Milan and Chelsea in California for the Soccer Champions Tour, the latest in a line of U.S.-based pre-season friendly tournaments.
“All the Real Madrid fans here have been waiting for this,” says Velma, speaking ahead of Real Madrid’s 3-2 win over AC Milan at the Rose Bowl stadium in Pasadena, California. “It’s fine (that it’s a friendly match); any time you have the opportunity to watch Real Madrid is a big, big, big event for the fans.”
For now, it is just friendly matches on the horizon for Premier League clubs, but La Liga is more optimistic.
“It’s not a matter of if, but when,” Boris Gartner, chief executive of La Liga North America, tells The Athletic. “As the sport continues to grow in this country, and fans get more sophisticated, and they’re used to watching competitive games, they’ll know that players play differently when they’re fighting for three points than when they’re not.
“It’s the right next evolution, and it’s not something that La Liga came up with out of the blue. There was the 39th Premier League game idea a while back, and NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL have all done it incredibly successfully. It’s the natural evolution of a global sport (…) it’s a win-win for the league, the club it’s exporting and for the local market.”
But for a Premier League game to be played in the United States, a mountain of hurdles would have to be cleared. When Relevent Sports Group attempted to facilitate the staging of a La Liga match in the U.S. back in 2018, FIFA created a new policy to prevent such a move and U.S. Soccer refused to sanction the game based on that policy. This prompted a legal battle that is still ongoing.
For one U.S. soccer executive, speaking to The Athletic on the condition of anonymity such is the delicacy of the subject, the Premier League’s decision-makers are “still gun shy from the fallout of the Super League,” fearing the prospect of having games played on foreign soil will not be well-received by supporters. First, one club would have to agree to forfeit a home match or face having both legs played in the States. But with no dedicated venue for the Champions League final, the potential to play the biggest match in club football outside of Europe may be more achievable.
In April, UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin said it is “possible” that Champions League fixtures could be staged in the United States from 2026 onwards.
How might it work? Well, one thought is to potentially move a group-stage game or two to a major market in the United States. Another idea presented by Ceferin is to stage two single-leg semi-finals and a final into a Champions League “final four” week.
The genesis of this idea originated in 2020 when UEFA faced the challenge of compressing the finals of their two club competitions, the Champions League and Europa League, into a narrow window in August. Both tournaments had reached the quarter-final stage, with just a few last-16 games remaining, when the COVID-19 pandemic shut things down in March.
To ensure a smooth start to the 2020-21 season, UEFA abandoned the traditional home/away format for the quarter-finals and semi-finals. Instead, they opted to conclude the Champions League over 12 days in Portugal and the Europa League over the same timeframe in Germany.
A final four week in Los Angeles, New York, Miami, or any U.S. city that could do the event justice would come with ticketed events, hospitality opportunities, and new audiences that will make the top brass at UEFA lick their lips.
Still, there is the potential wrinkle that introducing Champions League games in the States could face domestic opposition. Critics would express concerns that European soccer’s presence could deplete the sporting market, diverting funds from broadcast, sponsorship, and ticket revenue from U.S. pro leagues. CONCACAF who have their own Champions League based in the region, would likely protest, in addition to the aforementioned actions taken by FIFA and U.S. Soccer in that La Liga case.
However, proponents may argue that this would simply follow market economics, allowing the most popular products to thrive. A solution might emerge if UEFA agreed to reinvest a substantial portion of the income generated from games on U.S. soil into American grassroots soccer, thereby enhancing player development and facilities. Not to mention they’d likely have to split funds with CONCACAF as CONMEBOL is doing in order to host the 2024 Copa America in the States.
Wait too long, and Saudi Arabia will inevitably cough up more money than Ceferin can refuse.
While many American fans hope to see European clubs play competitively on U.S. soil, with Phil Murphy, governor of New Jersey, telling media, “(America) would die to have a real competitive game”, the sentiment that having an opportunity to watch some of the biggest clubs in the world, regardless of whether it was a friendly game, was echoed by several fans The Athletic interviewed across the States.
“Listen, I’d love nothing more than an EPL game to be here, but I also know it’s England’s league,” says Brad Shipp, a Premier League fan from Texas. “I think it would be borderline tragic to take a home game away from Luton Town or another team with local, working-class fans.
“My son is 18 and plays soccer. Last season we went to England for three games – Man U vs. Spurs, Arsenal vs. Liverpool, and City vs. Palace. I was in the away end at City, and that’s when I realised how this meant everything to fans in England. The segregation (of opposing fans) isn’t something we have here, so to see that up close was when I realised what taking a game away from them would mean.”
On the other hand, American sports leagues have taken official games worldwide for decades. This year, the NFL is hosting five games across the United Kingdom and Germany, one more than in 2022. Dating back to 1990, the NBA has staged 36 regular season games in Japan, Mexico, England and France. They announced a return to Paris set for January. Major League Baseball has established annual trips to London and Mexico City and will add Seoul, South Korea next year. The NHL will bring four games to Stockholm, Sweden, in November. For these fixtures, there is rarely an empty seat in the house.
Official games overseas
| Rank | League | Games |
|---|---|---|
|
1 |
NFL |
45 |
|
2 |
NHL |
38 |
|
3 |
NBA |
36 |
|
4 |
MLB |
29 |
|
5 |
Premier League |
0 |
So far, the best attendances of the U.S. pre-season tours have come from games organised by the Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), the world’s largest owner of sports teams and events. AEG arranged the Soccer Champions Tour and Manchester United’s 2-0 win over Arsenal at MetLife Stadium, where the 82,262 attendance for that game set the record for the biggest attendance for a soccer match at MetLife. It was also the highest-grossing club soccer match at the stadium, second only to the 2016 Copa America final.
Naturally, fans want to see the best players available. For AEG, that means seeking assurances from clubs regarding the quality of players travelling to help ensure supporters who purchase tickets do not leave feeling short-changed.
“The way that we’ve built the relationship and the structure with these teams, there’s an understanding that the real players will play,” says Tom Braun, senior vice president of soccer & business operations and business development for the LA Galaxy, and the lead organiser of the Soccer Champions Tour. “I think a major differentiator in perhaps what fans are seeing now is that they’ll see these teams bring their big players. They bring their stars to these games. That’s what we demonstrated last year with the five matches that we did. These teams were not short on who came to play.”
From that perspective, so far, so good: fitness permitting, star players have played significant minutes across the tour. Jude Bellingham, Real Madrid’s star summer signing, started against Milan in Sunday’s fixture at the Rose Bowl and played alongside Vini Jr. in the second half.
U.S.-based Arsenal supporters have seen new signings Declan Rice and Jurrien Timber on the pitch together, and 18-year-old Kobbie Mainoo’s performances for Manchester United alongside Mason Mount, Marcus Rashford and Bruno Fernandes have fans around the world discussing whether he should play a role in the first-team this campaign.
Christian Pulisic, who departed Chelsea for Milan this summer, is arguably the biggest draw for American fans. As one of the USMNT’s star players, he’s been the face of Milan’s social campaigns during the tour, and 70,814 fans were in attendance — many of them wearing his shirt — to watch his first game for Milan on American soil. But when the talent on display has been less eye-catching, the attendance for English clubs has typically suffered.
For Fulham’s match against Brentford in the Premier League Summer Series, for example, tiers of empty seats at Lincoln Financial Field point to a perceived oversaturation of English clubs on tour in the States this summer. The official attendance given for matchday two of the Premier League event was 40,232, including Newcastle’s draw with Aston Villa, which was played shortly after at the same stadium in Philadelphia.
Even Borussia Dortmund, who kicked off their pre-season with a convincing win over USL Championship side San Diego Loyal, could only draw 12,207 supporters, a fraction of Snapdragon Stadium’s capacity.
For context, Dortmund, Villa and Newcastle, who will all play in European competition, will likely sell out every home league game this season.
One reason why many clubs are not drawing huge crowds is cost. For every Lucy, a Real Madrid supporter from Riverside, California, who considered $500 each for her and her family to attend their match at the Rose Bowl a “fair price”, there’s a Devin Walker, communications manager for Manchester United’s U.S. supporters’ clubs, who believes fans, particularly of Europe’s biggest clubs, are being “overcharged” to watch friendlies.
“The prices are way too expensive here, not only from the organisers but the ticket vendors,” says Walker. “It’s ridiculous that it cost people $600 to go to Manchester United’s last game against Arsenal at MetLife Stadium when tickets in Manchester have cost me maybe $50-60 for a regular season match.”
As for the impact of a long-haul flight across the Atlantic and trips within the U.S., there has been significant opposition in preparing a club for a successful season on the pitch. Arsene Wenger pushed for Arsenal to resist the temptation for years, arguing a summer training in the altitude of the Alps would be far more helpful.
Alex Ferguson warned against it too, but it was largely disregarded as United saw the commercial opportunity. And with analysts estimating the tour will earn them between £15million and £20m in direct revenue, including appearance fees and shares of ticket and broadcast revenue, you can hardly blame them.
As American fans continue to turn out in record numbers to watch Europe’s big guns (and TV series darlings, the United States will remain a primary destination during pre-season. For the Premier League’s aspiring clubs, like Villa and Newcastle, the data indicates they may be better served looking elsewhere to grow their brand.
(Top photo: Tim Nwachukwu/Getty Images)
