A taxi driver ferrying BBC journalists through Los Angeles recently summed up a striking reality with a single question : “There’s a World Cup happening ? Who’s playing ?” That moment of genuine surprise tells you everything about where American enthusiasm currently stands, just days before the biggest sporting event on the planet kicks off on home soil.
Los Angeles on the eve of the tournament : visible buzz, invisible to some
Drive out of LAX and the signs are literally there. Banners promoting “LA26” line the roads, electronic billboards cycle through the faces of the US Men’s National Team squad, and a large mural in downtown Los Angeles immortalizes Lionel Messi, arguably the sport’s greatest-ever player. A handful of convenience stores even stock World Cup merchandise. The infrastructure of excitement exists.
Yet step outside that visual bubble, and the picture shifts fast. For anyone not already following soccer, the tournament might as well be happening on another continent. That paradox, a mega-event both present and absent from daily consciousness, reflects the unique challenge organizers face in a city where the entertainment calendar is relentlessly packed.
Larry Freedman, co-chairman of the Los Angeles World Cup Host Committee, is candid about it : “I think we have had a slow build that is leading to a frothy frenzy.” His explanation makes sense when you consider LA’s sheer density of competing attractions. Sports fans here juggle the Lakers, the Rams, the Dodgers, concert tours, and film premieres simultaneously. A tournament announced three years ago struggled to cut through. Now that it’s finally days away, the temperature is rising.
“Now we are on the eve of it kicking off, people are getting very, very excited,” Freedman adds. He also points to LA’s demographic advantage : a deeply diverse population with roots across Latin America, Europe, and Africa, meaning dozens of participating nations have passionate local fanbases ready to turn up and make noise.
Generation 2026 : younger Americans are genuinely buying in
The sharpest enthusiasm comes from younger locals who never experienced the 1994 World Cup, the last time the US hosted the tournament, 32 years ago. That generation has grown up watching the Premier League on streaming platforms, following Messi’s career in real time, and scrolling through soccer highlights on social media. For them, this isn’t a foreign sport parachuted in. It’s already part of their cultural diet.
In Santa Monica, two residents from Sacramento County, Isaiah and Husna, captured the mood perfectly. Isaiah admitted he had never actually watched a World Cup before, but declared he would watch every game this summer. His reason was straightforward : “It’s here in LA now and LA is where it is at. It will be something different.” Husna echoed that sentiment, noting that many Americans still don’t know what the World Cup is, but the simple fact of it landing in their backyard will change that.
Here is how the levels of engagement break down among the Americans BBC Sport spoke to in Los Angeles :
- Lifelong soccer fans already deep into squads, fixtures, and tactics.
- Curious newcomers like Isaiah, drawn in by proximity and local pride rather than sporting knowledge.
- Completely unaware residents, the taxi driver category, for whom the World Cup simply hasn’t registered yet.
That middle group is the real opportunity. Converting casual curiosity into sustained viewership is exactly what organizers are banking on as the group stage unfolds.
Mahon, another young fan, illustrated the communal approach to that conversion : “We have watch parties set up so we are very excited for it. We do have a few friends who are not really into soccer but we are trying to get them into it, that we are Team USA, country pride.” That grassroots peer pressure, friends dragging friends to a screen under the banner of national identity, is a powerful mobilizing force.
| Profile | Attitude toward the World Cup | Key motivator |
|---|---|---|
| Hardcore soccer fans | Fully engaged since the draw | Sport itself |
| Casual sports fans | Warming up as the tournament starts | National pride, local games |
| Non-sports audience | Largely unaware or indifferent | None identified yet |
Soccer vs. the American sports hierarchy : where does this World Cup land ?
Frankly, the most honest take comes from Mahon himself : “I think it has surpassed baseball in popularity here, but I don’t think it will get as big as American football or basketball.” That feels accurate. Major League Soccer’s average attendance reached 22,000 per game in 2023, overtaking MLB on a per-game basis for the first time, a shift that would have seemed impossible a decade ago.
Still, the NFL and NBA occupy a different cultural stratosphere in the US. A single Super Bowl regularly pulls over 100 million viewers domestically. No World Cup match, even with the US team involved, is likely to threaten that ceiling this summer. The more realistic goal is cementing soccer’s position as a genuine mainstream sport rather than a niche passion.
The smarter question for organizers isn’t whether this World Cup will dethrone the NFL. It’s whether the experience of watching games live in packed stadiums, feeling the energy of a global crowd on American soil, will create a generation of converts who stick around for the MLS season, the next World Cup qualifiers, and beyond. That long-term cultural shift is the real prize. And on that front, with LA’s diversity and the sheer spectacle of the tournament, the conditions have never been better.
