Call it the $20 million red card.
When American winger Tim Weah was sent off after striking Panama’s Roderick Miller in the 18th minute of a Copa América group stage game in June, the booking set off a chain reaction that upended U.S. Soccer’s best-laid plans for the men’s national team ahead of the 2026 men’s World Cup on home soil. The Yanks went on to lose to Panama, failed to make it out of the Copa group stage, then fired coach Gregg Berhalter. Facing pressure to find a big-name successor, the federation landed pricey English Premier League manager Mauricio Pochettino. In total, the change likely cost the U.S. Soccer Federation some $20 million.
The Pochettino hire is a microcosm of the current moment for U.S. Soccer. On the field, the men’s national team has underperformed. Off the field, U.S. Soccer’s financial health may be stronger than ever. To help fix the former, it leaned on the latter, including some first-time donors like billionaire Ken Griffin, who specifically helped finance the Pochettino move.
“We hope to prove to folks that we’re good stewards of capital—that by virtue of giving us money, you can see impact,” U.S. Soccer CEO JT Batson said in an interview. “And if you look at our business over the last two years, we went from a business losing $40 million a year to one that will be quite profitable and is making record investment in things that years ago wouldn’t have seemed possible.”
Those investments include Pochettino, who makes his debut as U.S. coach this week with a friendly against Panama on Saturday in Austin, Texas; USWNT head coach Emma Hayes, now the highest-paid women’s coach in the world; and a new $200 million National Training Center under construction in Georgia. Financing for many of those efforts has been secured through donations, a relatively new priority for the federation. Batson said the group has raised more in the past year—upwards of $60 million—than it has in its entire history.
“Part of this is that we just never asked people before,” Batson said. “Turns out, that helps.”
Coming off a decade of executive tumult, expensive court battles and investigations, U.S. Soccer has built what appears to be a solid, and growing, financial foundation heading into a critical next 10 years, which will see the national teams playing at home for the 2026 World Cup, the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, and potentially the 2031 women’s World Cup, which the U.S. is bidding for in partnership with Mexico.
The financial strengthening has coincided with U.S. Soccer taking control of its own media and marketing rights at the end of 2022, a public separation from MLS-owned Soccer United Marketing, which had managed the business for two decades. The move added costs and eliminated downside protection for the federation, but gave it more flexibility and freedom in its relationships.
It also established a direct line between U.S. Soccer and its corporate partners—deals previously run through SUM—which Batson said has helped expand opportunities. The SUM deal guaranteed U.S. Soccer $32 million in 2022; the federation say it now projects to make $110 million from its commercial rights in 2025.
On the philanthropy side, the group hired Leah Heister Burton, who oversaw philanthropic efforts at the Guggenheim art museum, to be U.S. Soccer’s first chief advancement officer. In recent years, the federation had typically raised $5 million to $6 million annually, Burton said in an interview. “This year,” she said, “we believe we’ll see 10 to 12 times that amount in philanthropic donations to U.S. Soccer largely tied to our new strategy—as well as the moment we are in.”
A chunk of that $60 million in donations—primarily from Griffin and Diameter Capital co-founder Scott Goodwin—played the key role in the hiring of Pochettino, a well-respected former Argentina national team player who has had successful coaching stints at powerhouse European clubs Tottenham Hotspur, Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea.
Pochettino didn’t come cheap. He was given a two-year deal worth $6 million per year, according to someone familiar with the details who asked not to be identified because the negotiations were private. That is more than triple Berhalter’s baseline pay. Throw in salaries for Pochettino’s staff and Berhalter’s buyout, and the bill for the move climbs to around $20 million, the source said.
In a prior era, U.S. Soccer may not have felt comfortable ponying up for a manager in Pochettino’s price range. But the organization was able to make the offer thanks to its philanthropy drive. Goodwin, an existing U.S. Soccer donor, helped U.S. Soccer loop in Griffin, Batson said. He called it a “down payment on a larger future relationship” aimed at growing the sport in America.
Goodwin and Griffin, the latter of whom made a recent unsuccessful run at purchasing a large minority stake in the Miami Dolphins, both declined requests for comment.
Griffin already had a history of giving to the game, which he played in his youth, according to a U.S. Soccer spokesperson. In 2017, he supported the U.S. Soccer Foundation with a $3 million gift to fund 50 mini-pitches at parks across Chicago, expanding access to the game for more than 13,500 community members. (The U.S. Soccer Foundation is a nonprofit organization, distinct from U.S. Soccer, dedicated to providing programs and play spaces for underserved youth.)
He funded a similar project in 2023, providing $5 million for the development of 50 mini-pitches in Florida’s Miami-Dade County, with the goal of improving the health and well-being of at least 36,000 children by 2030. He’s also on the board of the Miami host committee for the 2026 World Cup.
In announcing the Pochettino signing, U.S. Soccer made sure to note the contract was “supported in significant part” by Griffin, the founder and CEO of Citadel and of Griffin Catalyst.
The coach’s deal is the latest step in a broader, longer-term fundraising plan for U.S. Soccer, one that’s been running in the background for years. On the donor side, the organization in late 2023 announced a $50 million gift from Home Depot founder and Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta United FC owner Arthur Blank for the new training center and headquarters outside Atlanta. Blank, like Griffin, is a first-time U.S. Soccer donor.
The separation from SUM has created new needs on U.S. Soccer’s commercial side, which is run by CCO David Wright, who previously worked in sponsorships at the MLS-owned entity. Deals have included major sponsorship extensions with Nike and Deloitte, as well as a new pact with broadcast partner Turner Sports.
According to U.S. Soccer, a number of commercial benchmarks have followed. Overall TV and streaming viewership is up 40%, the federation says, with the highest average attendance that U.S. Soccer has ever seen for USWNT and USMNT games through the first six months of a calendar year. Merchandise sales are up 25%; sponsorship revenue is up 60%. Commercial partnerships and events now make up about 77% of U.S. Soccer’s operating revenue.
The turnaround has come after a period of mounting losses at the federation. U.S. Soccer lost $12.5 million in fiscal 2021, $25.9 million in fiscal 2022, and $40.8 million in fiscal 2023, according to its audited financial statements. In fiscal 2024, the most recent year available, that turned to a $1.3 million profit. Revenue in 2024 was $192.2 million, on expenses of $190.9 million.
The federation reported spending $0 on fundraising fees in fiscal 2023, according to its most recently available tax returns. It reported $18.8 million in overall contributions, gifts and grants, of which $5.8 million was noncash.
Burton says the commercial side’s success under Wright has made her job easier. An MVP of her college soccer team at Division III Knox College in Illinois, she joined U.S. Soccer a year ago. She says sponsors that Wright deals with have been eager to help foster relationships with their companies’ philanthropic arms.
“Our ability to seek significant support, whether that be individual donors or from our leading commercial partners like the Nikes and Coca-Colas and Volkswagens of the world, has been really incredible,” Burton said. “And it’s been able to open up additional funding opportunities.”
She cited Coca-Cola, a major commercial sponsor. “They have a foundation that has said, ‘We’d like to get involved. We’d like to invest in some of the impact work that you’re doing within workforce development.’ My team can help support that work while Dave’s team is out there doing the commercial side, so there’s a good symbiotic relationship.”
Despite the gloom of the Copa América failure—and that $20 million red card—the executives at U.S. Soccer are upbeat.
Besides the off-field run of success, the U.S. women had a pitch-perfect summer, winning the Olympic gold medal under Hayes, who was signed to a $1.6 million-per-year deal this year. The U.S. men’s team under Pochettino will now try to keep up. If it can’t, it won’t be for a lack of financial resources.
“We are very much excited by the initial results, but there’s so much more to raise as we try to deliver upon investing in sporting, investing in our capital projects, investing into affordable access into the game,” Burton said. “We’re not taking our foot off the gas.”
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