With the 2026 FIFA World Cup in North America only six years away and quickly approaching, a $50 million investment fund has been started by a diverse group of soccer visionaries aimed at growing the sport.
The new entity, called For Soccer Ventures, will accomplish this goal through two distinct platforms. The Soccer Collective is a multimedia content production arm aimed at promoting American soccer culture. The Soccer Alliance will seek to build a network of improved clubs, leagues, and tournaments.
The For Soccer Ventures team consists of Richie Graham, part-owner of the Philadelphia Union, as well as former executives from key American soccer stakeholders like adidas, ESPN, U.S. Soccer, and Copa90. The goal – create a platform for every single person that touches the sport on a day-to-day basis. If the grand vision becomes a reality, parents, kids, fans, professional players, and coaches will all be able to utilize the platform to grow the game and the American soccer culture.
The Soccer Collective will likely be the first visible sign of For Soccer Ventures’ work with a multi-channel social media strategy at the forefront to capitalize on the increasingly important Gen Z and Hispanic fanbases. As a result, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube stand to be a large part of the For Soccer Ventures plans and will launch in 2020.
What does this mean for the sport?
The reality is it’s too early to know what sort of impact this will have on the soccer community; however, having large financial investment in the sport’s infrastructure with a team of longstanding soccer supporters is hardly a bad thing. It’s a convoluted space that may become even murkier as more and more entities look to capitalize on the event-to-come in 2026, but any group in the business of fan-conversion and injecting life into the greater soccer collective should be lauded. As a Philadelphia-led venture, it’s also worth wondering how these efforts may help the city make its way onto the final list of host cities for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
As the most public-facing element of the venture, the Soccer Collective is an interesting, albeit daunting, proposition. We’ve seen entities like KICK (and then Copa90) try to create content geared towards a U.S. audience to varying degrees of success.
Categories: Commercial, Domestic, Soccer Marketing, Uncategorized