Roger Bennett Says We're Entering the American Century of Soccer

Roger Bennett and the Rise of American Soccer

There are moments in cultural history when the right person appears at exactly the right time. For soccer in America, that person is Roger Bennett. Born in Liverpool, raised on Everton and American pop culture in equal measure, and eventually transplanted to the United States where he became a citizen and a one-man evangelist for the beautiful game, Bennett has spent the past decade and a half building something that once seemed almost impossible: a thriving, financially sustainable soccer media empire aimed squarely at American audiences.

With the 2026 FIFA World Cup just months away — stretching across 16 cities throughout North America — Bennett and his Men in Blazers network are poised to ride what he believes is the definitive turning point for soccer in the United States. This, he suggests, is not just a big moment. It is the beginning of the American century of soccer.

From a Podcast to a Full-Blown Media Network

The story of Men in Blazers is, in many ways, the story of soccer's growth in America told through a single, ambitious media brand. Bennett launched the podcast on ESPN in 2010, born out of a simple but striking observation: almost no one in American sports journalism knew anything meaningful about soccer, and even fewer understood the elite European leagues that billions of people around the world were watching every weekend.

What started as an eccentric little podcast — the name a winking nod to the blazer-wearing tradition of television sports pundits — has grown into something far more substantial. Today, Men in Blazers is an independent media network with a television show on NBC, a library of documentaries, live events staged across the country, 15 additional podcasts, and 97 full-time employees. That is not a podcast. That is a media company.

And the financial infrastructure has followed. In 2025, the network raised a $15 million Series A funding round, with the explicit goal of expanding coverage ahead of the World Cup. For investors, the timing is obvious. For Bennett, it is the culmination of a vision he has been building toward for fifteen years.

The Unique Brand Partnership Model

One of the more interesting dimensions of the Men in Blazers story is how the network has approached brand partnerships. Rather than simply running traditional advertising, Bennett and his team have cultivated deep, ongoing relationships with major brands including Marriott, Michelob Ultra, Visa, and Unilever. These are not transactional sponsorships. They are collaborations built on the understanding that the soccer audience in America is not just growing in size — it is growing in passion, loyalty, and purchasing power.

This model reflects something important about how media and marketing are evolving. Audiences that are deeply engaged with a niche — and soccer fans in America are nothing if not deeply engaged — respond far better to brands that feel like authentic participants in the culture rather than outside interlopers buying space. Bennett has understood this from the beginning, and the business results speak for themselves.

Why the 2026 World Cup Is a Generational Inflection Point

Soccer has been growing in the United States for decades. The 1994 World Cup planted seeds. The launch of Major League Soccer created infrastructure. The rise of streaming made European leagues accessible to anyone with an internet connection. But the 2026 FIFA World Cup — hosted across the United States, Canada, and Mexico — represents something qualitatively different.

• It is the largest World Cup in history, expanded to 48 teams and 16 host cities across North America.
• It will bring the world's greatest players to American stadiums, in American cities, in front of American crowds who have never experienced anything quite like it.
• It arrives at a moment when a generation of young Americans has grown up with soccer as a genuine first love, not a second-tier alternative to football or basketball.
• It coincides with the maturation of American soccer media, with outlets like Men in Blazers capable of providing the kind of deep, culturally fluent coverage the moment demands.

Bennett met with Fast Company in the network's Manhattan offices in late March, just three months before the tournament's kickoff, on the eve of a trip to Atlanta for a Men in Blazers live event with Big Boi, formerly of OutKast. The details are telling. This is a soccer media brand that moves comfortably between the sports world and the broader cultural landscape — exactly the kind of crossover appeal that will define how American audiences experience the World Cup.

The Tensions of Americanizing the World's Game

None of this comes without complication. One of the more honest threads in Bennett's public conversations is his acknowledgment of the tensions inherent in the Americanization of soccer. The sport's global identity, its deep roots in working-class communities across Europe, Latin America, and Africa, its resistance to the commercial packaging that defines American sports — these are not minor considerations. They are central to what makes soccer meaningful to the billions of people who love it.

How America absorbs soccer — and how soccer absorbs America — is a cultural negotiation that is very much still underway. Bennett, with his dual identity as a lifelong Liverpool kid and a proud American citizen (and the author of a memoir called (Re)born in the USA), is perhaps better positioned than almost anyone to navigate that negotiation with both enthusiasm and honesty.

What Comes Next for Men in Blazers and American Soccer

With fresh capital, a growing team, a television presence, and the biggest soccer event in history arriving on home soil, Men in Blazers enters 2026 as one of the most important soccer media brands in the United States. More than that, it serves as a living proof of concept: that there is a massive, underserved American audience hungry for smart, passionate, culturally aware soccer coverage.

Roger Bennett did not just predict the American century of soccer. He spent fifteen years building the infrastructure to cover it. As the world turns its attention to North America in 2026, that infrastructure is about to face its greatest test — and its greatest opportunity.