How Sporting KC and MLS can capitalize on Kansas City’s World Cup afterglow

The end of the World Cup in Kansas City is a bit like the end of summer camp.

Everyone came together over a shared interest in soccer. And whether that interest was brand-new or decades old, most left the experience changed in some way.

Events like the World Cup, especially when staged as successfully (as this one has been), typically serve as a launch point for further growth.

The 1994 World Cup in the U.S. was an entry point to soccer for many Americans. Major League Soccer and the Kansas City Wiz began play two years later.

Fast-forward 30 years and KC is a 2026 World Cup host city, a town abuzz with love for a month. But this isn’t new. For just about every match played by the U.S. Men’s National Team, we’re the nation’s top market for viewership. That was true for World Cup ratings through the Round of 16.

Sporting KC — the rebranded Wizards — has long been part of the sports fabric here. The KC Current have catapulted themselves into the conversation, too.

But that conversation hasn’t really included much of Sporting KC for a while now. Since 2018, the club has had just two seasons with a winning record. Sporting hasn’t won a trophy since 2017 and sits in last place as MLS resumes competition after a five-week break for the World Cup.

Sporting KC and MLS have run promotions in recent days, saying, “Thanks, world. We’ll take it from here.” The push is obviously on to ride a wave of momentum — to catch a ride on the World Cup rocket.

MLS commissioner Don Garber spoke with The Star in KC recently and said he hopes that “10 to 15 years from now, the 2026 World Cup will be something we’ll look at with a great bit of historic energy that helped propel us to a league that’s bigger, better, stronger and more influential in the world of global football.”

Sounds good, but how exactly is Sporting KC positioning itself to “take it from here,” as the slogan suggests?

Hoping for more growth

Major League Soccer launched about 30 years ago with 10 teams. Today the league has teams in 30 markets — stable franchises, world-class facilities and a vibrant pool of players.

Sporting KC’s revitalization some 15 years ago — rebranding from the Wizards, building and opening Sporting Park — came under the ownership of Kansas City entrepreneurs Cliff Illig and Neal Patterson. In turn, as Sporting KC won a MLS Cup and played host to the MLS All-Star Game, KC played a significant role in a growth period for MLS.

Sporting KC proved MLS teams could thrive in small markets, paving the way for more smaller-market clubs.

“They got a bunch of local partners together,” Garber said of Sporting KC, “and they built something that put us on the path to where we are today, which is a total transformation of what soccer in the breadbasket of America could be.

“Without Sporting Kansas City, we don’t have Cincinnati, we don’t have St. Louis, we don’t have the resurgence in Columbus, we don’t have our new stadium project in Chicago.”

But if you have the stadiums, the facilities and the general stability — like Sporting does — what’s the next step? Where does the investment go? Garber wants MLS to be more influential in soccer’s global conversation, but that depends on American clubs investing heavily in top-level players.

Relative to other MLS teams, Sporting KC has been notoriously cheap when it comes to player investment. Whether it’s transfer fees or total roster spend, Sporting has spent the past decade in the bottom third.

But that may change soon, thanks to new majority owner Peter Mallouk.

The owner of the future

Mallouk purchased Sporting KC’s majority ownership share in January. He has since signaled that major investments in the roster are forthcoming.

“Peter represents the next generation of owners for Major League Soccer,” Garber said. “We are so proud and honored to have him be part of our league, and look forward to the contributions that, in time, he will make to taking Sporting Kansas City and Major League Soccer further in years to come.”

While the Illigs are still part of Sporting KC’s day-to-day operations — and maintain their seat on the MLS’ Board of Governors — Mallouk doesn’t seem to be holding back on his own involvement.

He told The Star in January that the metric he would care most about as an owner is whether the team wins. He said fans should expect a “big financial commitment to do whatever it takes to build upon what we’re building upon this season.”

He interacts on social media with fans, bloggers and national reporters, sharing his own discontent with Sporting KC’s results to date this season — the team is a dismal 3-2-9, dead last in the league’s Western Conference standings. He has promised change and a stepped-up commitment to paying for quality players in months to come.

Recent rumors linked Sporting KC to global star Mo Salah, who had just finished his World Cup run with Egypt. While Sporting would not have to pay a transfer fee to add Salah, Mallouk and his fellow owners would need to open their wallets pretty wide in order to compete with what Saudi Arabia will no doubt offer.

Of course, this pre-supposes that Salah looks to leave Europe this summer as a free agent. But rumors so much as linking Sporting KC to a major player suggest change really could be in the wind.

Urgency and investment

David Lee, Sporting KC’s president of soccer operations and general manager, spoke with reporters for the first time since February on Tuesday.

He acknowledged the need for urgency and sound decision-making in utilizing Mallouk’s money to improve the squad. Adding good players is obviously paramount, no matter the cost. But in the past, “no matter the cost” has really come with a spending limit.

“As Peter has come on board and we’ve had conversations,” Lee said, “I think we are open to looking at players that maybe prior to this we had not been thinking about financially.”

Along the Salah rumors, Sporting KC has also been linked to wingers Yann Gboho and Andre Luiz, who would represent a different type of investment. Both are reportedly seeking an initial fee of $20 million before they’ll so much as discuss a contract with a suitor.

Each is 25 or younger, entering the prime years of his career and supremely talented. Sporting KC currently has three discretionary spots to fill on its roster — those spots can be filled with either one designated player and two U-22 initiative players, or three U-22 initiative players.

While Lee has indicated for the last calendar year that Sporting would lean toward the 2DP/4U22 model, perhaps a third DP will be the move.

One way or another, Lee said he will look to fill those three “discretionary spending” roster spots during this window. They will be attack-oriented players, Lee said; KC recently added three defensive newcomers.

Lee knows that big investment won’t necessarily correlate directly to better results.

“There are many teams that are the highest-spending discretionary fund teams right now,” he said, “and they are teams that are towards the bottom of the table, and have been.

“For us, it’s about getting the right players at the right prices and using whatever resources we have to try to make the team better. Not just simply about spending the most money.”

Whatever investments are made next, results must follow. Otherwise, Sporting KC will miss out on an opportunity to catch a ride on the World Cup rocket.

Daniel Sperry covers soccer for The Star. He can be reached at sperry.danielkc@gmail.com.