SBJ Unpacks: U.S. Soccer gives J.T. Batson ‘long term’ extension

Tonight in Unpacks: With the USMNT kicking off its FIFA World Cup run Friday, U.S. Soccer endorsed the growth it has seen under J.T. Batson’s leadership with a “long term” contract extension, reports SBJ’s Alex Silverman.

Also tonight:

• BIS: Panel says now is the time to invest in women’s sports
• Sources: NBA Europe and EuroLeague gain ground, but still no merger
• Report: Lakers social posts generate top brand exposure
• Op-ed: U.S. Soccer has one job post-World Cup

Listen to SBJ’s most popular podcast, Morning Buzzcast, where Jenn Azara, Ethan Joyce, Bret McCormick and Irving Mejia-Hilario share highlights from Tuesday’s Brand Innovation Summit lineup and preview the second day of sessions.

U.S. Soccer has agreed to a “long term” contract extension with CEO and Secretary General J.T. Batson, who has led the federation through a period of massive commercial and fundraising growth since joining in September 2022. The extension comes on the eve of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, with the U.S. men’s national team set to play its first group-stage match on Friday against Paraguay in L.A.

Under Batson’s leadership, U.S. Soccer generated $263.7M in revenue during the 2025 fiscal year, up 121% from the fiscal year ending in March 2022. The federation has budgeted to earn $397M during the current 2027 fiscal year, a sign that it is capitalizing on the momentum driven by the first men’s World Cup in the U.S. since 1994.

Batson has also overseen the planning and construction of the recently opened Arthur M. Blank U.S. Soccer National Training Center, the organization’s first dedicated performance center outside Atlanta that also houses its business operations. That project was boosted by a revitalized fundraising apparatus, which helped secure eight-figure contributions from Arthur Blank and Michele Kang.

On the sporting side, Batson oversaw high-profile, big-money coaching hires for both the men’s and women’s national teams: Mauricio Pochettino and Emma Hayes, respectively. Those moves will be put to the test at the 2026 men’s and 2027 Women’s World Cups.

The improved financial performance has also enabled U.S. Soccer to launch and expand initiatives aimed at improving access, participation and development across the soccer ecosystem. Under its In Service to Soccer strategy, the federation has developed the U.S. Way, a new framework for player, coach and referee development and expanded Soccer Forward Foundation programming around community soccer, soccer in schools and member resources.

Batson, whose role in U.S. Soccer’s turnaround has made him a rising figure in soccer administration, has been rumored as a potential successor to MLS Commissioner Don Garber, whose contract expires at the end of 2027. Multiple sources said Korn Ferry, which is leading the league’s commissioner search, contacted Batson regarding the role. The search process is believed to be in its advanced stages.

Financial terms of Batson’s “long term” contract extension with the nonprofit federation have not been disclosed. The 44-year-old earned $898,787 in reportable compensation during the 2025 fiscal year, which ran from April 2024 through March 2025. That was up from $805,240 in FY 2024 and a prorated $174,695 in FY 2023 after joining midway through the reporting period.

Alongside recently re-elected President Cindy Parlow Cone, Batson will be tasked with ensuring the federation can sustain momentum coming out of this summer’s World Cup. The U.S. is still slated to host the L.A. Olympic Games in 2028 and, potentially, the 2031 Women’s World Cup alongside Mexico, Costa Rica and Jamaica.

CHICAGO — “It’s incredible, but we can’t take our foot off the gas.”

Amber Cox from the Indiana Fever started the “Momentum of Women’s Sports” panel Wednesday at the SBJ Brand Innovation Summit with both appreciation of the current moment and a call to action to not let up.

Now is an ideal time to invest, and the Fever COO/GM warned those on the fence not to wait.

“The price is going to continue to go up, because this thing is going to continue to grow and grow and grow,” she said.

Earlier this year, the Golden State Valkyries became the first women’s team to cross the $1B mark in valuation, according to CNBC. The panelists agreed that the rising values lift all teams and even change the way teams and leagues are evaluated.

“In the past, women’s sports were looked at in a very short window. Did you make money this year? Did you not make money this year?” said Amy Scheer, PWHL EVP/business operations. “You wouldn’t be evaluated season over season over season. And now the investments are long term, and they understand that, OK, we’re going to start a team, we’re going to start a league, and we may not make money today, but we are in this for the long haul.”

The PWHL, entering its fourth season, uses a league ownership model and has expanded to 12 teams with the addition of four clubs for the 2026-27 season.

Brand deals on the women’s side of sports cannot just be a copy and paste from the men’s side, the panelists agreed. A holistic approach is required.

Dove and Gotham FC worked together to create “Keep Her In the Game,” a program built on attacking the problem of girls dropping out of sports much earlier than their male counterparts.

“When a brand makes an investment in a partnership, it’s really important that we’re going to be able to build in a way that’s really authentic and consistent,” and Ryu Yokoi, Unilever’s chief media and marketing capability officer. “We always say we want to build worlds instead of chase moments.”

Added Gotham FC’s CRO Alex Chang: “As a club we felt was important to address and develop a program around, but we couldn’t do that and be successful and scale the way we want to without support from partners like Dove.”

The hometown Sky are building a $60 million practice facility, and Meaghan Savin, director/strategy and solutions, corporate partnerships, said that’s an opportunity to build partnerships in a way that feels natural to the team.

“Who are we using for technology? Who are we using for training and gym equipment, and how do we make sure that we’re telling the story of how they’re making us the best athletes, how they’re helping propel the coaching and the analytics and everything,” Savin said.

The NBA, EuroLeague and FIBA held what was described as “constructive discussions” Wednesday on a potential NBA Europe collaboration and, with momentum gaining, have scheduled a follow-up meeting for early July.

Staged in Mies, Switzerland, Wednesday’s widely anticipated get-together was reportedly attended by NBA Europe Managing Director George Aivazoglou; EuroLeague CEO Chus Bueno and President Dejan Bodiroga; and a FIBA delegation led by Secretary General Andreas Zagklis. The core issues were likely what a potential merger would look like and whether EuroLeague clubs -- which are about to become franchises -- would need to pay the full $500M-to $1B entry fee the NBA is seeking.

“We all understand that if an investor wants to participate in whatever league, not just in the NBA, in every single league, an investor has to invest money because that’s what they do, right?” Bueno had said last week. “But for a team, it’s different. A team like Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern, or Olympiacos is bringing the IP, the fan base, the 100 years of history, the tradition and the city. They already ‘own’ their cities, and that needs to be taken into account.”

While EuroHoops reported there was no significant progress Wednesday, other sources said the exchange was positive and negotiations were picking up. In a joint statement, the three entities would only say: “Representatives of FIBA, NBA and Euroleague Basketball met today at the FIBA Headquarters in Mies, Switzerland, where they continued the constructive discussions on the future of European basketball and on potential opportunities for collaboration. A new meeting will take place in early July.”

Both NBA Europe and EuroLeague had prefaced the session by saying they are willing to move on with or without each other -- although Bueno told EuroHoops last week that, if a deal is to happen, he’d prefer a full merger with all 13 of his franchises. Meanwhile, NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum said last week that a 16-team NBA Europe without EuroLeague “would not be ideal” and that he believed “all parties should align here for the best interest of basketball.”

One complicating factor is that Tatum has said the NBA wants final bids by the end of June. But with still no resolution from EuroLeague and with an early July meeting now on the calendar, that June 30 deadline could fluctuate.

The Lakers generated a league-high $102.6 million in social media value during the 2025-26 regular season, according to a report scheduled to be released Wednesday by Zoomph, giving significant exposure to its corporate partners.

The Lakers’ posts that included clear exposure of its jersey patch sponsor, Bibigo, generated a league-best of $2,960 per post. The brand’s five-year sponsorship ends this month, according to SBJ’s Jersey and Helmet Sponsor Directory.

Zoomph puts each brand into one of 22 industry categories. The brand that generated the most social value in 13 of those segments had either an NBA arena naming-rights deal and/or an NBA jersey-patch partnership. Crypto.com gains exposure via a naming-rights deal with the Lakers and via its patch on the 76ers jersey. Robinhood’s patch is on the Grizzlies’, Heat’s and Wizards’ jerseys; and Motorola’s logo is on the uniforms of the Bucks and Bulls.

Frost Bank continues to generate exposure thanks to the presence of the Spurs in the Finals. The Experience Abu Dhabi patch on the Knicks’ jersey is one of a growing list of non-North American companies partnering with NBA teams.

The report also took a fun look at the exposure brands received during player arrivals. Twenty-eight teams sponsored arrival content at some point during the season, but fewer than half of teams consistently posted and branded it.

Season 1 took the Athletes Unlimited Softball League on a tour around the country. Now, those teams — plus two more! — have home markets.

The league’s second season kicks off Tuesday, and I caught up with Commissioner Kim Ng as The Team hosted an event at the Lenovo Center a couple weeks ago to welcome the Blaze to the Triangle.

Our conversation is edited for length and clarity.

SBJ: How do you feel about the momentum you’ve built with everything that’s happened since Season 1?

Kim Ng: Last year completely exceeded my expectations in terms of what I thought we would do in Year 1. But seeing that roll and that momentum from opening day, there was a couple of weeks to go and we still hadn’t quite sold out opening day. Then just watching it build and seeing fans from not just the areas of the markets that we were in, but people traveling across the country to come watch us, I think really informed us and really gave us a lot of data (in Season 1) in terms of the hunger and the drive of that softball fan.

Some of the staff from Round Rock came up during one of the games and they said, ‘What you’ve brought here has been incredible. … Our fan base and your fan base is completely different.’ So just the young demographic, the young girls coming into the ballpark, excitement, energy, the show that we put on, the presentation that we put on, the caliber of the talent and then leading it to the offseason.

Having each of these six markets bear hug us and really welcome us with open arms — it’s indicative of what is going on in women’s sports today. It’s eye-opening. And I think communities and markets are thirsting. They’re thirsting for competition. They’re thirsting for content. They’re thirsting for elite-level competition.

SBJ: What are you expecting now having the teams based in the communities this year? And what do you get out of adding Oklahoma City and Portland?

KN: Listen, this is Year 1 in the markets right now. We’re looking to establish relationships and good collaborative working relationships. We have to build this, and it’s about finding the right people and engaging. One of our goals is to be a pillar of the community. We understand how sports draws people together, how sports in all different times, all different periods and events can inspire, can comfort and can just entertain. So the idea that we now become one of those active members of the community I think is really an important role that we need to step up and fill. And from the markets, we’re looking for creativity. We’re looking for engagement. We’re looking for introductions. We’re looking for being able to tap into people’s markets so that we can continue to grow and build.

Oklahoma City, as we looked at it, I mean the fact that the Olympics are going to be there for softball in 2028 and obviously the College World Series and seeing what they’ve done in that town, I just couldn’t see opening up a league without having it as one of the first six. ... Oklahoma City absolutely had to be a part of it. It was a very strategic decision. And that’s just the bottom line.

SBJ: How much collaboration do you expect from other women’s sports properties?

KN: This has been a whole new world for me, coming from decades of being on the men’s side. Those are all very mature, sophisticated systems, so what I see here is in many ways they’re very much competitors here. We’re competing for dollars, but I think that there’s been such a scarcity of amplification and scarcity of women’s sports in general that there’s so much to go around. What I have seen since coming over to the women’s side is immense and unseen collaboration across the different sports.

That has been completely eye-opening to me — sharing of information, sharing of best practices, being able to pick up the phone to other leagues and say, “How do you handle these types of situations?” So that’s been awesome.

SBJ: How are you feeling about where you guys are commercially from a business standpoint already at Year 2?

KN: We have a lot of interest. I think you always want to do better. Where we are broadcast-wise, I think we’re great. Cheri [Kempf] and her staff have done such an incredible job. I was just giving examples about how ESPN has been just an incredible partner finding us great time slots, great positioning on their outlets. And so from that perspective and then adding CBS, continuing on with MLB Network, but them positioning us on Sunday nights I think was really helpful. And adding consistency and fans understanding where they can tune in (helps too). So to have all of our games on these big networks, we’re just so excited.

The 2026 FIFA World Cup will be the biggest commercial event in American soccer history.

It is projected to generate roughly $17.3 billion in domestic economic impact. It arrives less than a decade after one of the darkest nights the sport has experienced in this country: the U.S. men’s national team’s failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup.

Since that collapse in Couva, Trinidad and Tobago, American soccer has responded the way it usually does. It has built.

MLS has expanded to 30 clubs. Two competing third-tier professional leagues have launched. Club valuations hit a billion. Stadiums have opened and sponsorship dollars have surged.

By every business metric, soccer in the U.S. is growing.

If 2026 is supposed to mark American soccer’s arrival, there is one uncomfortable truth we cannot avoid: The U.S. still does not produce talent close to the rate of the world’s leading footballing nations.

Per capita, Spain produces top-five European league players at 120x the rate of the U.S. Croatia, with a population smaller than Brooklyn and Queens combined, develops more top-five league talent than the entire U.S. Senegal produces top-five-league players at roughly 40 times the U.S. rate per capita with one-fortieth the GDP per capita.

The problem is allocation, not infrastructure.

For decades, American soccer has poured capital into facilities, administration, league expansion and participation growth while neglecting the most important investment any serious soccer nation makes: free player development.

The U.S. has an access problem.

The pay-to-play model is the defining flaw in the American system. Elite youth soccer costs $8,000 to $15,000 per year between club fees, travel costs and showcase expenses.

In most elite nations, clubs invest in identifying and developing young players because successful development creates downstream sporting and financial returns. In the U.S., many youth organizations monetize participation itself, treating talent as cash flow instead of investment. The incentive turns from long-term investment with long-term returns to short-term gain.

U.S. youth soccer is a consumer business. The U.S. is one of the few major soccer nations that operates its professional and most academy leagues without promotion or relegation, which means weak academies carry no sporting consequence. FIFA’s solidarity contribution and training compensation mechanisms — designed to reward youth clubs when their players are sold — are not fully enforced by U.S. Soccer. The result: Outside the MLS academy structure, developing a player carries no financial upside for the club that develops them. Finally, youth governance is split across at least six overlapping, competing bodies, each of which monetizes membership instead of measuring outcomes.

The 2026 World Cup gives U.S. Soccer a once-in-a-generation opportunity to change this precedent.

If the federation is serious about building a competitive future, it should commit a majority of its post-World Cup windfall to one clear mandate: Every professional club in America should be required — not encouraged — to operate a fully funded, free-to-play youth academy.

This must be a licensing condition across the professional pyramid, with federation-backed scholarship support helping smaller clubs fund academy operations without taking any financial hit. What seems to be a radical concept is a global standard.

Germany made this exact structural bet after its disastrous Euro 2000 campaign, mandating fully funded academies across its professional leagues. Every Bundesliga club was required to operate a federation-licensed academy meeting specific staffing and infrastructure standards. The result was not only a World Cup win in 2014 but also a long-term player development pipeline that strengthened both club and federation economics, producing legends like Toni Kroos, Mario Götze and Thomas Müller. Christian Pulisic, America’s greatest soccer star, developed in this German model after leaving for Borussia Dortmund at 16.

American soccer needs to adopt an existing model instead of building a new one.

The business rationale is just as compelling as the sporting one.

A single top-five-league sale can generate $50 to $70 million. Pulisic’s $73 million move from Dortmund to Chelsea in 2019 went entirely to Dortmund, with no American soccer entity seeing any revenue. Elite player development increases club valuations, creates transfer revenue opportunities, and strengthens domestic leagues. Most importantly, it raises the commercial ceiling of the national team itself.

A U.S. men’s national team that consistently competes at the highest level would create long-term media, sponsorship and licensing value that another round of expansion announcements or capital projects could not replicate.

That is the legacy opportunity of 2026.

The World Cup will leave behind more than memories, highlights and financial returns. It will force a choice.

American soccer can spend this windfall the way it has spent every major growth moment before it — on more infrastructure, more overhead and more expansion.

Or the federation can invest in the one asset that determines whether any of that growth matters: players.

The World Cup will either become the launch point for a new era of American player development or the most expensive missed opportunity in the sport’s history.

We’ve spent 30 years building the business of American soccer. Now, it’s time to build players.

Brando Babini is founder and director of Youth 4 Youth FC. Jackson ten Oever is a partner and technical director of Youth 4 Youth FC, a player-led soccer development platform focused on expanding access to elite training and mentorship.

• Reactions of college leaders at the NACDA Convention ranged from irritated and irate to despondent in the wake of the ruling permitting Texas Tech QB Brendan Sorsby to play next season despite his thousands of dollars of bets on sports, including his own team, reports SBJ’s Ben Portnoy. Even NCAA President Charlie Baker called it a “new low” during a Q&A session.
• The IOC’s executive board voted Wednesday to approve a new process to review disciplines in the Olympics and those which future hosts could add to the Games, writes SBJ’s Rachel Axon.
• Fox Sports plans to take full advantage YouTube’s ascendance over Netflix with a collaboration during the World Cup for an “Always On” livestream, writes SBJ’s Austin Karp.
• An invite-only crowd of nearly 300 congregated Tuesday night at Memorial Coliseum for the L.A. host committee’s official World Cup kickoff party, featuring celebrities such as soccer legend Mia Hamm, actor Will Ferrell, former NBA player Robert Horry and singer Melissa Etheridge, notes SBJ’s Chris Smith.
• WME Sports is expanding its events ambitions with the hire of veteran tennis and event executive Chris Jackman as its VP/sports events and experiences, notes SBJ’s Irving Mejia-Hilario.