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- [00:00]
Narrator/Advertiser
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Kathryn Shulsman
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Narrator/Advertiser
Radio News this Is the Business of Soccer the appetite for soccer in this
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Kathryn Shulsman
country is here to stay.
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Narrator/Advertiser
The global World cup of 26 will bring just that, the globe to the
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Interviewer/Host
United States every four years. You know, there's this moment where the world wakes up to the incredible athletes
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Kathryn Shulsman
that we have on the US Women's national team.
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Narrator/Advertiser
There are more soccer games available to
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Kathryn Shulsman
watch on television in the US Than
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Narrator/Advertiser
any other country in the world. Soccer, or as I would call it, living in the uk, Football is the
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Kathryn Shulsman
biggest sport in the world. There's a gap in the market around women's soccer and we're here to fill that gap.
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Narrator/Advertiser
Bloomberg Business of Soccer From Bloomberg Radio.
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Interviewer/Host
Welcome to a special edition of the Bloomberg Business of Sports, the Business of Soccer as we count down to the FIFA World cup, just over two months away. Today, I'm joined by the President and CEO of the Los Angeles Host Committee, Kathryn Shulsman. We're going to discuss what L A has to offer as one of the major hosts of the tournament, the fact that they're the home of the U.S. men's National Team, including hosting their first match of the tournament on June 12, as well as discussing security concerns with potentially hosting Iran. Katherine thanks so much for joining the Bloomberg Business of Soccer. I'm really excited to talk to you. The World cup is coming. It is right around the corner. Now, I'm curious, obviously, for you, you're planning these things for years, really, but when things finally come around the way they're around the corner the way they are now, do you feel like you wish you had more time?
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Kathryn Shulsman
Almost, yeah. You know, it's interesting. We started this in 2017, and it seems so far off, and even a couple years ago, we, you know, it seemed far off. And now to be, you know, 70. I forget what it is. 73, 74 days out. Yes. I mean, I feel like the clock is ticking right over our head. And, yes, I wish we had more time because there's so much we want to do, but it's coming, and there's nothing I can do to change that.
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Interviewer/Host
And what are those last few things, you know, you're hoping to get accomplished before first kickoff?
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Kathryn Shulsman
Well, it's not few things. There's a lot. So a lot of our. There's a lot on a lot of different levels. So, number one, on all of our community programs, we still have several community events happening to. Again, the whole. The whole purpose of bringing World cup here is to, number one, showcase our community to the world. But number two is give an opportunity for the locals to engage. And so we. We have a community day coming up, our second community day, Road to World Cup Community Day, presented by Amgen on May 9, where we're bringing community members together with local artists at a local school to help paint murals that will help welcome the fans that are coming to SoFi Stadium. So that's one. And we wish we had a little bit more time to do some more, but we have a community day coming. We have another Grow the Game clinic, because again, it's about what is the spotlight that is being put on soccer and giving people a chance to participate. So we have a youth clinic, a coaches clinic, and an official's clinic. Coming up on May 2nd, we have a bus tour, a mobile bus tour, Kick it with Us, that is traveling around the region and making different stops at all the events that are happening. And it kind of rolls up and then it rolls out with a clinic and all kinds of different soccer experiences for the people to participate in. So really, just, I think our biggest concern is making sure everybody in the community knows it's coming and knows what the opportunities are, where they can participate.
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Interviewer/Host
And how is L A as a soccer market, would you describe?
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Kathryn Shulsman
I think L A is definitely a soccer market with three professional soccer teams. But more importantly, L.A. is a big event market. Elaine loves the big events and we know how to put on the big events and we're used to putting on the big events. So World cup is the single largest, largest single sport event in the world and it is a big time event. The opening US Men's national team opening up for the US is a big time event and LA knows how to do it right. And so we are putting the finishing touches on everything we're doing during the opening week of activities and then the other activities going on for the rest of the 39 day tournament.
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Interviewer/Host
I want to talk a little bit about the teams that are going to be in market and those finally all came together just recently, right? The last few teams, Turkey and Bosnia, finally, you know, coming together for those last few games. Tell me about how you're planning on welcoming those specific teams into market and how you're planning on engaging with their fans.
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Kathryn Shulsman
So we've already, starting last fall, we have already had conversations with our consulates that are here and talking to them and making sure those consulates have all the information about what's happening here so they can push it out to their communities. They're the best, they're the best connected to do that. And so we're doing that. We've got some media promotion going in some of the different markets we are partnered with. And one of our host city supporters is Los Angeles tourism and LA tourism, that's all they do is market in international markets to bring visitors to Los Angeles. So we're working very closely with them to help tell the story and everything I told you about what all the attractions are here to tell people. Please start your World cup journey in la. That's been our tagline all along because of having the opening US match is start your World cup journey in la. And then the second part of our message that we've been trying to get out is everyone is welcome in Los Angeles. It's very important for us to get that out there. And so in partnership with Los Angeles tour tourism, we're able to do that. We have a bigger microphone internationally.
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Interviewer/Host
How impactful is it, you know, knowing those final teams and knowing just exactly who's going to be in market, like you said, so you can speak directly to them.
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Kathryn Shulsman
Hugely helpful. It was a big day for us yesterday and it's interesting, I was on Instagram last night and watching the Bosnia community literally just go nuts. I don't know if you saw any of the posts of how excited they are and how they rated their coaches. Press conference, the Players did. I mean, they were going crazy. And it's just, it's so nice to see that passion and fandom and something positive like that. I mean positive news stories are great these days and that, that to see people that excited to be an official part of World cup and then playing here. And so now knowing who we're marketing to, what the fan base is, because remember that we're not just marketing out out of market, we're marketing in market because Los Angeles is host to all these communities. I mean, we've always said that every team is playing a home match in Los Angeles because of the community that they already have living here.
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Interviewer/Host
Yeah, absolutely. And that's the other thing too with LA obviously, as it's so large and such a diverse market. Even with the teams who aren't going to be there, at least right now that you know of for the group stages, you have games, you know, throughout the tournament. Like you said, you're going to be host to eight matches. So how are you, you know, doing that with all the other teams that are going to be in the tournament that aren't going to be in the tournament, but fans that are going to be coming even if you're not sure if their team is going to be playing in LA yet?
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Kathryn Shulsman
Right, and that's a good point. So we have two matches around the 32 that we have, you know, technically four teams and we don't know who's playing in those. That's for other countries that could be here, Argentina, you know, just anybody. And then of course we have the quarterfinal. So we have a lot of opportunity for a lot of countries to play here. So our marketing pitch has always been to everybody, but with, with some, you know, more specific focuses to the consulates to make sure they're getting the information because they're here sooner and so. But we continue to pitch to everybody because there's people, there's a lot, the majority of the visitors that are coming just want to be part of World Cup. And so a lot of people come, you know, while they're from someplace and they have a country in mind. They may just want to come to Los Angeles, camp out here, go to some matches, be part of this world class event, watch their country from a watch party here. But we've always, you know, we want everybody to come here and spend their, you know, as much of their World cup journey here as they can.
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Interviewer/Host
Is there a large diaspora of like a certain country that is participating that you might not have in a game in market right now? But that you still are engaging with because there's just so many. There are so many people from that country or, you know, originally from that country in L. A.
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Kathryn Shulsman
That's a great question. I know. You know, we have a huge Croatian population here. We have a huge Mexican, you know, Hispanic population that's following Mexico. Huge, huge. I mean, we have a Mexico game here. It just goes nuts at so far. So there's a. There's a lot of. We're not, we're not specifically targeting anyone. We're. We're more general of, hey, we just want people here enjoying the matches, enjoying the watch parties that are happening in the market and participating. We're just, like I said, we're ready to welcome the world here. But it's a great question.
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Interviewer/Host
You know, LA is basically the home for the US Men's national team. Like you said, they have their first game there. They have another group stage match there and they'll also be their team basecamp is in California as well. Tell me about having them in market and how impactful that is for you guys.
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Kathryn Shulsman
I think it's very exciting to have them here again. It just brings having, especially in this time in our lives, to be opening with the U.S. men's National Team for this major event. It just is a great moment of pride and we're very excited. We've been building a lot of our marketing plans around that opening match and like you said, they are playing a second match as well. But having the home opener of the tournament of the World cup that we've been working eight years to bring here, to be opening for the whole United States is. Is a major source of pride for Los Angeles and that's what we're building a lot of our marketing around.
- [11:34]
Interviewer/Host
So like we were saying before, L A is a massive soccer market. The 1994 World cup was also held in L. A. The final was held there. Can you tell me what you're doing to kind of bridge, you know, the history of the 1994 World cup to this one? Since it's the first time we've held a World cup in the US since then?
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Kathryn Shulsman
Right. That's been a lot of our story. And interestingly, the person who chaired that whole effort, Alan Rothenberg, is on our board. He was part of the original bid. So we have a lot of that history of being. It's been part of our story all along that we are a soccer city. You asked earlier, you know, are we a soccer city? Yes, we have three teams here, but we also hosted the 1994 men's, we hosted 1999 women's, you know, so we have, have that history of posting that here. I do think that, you know, 32 years later from that, which is crazy. I'm sorry. Yeah, 26. Yeah, 32. Making sure my math is correct. 32 years later, it's a totally different tournament. I mean with, you know, 104 matches, 48 teams, it's just, it's a much bigger tournament on a much bigger platform. And I also think that when it was here in 1994, which is interesting, talking to people at that time, that soccer, you know, MLS wasn't around and soccer was a little bit of an unknown. You know, obviously soccer, everybody knows soccer for their kids playing soccer, but it was, we did not have MLS teams and I think there was a lot of question of how successful it would be. And we all know that 1994 was incredibly successful and the excitement in the market and people at the Rose bowl and a sold out event, et cetera. So that was very, very exciting. Then I think since that time, obviously there's a lot more interest in, in soccer. MLS has grown. There's a lot of interest in people owning teams. And so from a business perspective, soccer has grown so tremendously and so, so, so we've included in, in the history, but we think that this one obviously is going to surpass, you know, everything that was done in 1994.
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Interviewer/Host
Yeah. And what do you do with the. I'm curious how you work with the teams in the market, the MLS teams and the NWSL team that is in market. How often are you speaking with them in terms of trying to engage with the community and grow the game of soccer, Especially in the LA market, we engage a lot.
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Kathryn Shulsman
So our two co chairs, one of them is the CEO of LAFC and the other is the former president of the LA Galaxy and also a former US Men's national team player. So he's been really great. Chris Klein in the history and bringing in the players. And so that's been a big part of it. But yes, to your point, it can't. This is a tourism play for most cities. It's twofold. It's a tourism play and using the World cup, this major event, to bring people to your city to spend money. But the second piece of it is how do we use the spotlight and the excitement around something that is so big to get people interested and drawn into playing soccer. And so that's why our legacy program is built around the grow the game of soccer clinics, because we're we're doing 26 free clinics in market that are World cup branded to get people, you know, use the excitement of World cup to get people to come on out and try it or if they've already tried soccer, to play it a little bit more. But just again to, to get people involved in a sport that really does a lot of good in the community.
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Interviewer/Host
Is there a certain number that you're looking for in terms of youth participation, you know, numbers growing in the region or in California as a whole or anything like that that you're hoping comes from having the tournament there?
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Kathryn Shulsman
Don't have a specific number. Just hope that we have made a lot more people aware of the opportunity to participate.
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Interviewer/Host
Now one of the other things that goes along with community impact is the economic impact as well. Can you tell us a little bit about that and how much of an economic impact you're expecting?
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Kathryn Shulsman
Yes, we did an economic impact report. I think it was $892 million of economic impact. And again what we, we did on our economic impact report was make sure we were super conservative. And then when you add in the media value that we have over, we're estimating over a billion dollars of impact. That's, that's actually lower than most of the other city economic impact reports. And again, it was just us trying to be conservative. But I always remind people that the economic impact, it's definitely there. You know, the hotel business, there's people coming to your market and spending, spending money. But the really important part is the visibility for the future so that the spotlight that is on our city for 30, we're 31 days of the 39 day tournament. So 31 days during the tournament, but really more importantly over the last several months and really now coming out as hard as a ton of media attention about la, about LA as a host city that we did not, we would not have gotten unless the World cup was here. I mean, LA always gets media attention, don't get me wrong, but there's just much more of it on la. What, like the questions you asked, what is there to do, you know, where can we go? Are we going to, you know, and using that, that's the thing that keeps me up at night. How are we using that media attention to show, showcase and, and show the best story about our city to the world?
- [16:58]
Interviewer/Host
When you're planning out a tournament like the World Cup, I can imagine, obviously like you'd said, you, your L A is not new to hosting big events, but it is different in terms of how global it is. And how everything like that works. So can you tell us a little bit about how you have to work across, you know, infrastructure, security, safety, all of those other things to ensure a successful World Cup?
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Kathryn Shulsman
Right. No, it is. It's definitely different than everything. It. Having. Having it over, you know, 31 days. So you're not just having a one. Like a Super bowl is a one event in one week. This one, because it's. It's so international and it's so different and so much political attention on it makes it a little bit trickier and more complicated. So it's been. I'll use an example of one thing that's different than other events that we have are in the World cup, they have fan marches. So the fans that have a ticket to the match get together at some designated place and march over to the stadium together. That was new to us because we didn't have that in some of most of the other sporting events that are here. I haven't seen it before. So just trying to play again, they march peacefully. It's all about, you know, fandom and they're excited and, you know, to go march up to, you know, watch their team play. And it's a show of support. So. But the. The logistics of that operationally and where are they going to gather, how are they going to march and not impede traffic? How are they going to march and not impede all the other people that are going to the matches? Just adds another layer of difficulty in planning that. Happy to do it, excited that they want to do that, but just adds. It's. It's another layer that goes into your operational planning. So it's been a. The coordination that's required of doing this, because it's not. We're not a standalone event either. We're one of 16 cities and we're one of 11 cities in the U.S. there's been a lot of. What's also been different is this time is that the 11 US cities have worked very closely together to plan and coordinate things. Now, everybody, every city has, is doing something a little differently. Every city has different challenges, different ways are laid out. But it was really important to all the 11 CEOs of the host cities to collaborate as much as we could, because we know if something goes wrong in Philadelphia or Kansas City or Miami, any of the other cities, it impacts all of our cities. And so there's a lot of communication that needs to take place. And every city operates differently. Every city is set up a little bit different governmentally on how they do IT and jurisdictions, et cetera. And every city is not just one city. Some cities, in our case, you know, we're hosting it in la, but the stadiums in Inglewood, the same thing in Dallas and same thing in a couple of the other cities. So it's. There's just been a lot more challenges that way. And I think the other thing that's been different and unique about this tournament that makes it much more challenging is FIFA. The organizing entity, is used to hosting an event in one country with one governing group. They're hosting literally 16 different events with 16 different governments. So the level of detail and the logistics that go on hosting 16 different mini world Cups takes it to a whole other level.
- [20:29]
Interviewer/Host
Yeah, that is something that is right. Especially different in this World cup, as opposed to just the last one we had in 2022, which was all very, very condensed in Qatar. Can you tell me a little bit more about how that works? I mean, like, for you, in those conversations, when you're, when you're spread across the entire country, when you're spread across all of North America, what are those conversations like logistically? What are those conversations like in terms of. Wow, were you at all surprised at how intense it was and how actually kind of hard it was to plan something across such a big landscape?
- [21:08]
Kathryn Shulsman
Yeah. Can I go back to the other question, too? You asked me something about 1994, too, that kind of ties into what I was just telling you. In 1994, when they did World Cup, Alan Rothenberg and his team were in charge of all the host cities. So it was one structure. So they essentially were what FIFA is playing the role of now. So they made the decisions across. So it's really kind of one company that had, you know, some different. I want to call them franchisees because they work different offices in different cities, and this one is, is completely different. So that's, that's what makes it so
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Interviewer/Host
difficult having to be one entity like they were in 1994. And then now it being across 16, across FIFA, across the U.S. you know, federal government, across everything like that. I mean, was that at all more challenging than you feel like you thought it would be working across every entity
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Kathryn Shulsman
that you have to 100% more challenging than I thought it was going to be. This has turned into. Because there are multiple cities, because it hasn't been done before. The model was being built as they were flying it. And so that makes it challenging versus when we did the Super bowl in 2022. The NFL has now, of course, the NFL hadn't been in LA for 29 years. So similar situation, but the NFL did it the year before and the year before that and they had a model and they, you know, so of course they're open to changing things up to be in a particular city, but they had a model of how it's done. You could look to other city, you know, you could look to how it'd been done over the last couple of years. There was no situation. What was done in Qatar had nothing to do with what we were doing here. So we didn't have, we didn't have, in 1994, really didn't have anything to do with what we were doing this time because it was so long ago and a completely different organizational structure. So this one was a brand new, you know, it would be. Not to say that I'm advocating for this, but it'd be nice for somebody if they were doing it again in a year or two or whatever with the same model and could build off of the experience. You know, all the institutional knowledge we have now gathered will be gone, you know, after, after this event won't be able to be used again because they're not going to be doing it like this again. So it's, it's kind of a shame there. But we didn't, we did not have any institutional knowledge from other events that happened prior, like in Qatar, like in Russia, that were really helpful to us in planning this event. The good news for us is that we did have 11 US host cities with people who had experience in running big events and knew what they were doing and they also were working with. This is different than 2022 and this has been a big benefit for FIFA. They're working with stadiums that were already built, that already were running, already did a big event. I mean, our SOFI stadium, our team has done the super bowl, the national championship. I mean they've been doing event after event since it opened over the last six years. So the team has experience and knows how to do it. So they can, they can kind of dictate what is best practices, which is really a huge benefit for us. And all the other, frankly, all the 16 host cities having operating stadium in place with a staff running, because I believe in Qatar at least in one of the stadiums, it was a brand new stadium that they literally had to bring in. People never worked it before. Right. So having that is truly has been a tremendous advantage of having just such an experienced team at SOFI Stadium and, and all the other stadiums around the country.
- [24:39]
Interviewer/Host
Well, hopefully the same recipe will be able to apply for the 2031 World cup for the women, the Women's World cup, cross my fingers that that comes to the US for sure. Catherine, one of the other things that I, you know, want to get on your radar as things are ramping up, and like you said, this is kind of one of the most. All of the political attention that is on this World cup and the amount of time that's left. Are you in constant conversation of, you know, changes that could happen to games and things like that? And, you know, what can you say in terms of how you prepare for everything that's going on?
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Kathryn Shulsman
I'm guessing you're talking more about the
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Interviewer/Host
Iran Y ran situation. Yeah, and just like, yeah, like, if there's any changes that are happening on that front and, and how you even prepare for something like that to happen.
- [25:32]
Kathryn Shulsman
Yeah, no, that's. That's been interesting. Again, another little. Another level of challenge for us. But, but frankly, we have, you know, the team hotels are in place, the team training site's in place, the stadium's in place. It doesn't matter who's playing there. So operationally, it doesn't matter which country is coming and playing. Now, if it's Iran, there'll be some additional security, security challenges that will need to be addressed given what's happening in the world. But frankly, given what's happening in the world, I mean, security is our number one, two and three priority. I mean, it's everything we think about every day. I mean, my goal at the end of this tournament is to. To have had no publicity about our security because everything went great and there was no problem and no issue. So. And the people talking about, you know, our weather and the great city and the great matches and the fan fest that they went to, nothing about, you know, any. Any concerns there. So that's what we all are planning for and working toward, and we have a tremendous team there. But every match is a security challenge, so there's a lot of planning going on anyways. There's not. There's not one match where we're saying, oh, this is. Is a walk in the park and we don't have to, you know, worry about this. We worry about every single match.
- [26:52]
Interviewer/Host
All right, Catherine, well, what. On last note here, if you had to end with the note right before, you know, kickoff, you know, for L. A, what you want it to look like, and then what you want, you know, the fandom and people to know about L. A after the World cup
- [27:09]
Kathryn Shulsman
is done, I want people to feel like, first off, that they, that they are incredibly welcome in our city for the visitors and that they had, I mean, again, we just want them to have a tremendous experience here, even if their team doesn't, even if their team doesn't win, even if they're not there, that they got a chance to experience a whole side of LA that they had never seen before and they had a great time and that they want to come back. I mean, that's from a visitor's perspective. That's all we can ask for. Have a great experience here. They're going to go home, tell their friends they had a great experience, they want to come back and be here even if they weren't at a match, but that they were. It just was such an exciting time. The other thing too, I would mention, and the thing I hear the most about, and I'm hoping people will be talking about this for years to come, is a lot of people come up to me all the time, whether it's around the World cup, the 1994, 1999, or if it's about the Olympics, is that they've all got a great story to tell of some experience that they had something they got to go to, something they got to see. They did it with their family and, and it made this indelible impression for them. It was, it was a life, you know, once in a lifetime experience. I want people to leave with some kind of a once in a lifetime positive experience from our city that they're going to remember forever.
- [28:21]
Interviewer/Host
Absolutely. I mean, just Even watching on TV, I can still remember the 1999 World cup at the Rose Bowls. Most iconic moment, I think, in sports bra, right? Yep, exactly. Catherine, thanks so much for taking the time to speak to us on the Bloomberg businesses soccer. I really appreciate, appreciate it.
- [28:39]
Kathryn Shulsman
Well, thank you for, thank you for your interest in what we're doing.
- [28:42]
Interviewer/Host
That does it for this edition of the Bloomberg Business of Soccer. Keep checking in with us as we count down to the kickoff of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
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