MLS Kicks It With Messi, Beckham in Biggest Campaign Yet

Major League Soccer isn't waiting for World Cup fever to cool off before making its move.

The league has launched "Thanks World, We'll Take It From Here," the largest coordinated marketing campaign in MLS history.

Timed to the season's return on July 16 and 17 after a World Cup pause, the effort links the tournament's global attention to weekly MLS matches.

"At a defining moment for soccer in North America, MLS is turning global excitement into lasting engagement and connection," said Camilo Durana, executive VP and chief business officer at MLS.

"As the World Cup inspires new fans, our clubs and communities are ready to welcome them as the season resumes and the next chapter of their soccer journey begins with MLS."

Local rivalries and in-stadium experiences carry the rest of the pitch.

Built by global ad agency Ogilvy, the league's agency of record, the national spot features a mix of club owners and current players, including:

• David Beckham (Inter Miami CF)
• Matthew McConaughey (Austin FC)
• Magic Johnson (LAFC)
• Kevin Durant (Philadelphia Union)

This lineup will be accompanied by MLS players like Lionel Messi, Son Heung-Min, Antoine Griezmann, and Timo Werner.

Celebrity casting is standard practice for the MLS, and the scale here is what makes this different from past league efforts.

Owners like McConaughey and Durant carry entertainment and NBA audiences into a soccer ad, widening the media buy's reach at no extra cost.

Taxis, Cameos, and Fireworks

The ad opens with an MLS-branded ball flying toward a stadium, stopped by Messi standing alone in the middle of the pitch.

"Hey Leo, can we kick it?" Charlotte FC captain Tim Ream asks, as other MLS players start showing up one by one.

Son arrives in a taxi, while others arrive by plane.

Durant and McConaughey make a surprise cameo in magazine front covers, singing the 2014 hit "Can I Kick It?" by hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest.

The spot closes on a festival-like celebration inside the packed stadium, with Messi giving Beckham the go-ahead to launch the fireworks.

"Thanks world, we'll take it from here," reads the final card.

Fifteen MLS clubs built localized versions of the spot for their own markets.

These tie into Soccer Celebrations and fan viewing events running across all 30 clubs.

Every club is running welcome offers for new fans, with 22 giving away "First Match On Us" tickets to first-time attendees.

MLS also commissioned an Amazon Music Original cover of "Can I Kick It?", produced by DJ Premier with new vocals from Samara Cyn.

Cornerstone and The FADER worked on the track alongside the league.

The campaign debuted during FOX's coverage of the World Cup semifinals and final and expanded to Apple TV and TSN, with a run through August.

Lay's is riding the same wave with several of the same faces.

Lay's tapped Messi, Beckham, Thierry Henry, Alexia Putellas, and Steve Carell for "The Epic Watch Party," a global tie-in centered on surprise fan encounters.

MLS is pointing these same names at the weeks after the World Cup final whistle.

Both campaigns rest on the same assumption of celebrity marketing, that big names still move fans who have already seen these stunts.

Messi alone has appeared in World Cup work for Lay's, adidas, Michelob ULTRA, LEGO, and now MLS inside a single tournament cycle.

Beckham appears in both the Lay's spot and the MLS one, more than a decade after his 2013 retirement.

But his World Cup brand workload this year runs well past these two campaigns.

About a dozen tournament endorsements show how his personal brand outlasted his playing career by more than a decade.

A 59% Viewership Jump

MLS is using star power to pull tournament viewers into its own clubs and stadiums, like customer acquisition dressed up as a highlight reel.

MLS opened the 2026 season with 387,271 fans at Matchday 1, the highest single-match weekend attendance in league history.

Viewership hit 9.7 million across linear and streaming, a 59% jump over the same point in 2025.

Part of that gain came from a distribution change, as the league retired its MLS Season Pass as a separate purchase.

A new fan can now go from watching the ad to watching a match without buying anything.

If you're a marketer eyeing a similar handoff strategy, a few lessons stand out:

• Time it to the calendar. MLS set this to the exact week fans are primed to keep watching soccer, which did more work here than any single name in the spot.
• Localize the follow-through. The 15 club campaigns are what turn national star power into an actual ticket sale.
• Give fans a next step. Free tickets and events hand new viewers something concrete to do, which is where the conversion actually happens.

This standing inventory of 30 stadiums and weekly matches is what gives the sports marketing play somewhere to send new fans every week.

Our Take: Did MLS Win This Handoff Back in February?

MLS stopped selling MLS Season Pass back in February, which quietly handed this campaign its call to action.

We think that the free-to-watch slate is what makes the pitch credible, because a new fan can act on the ad the same night they see it.

Star power still does real work here, with nearly a fifth of the record opening weekend crowd coming from one Messi and Son match.

The risk is that MLS is giving away the stream and the ticket at once, which trains a brand-new fan to value the product at zero.

The campaign also stops in August, right when that fan decides whether to pay for a second visit.

We think the fall is where MLS finds out whether the weekly match holds up without a celebrity spot pushing it.

Brands planning global sports campaigns need creative partners who understand how to connect to a fan's experience before the event begins.

Explore the top sports marketing agencies in our directory.