Procter & Gamble Co. is making a big addition to its roster of sports deals, agreeing to a multi-year sponsorship with Major League Soccer that’s akin to, and aimed at, complementing its existing deals with the National Football League, International Olympic Committee and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee.

The agreement covers tie-ins with the Mexican National Team’s U.S. Tour and the Leagues Cup and Campeones Cup competitions between MLS and Mexico’s Liga MX teams. It includes Gillette, Old Spice, Crest, Oral B, Dawn, Charmin and Bounty.

Those brands are “the starting point,” says P&G Chief Brand Officer Marc Pritchard, but all of the company’s brands can eventually get involved. He sees brand participation in the sponsorship likely to grow over the years, as has been the case with P&G’s NFL sponsorship.

The MLS tie-in puts P&G brands in front of a league whose demographics are strong on Gen Z, millennial and Hispanic fans. MLS interest over-indexes among Hispanics while the NFL has had marketing challenges with Hispanic fans because it has relatively few Hispanic players and coaches. MLS and NFL seasons also have relatively little overlap, Pritchard says, and combined cover nearly a full year.

“These games are going to be televised on networks like Univision, Telemundo and Televisa, so it gives us an opportunity to reach our Hispanic audience,” Pritchard says. He says 71% of the U.S. Hispanic population is interested in soccer, 15 points ahead of the general population, and the league has eight teams in the top six U.S. Hispanic markets.

Both P&G and Gary Stevenson, MLS Deputy Commissioner and president and managing director of MLS Business Ventures, say the MLS is the fastest-growing U.S. professional sports league. Stevenson notes MLS’ strength beyond the Hispanic market in a large number of U.S. ethnic communities because of soccer’s unmatched international footprint. He and Pritchard both say the impending arrival of the 2026 FIFA World Cup in North America is likely to be a catalyst for further growth during the deal.

“We often talk about our sport being set for the new North American demographics and culture and music,” says Stevenson. “All those things that define today’s young audience feel like things our sports league represents.”

The P&G deal is unusual for MLS in the breadth of brands represented, Stevenson says. “We liked the idea that you can use their full family of brands to activate with us. For a sport like ours that’s growing, they can grow up in the marketplace and take us deep into communities where we really want to be.”

It didn’t hurt that the two sides have growing familiarity in P&G’s headquarters town, where FC Cincinnati became an MLS expansion franchise in 2019 and is set to open a new stadium in May. Like other sports, MLS has seen the opening of its season shortened and delayed last year and this, but games, with limited in-person attendance, officially get under way this weekend.

As part of the deal, P&G will work with MLS and others to “help families overcome barriers like cost and travel to ensure more equal access to the game at all levels,” from attendance to promoting competition at the collegiate level. Previously P&G’s Secret brand in 2019 bought 9,000 tickets to National Women’s Soccer League games to help back equal pay for players and increase fan exposure. And Secret likewise has been vocal for years in support of the U.S. Women’s National Team efforts to get pay and accommodations equal to the men’s team.