MLS has a new CMO—how the soccer outsider will approach the job

Radhika Duggal’s soccer experience is limited to watching her young daughter’s games—but she expects to be right at home at MLS, which is to announce her appointment as chief marketing officer today. Duggal’s arrival at the U.S. pro soccer league—her official title is senior VP and chief marketing officer, MLS and Soccer United Marketing—fills a vacancy at the league that has existed since David Bruce departed last year. Her appointment indicates MLS valued a marketer with a diverse skillset over a sports specialist. Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs Duggal has served as a marketing leader at startups (financial apps Super.com and CommonBond) and Fortune 100 companies (JP Morgan Chase, Pfizer) along with management consulting work at Deloitte. This background has prepared her to take on what she sees as the unique challenge before MLS: guiding a well-established entity through a wave of growth that awaits it. MLS has plenty of momentum behind it already. It’s in the middle of a 10-year media rights deal with Apple TV, with MLS League Pass subscribers in 2024 increasing from 2023, according to the league. (Apple has not shared precise viewership figures.) So far in 2024, league sponsorship revenue is up by 17% compared to the year-earlier period, and club sponsorship revenue is up by 15%. Sales revenue on MLSstore.com is up by 44% compared with the same period in 2023, and traffic to MLSsoccer.com is up by 102%. Attendance is up by 8% and season tickets by 15%, according to MLS. And Lionel Messi, considered to be the world’s greatest player, continues to be a major draw, with 72,000 turning out to watch his Miami FC club play in Kansas City, and 65,512 in attendance for Miami’s game at New England. Also read: Inside the rise of women’s sports marketing agencies But for MLS, there’s more to come. The eyes of the soccer world will turn to the U.S. for the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup, followed by the FIFA World Cup in 2026, which will be played in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Duggal sees these events as catalysts for new soccer fans, and her job is preparing to convert them to MLS fans as well. While her game plan for MLS is still in development, Duggal outlines her broad priorities and discusses how she will approach the job in the below conversation, which was lightly edited for length. Do you have any affinity for soccer or a background in soccer? I don’t have a traditional sports background, to be honest. But I will say a couple of things. My daughter plays soccer and scored her first goal two or three weeks ago. But outside of this being every child’s game, this is this is the world’s game. And I’m really excited about soccer in this moment, the ability to be part of the journey at this time period, when we have so many tailwinds behind us. I’ve worked in financial services, I’ve worked in health care, I’ve worked in consumer. But this is a place where, unequivocally, the product is about marketing fun and joy, and being part of culture. That’s what’s so interesting to me. It’s very different from marketing checking accounts, or medication, or even packaged goods. This is an unequivocally positive thing that I get to be a part of bringing to North America. And I think that’s what's most exciting. What do you see as the biggest opportunity ahead for MLS? It’s all about the opportunity to connect with fans. With all of the soccer that is going to be on our turf in 2025, and the World Cup in 2026, this is the opportunity to influence and connect with fans that’s almost unprecedented. And that’s what marketing is all about. This is the time to best understand what consumers want, how do they behave, and make sure that we are making every effort to have the right structure and processes in place to connect with fans in the moment in which they're interested in soccer, and then turn them into long-term, engaged MLS fans in the future. We often hear sports marketing people talk about the impoorance of connecting with young fans. How do you see that? We are the sport with essentially the youngest fan base [according to YouGov, the average age of an MLS fan is 37]. We don’t necessarily struggle with connecting with Gen Z. But I actually think there’s just a lot of value in taking a step back and thinking even younger. We know that so much of sports fandom is formed at a very young age—by the age of 14, in particular. And so a lot of our work is really focused on that. How do we make soccer not only part of everyday culture, but ingrained in what a family is talking about around the dinner table? How do we make sure that there are actually kids playing soccer at a young age? MLS has priorities in place to make sure that we are part of that dialogue with families and kids. So it’s not even just about Gen Z, it’s even one step before. [Also read: 5 Gen Z trends for brands to watch] The Apple TV deal had benefits in bringing a lot of new subscribers with Lionel Messi, but the subscription wall is still presumably cutting some viewers out. How do you see it? While many of our games are on Apple TV, there are many free matches out there as well, this past weekend (May 4-5) was a free weekend. What we love about that is that fans, no matter what you subscribed to, or what you don’t, have access to the sport, and that’s really important for us. As you think about nurturing that fandom starting at a young age, making sure fans have access to the core matches is important. But when we think about young fans, it’s about highlights, it’s about social, and making sure that those channels are really robust. We know that fans consume sports through a number of different channels. And we, especially in marketing, are really focused on making sure those other digital touch points are not only up to par, but best in class. Ad Age Small Agency Conference & Awards Join us July 23 & 24 in Boston Learn more here What other priorities would you have for the league right now? I’m just a couple of weeks into my tenure. And I’m really lucky to be joining a team that’s been in place for several years. So one of the things I’m trying to be very thoughtful about is learning about all the great work that’s been done to date, understanding where the team feels that they have gaps, and using that information to think through how I can best bring my experience to plug in. Anyone talking to CMOs knows leaders listen first, then they make their list of priorities. My job right now is to listen, and to plug in where the team can best utilize my skills. Are there particular brands or campaigns that have captured your attention? One of the things I’m noticing are these brands that are focused on experiences that ladder up to a broader purpose, like Lululemon. They have marketed a legging swap, and they have created these moments where they’ve captured content of women up and down the block in these very high-traffic areas who are willing to donate their leggings to get a free pair, and all the donations are given to a charity. What is really interesting about this is one event is that it’s meant to serve all of these many purposes. As I think about the work we’re going to do at MLS, we don’t have one event that we have to create ourselves. We have these big tentpole moments across a regular MLS season. And I think a lot about how do we take all of these incredible events that we have, and tell the story around each of them with the many legs of this stool.

MLS has a new CMO—how the soccer outsider will approach the job

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