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Roger Bennett and Matt Jarvis // Soccer Upfront (Media Forum) - Part 2
14 Plays4 days ago
In part two of this special doubleheader, Kit Magazine presents Roger Bennett of Men In Blazers in conversation with 72andSunny’s Matt Jarvis.
Recorded at Frankfurt Kurnit in Lower Manhattan on June 5, night two of the 2025 Tribeca Festival.
Recommended
Transcript
00:00:06
Speaker
Bye.
The Spectacle of Upfronts and Cultural Moments
00:00:10
Speaker
The television upfronts and digital new fronts, Big Media and Big Tech's annual dog and pony show for advertisers, is a sales pitch on one hand, read on the industry and cultural moments on the other. The marriage of art and commerce, of business and creative talent, of innovation and the zeitgeist is something we endeavor to channel, albeit minus the spectacle, with our soccer upfront in New York City on June
Conversations with Industry Leaders
00:00:30
Speaker
5th. And indeed, it manifests larger than life in the second of two conversations from the evening between captains of industry and architects of culture in their own rights.
00:00:37
Speaker
Here is 72 and Sonny's Matt Jarvis with Men and Blazers, Roger Bennett.
00:00:47
Speaker
Roger. Matt. Roger Bennett.
Roger Bennett's Influence on American Soccer Culture
00:00:50
Speaker
Matt Jarvis. For those of you who don't know, Roger Bennett has been... ah ah someone who has observed, participated, and built American soccer culture um for a long time. And I was telling them beforehand that in the event ah the men's team wins the World Cup in our lifetimes, we will build a shrine with all the bricks of the people who participated and and helped us get there.
00:01:18
Speaker
And you, my friend, will have more bricks than anyone else
Imagining American Soccer Success
00:01:22
Speaker
I know. I just want to say thank you for all American soccer fans. want say how lovely it is to be here with you all. It's lovely to be with you. I'm very American now. I always like to say that I'm more American than like Kenny Powers.
00:01:35
Speaker
I love living in America. I love the rise of football here. The little bit of Englishness that's still left in me is a huge dose of self-loathing. So I won't have anybody, especially not you, Matt, say nice things about me in public.
00:01:49
Speaker
ah But I did like the idea of the US men winning the World Cup. I got to be candid. That would be when that happens, when that goal goes in, when Gio Reyna shakes off the chains of over-parenting, just scorches that goal from 70 yards that does Saudi Arabia in the final.
00:02:07
Speaker
I think I'll just like my wife will look over on the couch and I'll just be like, there'll be a little trickle of blood and I would have died a very happy
The Evolution of American Soccer Culture
00:02:15
Speaker
mouth. from your lips to God's ears, Roger. I'll take it. All right. but um I want to talk about culture and so and soccer culture in America, and because you're not only an expert in in soccer, but i think a keen cultural observer of American culture.
00:02:33
Speaker
um You came here in 1994, moved to Chicago, a World Cup year, and now cut to today. You've been on quite a journey. you talk about American soccer culture when you arrived what you and what you see now and where you think we are?
00:02:50
Speaker
Yeah, i mean I was living in Chicago. i moved here because of the Chicago Bears. um like if This was a team that had been terrible. They'd reinvented themselves. I felt if they told me they could do anything, I could do anything with my life too.
00:03:05
Speaker
And I moved over here. um and i can tell you what soccer culture was like the world cup i remember arriving right before it i mean i moved here in 93 the day after arrived in chicago michael jordan retired the first time but um i felt so bloody guilty i felt like i'd ruined it for everybody and um i can now there's a study about a month out from the world cup by the way i assume there'll be a study the month up very similar and i think the pew foundation did a study that very proudly said, 0% of Americans give a shit that the World Cup's happening in America. No one's going to go.
00:03:39
Speaker
It's going to be a failure. And I remember being so shocked by this, that the game I loved, I'm from Liverpool, it's how we announce ourselves to the world, you know, through football. I was so terrified that no one was going to go. The opening game was in Chicago. You remember the Diana Ross penalty that she missed from six yards out and all that stuff.
00:03:57
Speaker
I didn't have the money to get in. I had no money to get a ticket, man. I was like getting furniture from um for moving day, just from backyards, stuff that was chucked out. I was so terrified that America was going to not give a crap about football.
Drivers of Soccer Popularity in the US
00:04:12
Speaker
I went to Soldier Field just to walk around like a third cousin at a bar mitzvah to kind of fill space.
00:04:18
Speaker
And I was shocked when it was mobbed by, yes, Bolivians, yes, Germans, lot of Lederhosen, too many Lederhosen for my liking, but There's a lot of Americans there. Americans love a circus.
00:04:30
Speaker
And I've watched World Cup to World Cup as this audience almost left behind by this great circus, um like flotsam and jetsam on the beach got bigger and bigger and bigger.
00:04:41
Speaker
So I'll just say we are now in a place, you know, 2026. We're almost a year out. It's going to be an incredibly exquisite moment for all who love the game. And I'm assuming that most of you do or you wouldn't be here sitting through this crap tonight.
00:04:57
Speaker
and um But it's going to be an enormous moment. And it's been driven by broadcast, by cable, by streamers. Each of these streamers, like Dan, realizing that football fans' niche, deep, emotional, connective audiences are the ones who are mad enough to pay $8 a month for their product. We buy out all of them.
00:05:17
Speaker
They put us there. EA Sports, FIFA. a game that sensitized an entire generation of American youth to the Star Wars cantina of teams, players, tournaments across Europe. They've fallen in love through that, which is very complex and wonderful.
00:05:33
Speaker
um And the combination of the the rise of the women's team, which has shown um Americans that Americans can kick ass to try to rid that sense of self-loathing we feel in the sport. There's been many drivers, but it's been incredibly sweet watching the Premier League in particular post-2014.
00:05:50
Speaker
become this deeply profound part of American sporting life. And it's been my honor to witness all of it. Awesome. um And when you think about where we are, i don't want to, um one of the things I love about your your podcast and your book is you have um fantastic optimism.
Challenges in American Soccer: Coaching and Accessibility
00:06:10
Speaker
you You have the power of a possibility. And um when we look to the future and where we want to be as a soccer culture and a soccer nation, um I'm curious what you see are as the constraints to that. The things that are getting in the way for us, anything from coaching quality to a pay-for-pay system that makes it really hard for young talent to on-ramp, um competitive issues from other sports. What happened? When are the men going to kick ass like the women did?
00:06:41
Speaker
Or are you talking about as an audience of viewership? I guess one of the most negative men you'll ever be in your life. Some of my questions, which comes first, the culture or the victory?
00:06:54
Speaker
um i probably am thinking culture can promote us forward. Maybe we need a victory to pull the culture, but... um How do you see that dynamic? That's a very deep question.
00:07:05
Speaker
I'd rather talk about my own pessimism. ah Anyone that knows me, I'm like, always constantly, we create something. always like, this is what i didn't like about it. We've got to work on that. I'm a very negative, very...
00:07:17
Speaker
I think football, honestly, is the thing that makes me feel optimistic. It's the thing even in this moment of darkness. It makes you feel joy. It makes even if it's fleeting, it makes you feel a sense of hope. It makes you feel globally connected.
00:07:29
Speaker
makes you feel alive. That's why I love the sport, honestly. And that's its great gift in this moment. As the World Cup comes here, listening to those guys who just spoke, there's nothing like it Because there's nothing like it in American. You can't even compare it to American sports. When two teams take the field, their nation's histories, their nation's politics, their nation's culture take the field alongside them. That's what we're about to watch here in Houston, in Kansas City.
00:07:56
Speaker
it's It is a collision of of wonder. it It's power. It's emotional power. And it's fraught. it's We're living in a very fraught time. um in a very politically geopolitically complex time. of Football is just a mirror of the reality that surrounds it. That is also its beauty.
00:08:14
Speaker
So it's a very powerful time. It's a very frightening time. The World Cup will be all of that. um But i to answer your question, succinctly, look, culture is so important.
Growth and Accessibility of Soccer
00:08:25
Speaker
audience is so important where there's audience there's money and where there's money there's group growth and evolution um so the audience is now massive there's audiences and for our network we started off as one podcast uh back in the days when podcasts were insane things we thought we were just like two cans and a piece of string laughing with each other and then the second episode we got a phone call from liam neeson asking if he could come up
00:08:51
Speaker
I was like, well, I didn't even know anyone was listening to this crap. but I wanted to connect emotionally to people talking about football. And what was one podcast is now 1500 a year. We've got 25 different formats.
00:09:05
Speaker
We've got a Champions League, Premier League platform. We have a really fast growing women's platform, which is under Sam Mewis. ah one of the best footballers of her generation and had to retire too soon and has reinvented herself as a deeply emoted broadcaster.
00:09:20
Speaker
And we're now growing a Hispanic platform, speaking to second and third generation ah um ah audience members who love football, ah but in ah in it in a slightly different way ah than the original brand.
00:09:35
Speaker
And so there's audiences and communities and are all thriving. uh in their own way in the united states and as they grow you know it goes back it's a it's a it's a virtuous circle but i've got to say i was in uh the weekend i was in yeeden pennsylvania uh with tyler adams at the weekend he's a captain we should be the captain of the usd and he opened a micro court in um um in a in a public school in an underserved area and there were 150 kids who'd come to train with him.
00:10:06
Speaker
um And so the simplest answer to the question, if there was that times 100, that is what football, where it thrives, that is where football thrives in England. That's where how football thrives in Catalonia. That's how football thrives in every serious football country.
00:10:23
Speaker
And we really need that accessible football um football for all football that's affordable ah football that's joyful and the coaching is terrible here still ah but that you know coaching ultimately it's about loving the sport loving the ball loving the ball at your feet and having more of what I saw on Saturday is really the thing we know we we need in this nation for the game on the men's side to ah and be the same as the one that lives only in our dreams.
00:10:50
Speaker
That's a great vision. Take that great idea and multiply it because um certainly many of us who are parents and gone through the club soccer rigmarole, even with well-educated, two-parent resource
Cultural Influence on Soccer's Identity
00:11:07
Speaker
households. It's like crawling over broken glass sometimes to to have kids actually just play soccer, it seems like. It's true. We did that in 2014. I did a study with an economist at Princeton ah where we studied the socio-economic background of NBA All-Stars, NFL All-Stars, and then the equivalent U.S. men's national team players.
00:11:34
Speaker
And it was genuinely astonishing. Essentially, we've in in um in the United States, we've won the suburbs. ah You've won the most affluent suburbs, and that's the game can happen.
00:11:46
Speaker
uh be played and ingrained and i tell you the footballer i love and i adore him as a human beast chris richards coming out of alabama uh coming out birmingham alabama coming out of football country um and thriving and winning and grinding and sacrificing and fighting um to succeed and win something bloody hell an fa cup at crystal palace um you know his mentality is very different than if he'd grown up fighting and grinding and dreaming in in liverpool or um you know uh in um in andalusia or uh in chile um and that's ultimately uh it's not just the physical and the tactical it's the mental um reality that we've got to change it's turning into a seminar on how
00:12:32
Speaker
the United States is going to win the World Cup. um So we can do that shrine thing that you talked about at the beginning. Every day, Roger, every day. um ah On the subject of you're kind of talking about some of the personality of of soccer and and um You know, there are many nations who have different ah footballing styles and and kind of they they bring their their cynicism, their optimism, their efficiency, what have you, onto the field with a style and a personality.
00:13:01
Speaker
I'm wondering, as you look at um American soccer, what DNA strands of American culture, or American personality would you like to see more of?
Strategizing American Soccer Success
00:13:13
Speaker
and I mean, winning. You guys love winning. You do. And this by the way, it's part of the challenge for Americans is um you love things that win and you love things that are number one. You call your NBA the world champions. You call your Super Bowl world champion.
00:13:29
Speaker
And the honest truth is the best men's league is in another country. And it's kind of an anathema for American sports. So there's that. um But the honest ah but what what the best thing is that football by 2030 is going to be that the best players on the male side will be the perfect ah refraction of America from a diversity perspective.
00:13:52
Speaker
And to me, that's its strength. Football is the greatest unifier. I look at like the yeah the English women's team. When you played football when I was a kid, if you were a girl, you were laughed at. We were a misogynistic, horrific culture.
00:14:03
Speaker
but You speak to Emma Hayes, flung to the outside. That women's team winning a tournament is the best face of Britain at the moment. There's not that many faces that it has to compete with that are nice.
00:14:15
Speaker
and But that team is beautiful and incredible and articulate and powerful. And in the same way, um football... can and should be all of those things. Jürgen Klinsmann came in 2000, and when was it? Like 2011. And eleven and he did a crazy press conference where he was like, have to have your thing. Football should be the DNA of the country, a refraction of it. America, you want 10 players attacking, 10 players defending. listened to it. I was like, you know, you to win in international football, you don't have to do any of that. You just need to fight like hell.
00:14:49
Speaker
You need to know each other. You need to trust each other. look um Look at Morocco in the last bloody World Cup. Why never us? Honestly, look at Iceland in the Euros. Why never us? Look at Wales in the Euros.
00:15:02
Speaker
Why never us? a Part of it is because we're overcomplicating crap. Only us are trying to be like, not only do we need to win, but we've got to play like Barcelona in 2012. You don't. yeah You just have to have a, you know, ultimately is I keep screaming this is what's so crazy about the Berhalter era.
00:15:21
Speaker
Like you don't have, you don't get style points. Just stop leaking goals, fight everyone, punch them a little bit in the ribs when the referee's not looking and nick a goal or two from set pieces. And we will get into the semifinals at least. And then it's open water.
00:15:35
Speaker
and So the players just want to play and fight. There's a lot of frustration amongst the players. Um, This is not Pochettino thing. This was before Pochettino. But the DNA thing, it's just like, just let these, these guys are super, super talented. It's the hardest question that no one can answer right now.
00:15:54
Speaker
Why are these players playing so well at the club level as individuals, but when they get together, they're playing like shit.
World Cup Optimism and Challenges
00:16:00
Speaker
um And that's the one that we've got 367 days to answer.
00:16:06
Speaker
So um how are you spending the World Cup, Roger? what's What's the plan? oh Busy man, I know. It's a crazy time to be alive. This is a very joyous moment. I want to say it's such a beautiful moment.
00:16:20
Speaker
I mean, America's tough. It's like any other country. And you would be like, oh my God, the World Cup. Like genuinely, if the World Cup was in England in a year's time, they would be pissing themselves every single day. They'd be out in the streets drinking hair. That's just a Tuesday anyway. But they would be toasting, counting down as a nation collectively.
00:16:38
Speaker
oh In America, you've got like the Super Bowl, and then you go right into ah Daytona, and then you go from Daytona into that hockey final four thing, and then you go into like the Masters, and then you've the golf, and then you've got the March Madness, and like...
00:16:55
Speaker
The World Cup can't break through the ice. So that is pretty fascinating to me. um And I do think about that Pew poll that came out couple of weeks before the night. No one cares. No one will care.
00:17:06
Speaker
Club World Cup's complicated. Talking very fast now. Club World Cup's kind of a complicated piece of misdirection, I think. um People will a lot of think pieces. Is the World Cup doomed here? The Club World Cup was a bit of a disaster.
Transformative Potential of the World Cup
00:17:18
Speaker
The World Cup will be amazing. World Cup will be complicated. but There's a World Cup scenario, which is the World Cup of our dreams. is a World Cup scenario where the the box has, you know, Victor Orban has, um you know, several characters that are like, wow, why are they looking down on these proceedings, bringing out the match ball?
00:17:38
Speaker
um So there's there is a darkness and an uncertainty. Speaking to people in Europe, they're asking, are we even going to get in? ah There's a fear and a chaos, but that always crackles away.
00:17:49
Speaker
yeah Brazil, was meant we were all meant to be murdered. That was the fear going in there. oh it was the greatest experience for everyone. 2010, and two thousand and ten and was the same in South Africa, the panic going in. And then once a ball is kicked, just football is emotional, not rational. It becomes just an an eclipse that strikes the entire planet.
00:18:11
Speaker
But this one for 39th Street, this is the blutiest World Cup of all time. It's going to go on forever. as i um There's more teams than there are. think there are nations in the planet. of I think there's a group out in this World Cup. there's The World Cup is that big. It's going to be exquisite.
00:18:28
Speaker
um And what are we doing? we're going to you know Ultimately, we don't know who's going to win the World Cup. We think USA and Saudi Arabia will be to fight in I don't think he's going to win. um Ultimately, we we're going to do, all I can say is we've worked hard. i care about every city that's running the World Cup. I think these that's what I care about.
00:18:48
Speaker
is like This is Houston's moment ah like for the world. Remember Atlanta and the Olympic Games? and atlanta became When you speak to Atlanta, it's that incredible city, that magical kingdom.
00:19:01
Speaker
Atlanta announced itself to the world in the Olympics. Atlanta should. Take that times 100 through this. Houston, Kansas City, across the world, they should all be eating burnt ends at the end of the World Cup.
00:19:15
Speaker
They should be eating lemon pepper wet. they should be They should know the best of our nation. So all I can say is we're doing some quite big things in every single city. I'd say college game day-esque. We're going to go from sea to shining sea.
00:19:31
Speaker
um And I just hope that it's a dark time. It's a time of some challenge. And I hope that all of us get to raise a glass on this journey. The World Cup has stopped wars in the past. It's healed fractious nations. It's created.
00:19:47
Speaker
moments of true meaning and global connectivity that has made people surge. I mean, that's been fleeting, going to be candid, but I hope that for all of us, like we get to enjoy it in that time, make memories together, and most of all, take none of it for granted because it's been an incredibly long journey to get from Diana Ross missing that penalty to whatever's going to happen in 2026.
00:20:11
Speaker
Great. Well, thank you very much, um Roger. Thank you.
00:20:21
Speaker
are This interview was recorded at Frankfurt Kernet in Lower Manhattan on June 5th, night two of the 2025 Tribeca Festival. See the previous episode of Seven Aside for the earlier segment from the Evening's program. The Athletics' Sebastian Tomich and CBS Sports' Dan Weinberg in conversation with Axios' Sarah Fisher.
00:20:40
Speaker
With thanks once again to our partners Frankfurt Kernet and to our speakers, our guests in the audience, and you, our listeners here, this is Evan Howell signing off for KIT Magazine and Studio Santiago.