ISSUE 023: Shawn Francis, American soccer's creative director

IN THIS ISSUE

• 👋 Introduction: We’re going long, folks

• 👨‍🎓 Soccer Thought Leader: Shawn Francis

• 🗳️ One-click Poll: Tell us what you think…

• ⚽️ Soccer Jobs: Cool new gigs in soccer

• ⭐️ Featured Job: Director, Integrated Marketing - NJ/NY Gotham FC

INTRODUCTION

Hello, Pathwayers! 👋

Today we’re going deep with one of the individuals who has been shaping American soccer culture for close to 20 years. It’s one of the longest interviews we’ve published, but it’s chock full of interesting thoughts and useful takeaways.

Our Soccer Thought Leader has had an awesome, winding career pathway that includes significant experience in music and entertainment in addition to soccer. He’s had spells at MTV, MLS, and was the author of one of the most entertaining - we’re talking laugh-out-loud funny! - blogs in American soccer back in the day. Don’t worry, I linked to it below.

For the impact he’s had across soccer in the U.S. and A., I’ve dubbed him ‘American soccer’s creative director’ - and I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch for all that he’s done to help shape the culture of the sport.

I know you’ll take a lot out of today’s conversation. Enjoy!

-Kyle Sheldon, Co-Founder & CEO

Did you spot a job that we need to include or have feedback on the newsletter? Drop us an email!

SOCCER THOUGHT LEADER: SHAWN FRANCIS, AMERICAN SOCCER’S CREATIVE DIRECTOR

“Whatever your passion is in life, whatever you want to be doing, make a demo tape.”

It’s simply not possible in a few sentences to capture all of the impressive career stops, breakthrough creative projects, and other-worldly side projects (shout out Asbury Park FC!) of Shawn Francis’ award-winning career.

The man has crushed it on the brand side - at MTV and MLS - as well as for killer creative agencies like We Are Social and Team Epiphany, and worked with best-in-class brands the likes of Nike, EA Sports, Heineken, Under Armor, Amazon, Hulu, and many others (check out his personal website to dig deeper!).

Shawn was kind to share a ton of time for our wide-ranging conversation about the growth and evolution of soccer in America, the value of side hustles, being the original social voice of MLS, and a few of the things people perhaps aren’t thinking about ahead of 2026. There’s lots to dig into so you better get going.

By the way, Shawn is somehow, magically, a free agent right now. Scoop him up while you can, as he won’t be on the market for long.

Enjoy the conversation, soccer friends.

-Kyle Sheldon, Co-Founder & CEO

Questions and answers have been lightly edited for length and clarity (and any emphasis below is ours).

PATHWAY: Shawn, would you share your soccer origin story and give us a sense of how you fell in love with the game?

SHAWN: My origin story starts like a lot of soccer kids in America - You're 7 or 8 years old and your mom signs you up for some sort of rec league. I did that for a couple of years in Texas and Louisiana back in the eighties, but it just kind of fell off. At that time in my area, there were no travel teams or anything. There wasn't soccer in school. 

And then the summer of ‘94, the World Cup came to America, and me, my brother, and my girlfriend spent the entire summer on the couch just watching the World Cup, and that was the moment I fell in love with it, the moment I really kind of caught the magic. 

The U.S. team in ‘94 - it's just so funny because it was almost like a cartoon team - Alexi Lalas, redhead rocker guy, and Cobi Jones, guy with dreads speeding up and down the wing, and John Harkes, the Captain America guy. You just had all these characters, so it really caught me, but still, there was no soccer on TV, so it kind of went away. 

After graduating college, I moved to London. I was living in Fulham, the year Fulham won promotion for the first time in I think 17 or 18 years, if not longer. It was incredible, sensational. That's when I got fully hooked. I was like, I am in. If your first real exposure going to a soccer team week in, and week out, is a promotion-relegation battle, you're hooked. 

PATHWAY: You started your career in the music and entertainment industry, beginning at MTV. What were those early experiences like and then how did they shape your career as it progressed?

SHAWN: I was - and I still am - a big music person. It's always been a real passion of mine. Like every kid I wanted to be a rockstar, but clearly I wasn't talented enough to be that. I remember reading an interview in Rolling Stone or Spin Magazine. There was some guy saying, artists come and go, trends come and go, but management is forever. And I don't know why, but that struck a chord with me. I was like, okay, if I can't be the rock star, I can be in the business.

So, in college I started DJing, I started working at record stores. I Interned at Virgin Records, I interned at Sony Music. I'm doing all the things I could and then when I moved to New York, I got my first job at a small record label downtown that was doing dance music, but they were also owned by the Knitting Factory, which is a legendary downtown New York City live music venue. And it was fun. It was great. 

I ended up getting a job at MTV in the music and talent department and I was the Indie label rep, which was wild because it was the early 2000s, New York City was the epicenter of rock and roll again. You could go out in the Lower East Side or Williamsburg and you could see Interpol and The Strokes and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and then all these guys from all these bands would just be hanging out. I was the indie label rep, so all the labels who wanted to get their bands onto MTV had to go through me.

One day my boss called me into the office and said, ‘Hey, I’m going to send you to Vegas for the VMAs.’ I'm like, ‘okay, cool. What am I doing? Talent escorting?’ He's like, ‘no, you're going to tweet.’ I'm like, ‘okay, cool. Hey, what is that? What’s a tweet? What does that mean?’ To give some context, this is summer of 2007. The iPhone doesn't come out for another month, right? So Twitter at this time was strictly SMS text based. I've been doing it that long [laughs]!

But the great thing about that experience for me was figuring out what entertainment is. And ultimately that's what people want, I believe, from online experiences. Whether it's watching a video on YouTube or something through Instagram or TikTok, people do it to be entertained.

PATHWAY: You talked about doing a number of things to open the door to a career in music and entertainment. You did the same thing to break into soccer through your old soccer blog, The Offside Rules. Can you speak to starting side hustles and how that opened doors for potential jobs? 

SHAWN: The Offside Rules, that blog, that opened the door for me. And I say this very seriously, although it sounds kind of silly, it was the demo tape. If you know me, you know I love to speak in pop cultural metaphors. I think whatever you do, whatever your passion is in life, whatever you want to be doing, make a demo tape. Have something that's a project that you're not being paid to do, you're doing it just so that you can show what you can do and how you do it. 

And the Offside Rules for me was that. And crucially, it was filling a hole. I think one of the smartest things you can do is find the hole and fill it. 

You know, at that time, the blog landscape was littered with real journalists, aspiring journalists, and that classic sort of guy in his basement ranting where it's not really journalism. No one was doing the irreverent thing. And if you look around in that era, you know, the peak blog era. Blogs that were really successful at breaking through, not just in sports, were things like TMZ. It was the blogs that were talking about pop culture and gossip - Who's dating who? Who's got a silly haircut? Who did a cameo in this music video? I looked around and no one was doing that in American soccer. 

It was a serious sport, you know, no one was having fun. So I was like, I don't know anybody, so I'm not gonna break any news. I'm not gonna be able to tell you what the latest transfer is. I'm not an X's and O's guy. I can't break down a game for you. But, what I can tell you is that Beckham's new haircut is ridiculous. So, I kind of took that idea and ran with it. And I was lucky enough that my instinct was right. And again, ultimately it's entertainment. People wanted to talk about these things and stuff was easy to digest. 

It was cool because I felt like it was fun. And I just created something simple that even people that weren't really into MLS could jump on. I could look around and see all the things I would talk about would be in the Daily Mail or any newspaper in England for an English team. You didn't have any of that here. So, I tried to provide that as much as I could. And it worked out, it got me noticed. 

I got laid off at MTV and I was doing a little consulting for MLS, so I had met a couple of people inside the org and ran into Chris Schlosser, who is still there and currently SVP of Emerging Ventures. Ironically I was coming into New York to go to a job interview somewhere. And I'm in Times Square, 42nd street, sitting on the platform to change trains. Train pulls in, the door opens and Chris walks out. And I look at him, he looks at me and he goes, “I heard you're not working.” And I'm like, “Hi Chris, nice to see you too.” [laughs] He goes, no, no, I didn't mean like that. He goes, we got this new project. You got to come in, call me. I'm like, okay. Yeah. And I call him and he says, yeah, we're going to be bringing the website in house. He says, you know, [Commissioner] Don [Garber] loves your blog. And at that point it never dawned on me that anyone of importance was reading it. I thought it was just my buddies or whatever. 

So, long story short, it worked, because I had actually applied to a couple of jobs at MLS and didn't get them before. So, once I did this kind of thing, it's like when the right role opened up, the door opened up with it. 

PATHWAY: You started @MLSInsider, the original Twitter account for MLS, which has been dormant for over a decade, but somehow still has almost 300,000 followers. What was it like to be the voice of the league in those early years?

SHAWN: It was really a bit of a tightrope act because social media was so new. It was the wild west. I was just old enough to have enough maturity to know not to blow up the spot, but at the same time, still keep it fun. 

The tough thing at that time was there were two handles. I was doing @MLSInsider, but there was also @MLS, the official handle. And I did both. And the tricky thing was, at the time, people did not want any sense of flavor, if you will, on the official league handle. 

They wanted @MLS to be completely straight. And we tried it out. You know, we’d try some fun things on @MLS and then people would reply back - this is unprofessional. I could say the exact same thing on @MLSInsider and get a ton of retweets. For some people it was a little bit odd that MLS Insider had more followers than the official League handle, but it kind of proved a point. I think we've all seen this now that that's what people want. They go on social media to be entertained. And we were doing that. 

The thing I loved about MLS Insider, that I kind of could hang my hat on is, I felt like what I was doing at the time was new and fresh, but now it's table stakes, right? At the time, MLS was still such a young league, and didn't have a crazy amount of resources, so all of the behind the scenes things that again, are table stakes, now everyone does, no one was doing back then. 

And so at the time there were flip phones with little phone video recorders. I was just walking around every stadium with a backstage pass and a flip phone and was just snatching these little bits that people never saw. The things that you don't get to see in a TV broadcast - seeing the players in the tunnel, going into the locker room. At the time, the Commissioner at big games would do a press conference at halftime up in the press box when a new stadium opened or at the first game for an expansion team. And I would just record the whole thing and then upload it to the blog and people ate it up. 

I'm not going to say I pointed the way forward. I would never say that, but I feel like I pointed in the right direction of where things were going a little bit early. 

PATHWAY: You've spent the last decade working in creative agencies. How do you summarize the difference between working for a brand like MLS or MTV and working for an agency for multiple clients? 

SHAWN: For me, the main difference is what I call brain split. When you're working on a brand, MLS for example, or MTV, it doesn't matter what the brand is, you're mainly focused on different tasks during the day and different sorts of projects, but they're all in service of the same brand and the same mission - you know what you're doing, who you're doing it for, and why you’re doing it. 

When you go to an agency, you have that same thing, but you might split it across four, maybe eight different brands. I can pick up from an agency I was at two years ago where in the course of my day, I would go from Heineken soccer, they were one of our clients, and we were thinking about Champions League and MLS. And then an hour later, I'm on a call with the W Hotel on South Beach. I'm thinking about a luxury property, and how do I help them sell rooms, to going to figuring out a photo shoot for a rum client in Jamaica to, you know, Casio G-Shock watches. 

So, it really requires you to be able to move quickly and shift gears. You've got to really just shake off one thing and go to the other pretty quickly. 

PATHWAY: You've got a track record of generating big ideas over your career. How do you approach the process of brainstorming to land on something that sticks?

SHAWN: For me the first thing I think of is audience - Who are we talking to? Genuinely, what are they into? If I'm selling soccer, like, all right, what do soccer fans really want? And crucially for me, it's a lot of that comes down to casting when I'm leading teams. It's casting the right people to work on it. Some agencies, yes, it's one person thinking of an idea and executing it and writing it and all that. But for a lot of agencies, it's a team.

Having the right team and having people who are maybe part of the audience, I think is really, really crucial. But for me, it always goes back to what these people do? What do they want? What do they like? And then what is my brand place in that role? How does my brand offer value? I think that is the crucial thing.

And I think now, in the current age, crucial to add onto that, is to work with people in that world, people in that scene. You know, if you've got some idea that revolves around art, for instance, don't hire a random graphic designer who can mimic a look that's going around and then slap your name on it. Don't do that. Hire someone who's actually making that art in that scene and say, ‘hey, our brand has partnered with Artist X to do this.’ 

At the end of the day, I think people can sniff that out and they don't engage with it. I've told brands this before, and some people get it, some people don't, but no one is on social media to talk to your brand. That's not why they're there. If they've decided to follow you, you should feel humbled and blessed and lucky and give them what they want. Don't give them what you want to feed them because after they've been forced to do that a couple of times, they'll tune you out.

PATHWAY: As you think about the World Cup in 2026 is there anything people aren't thinking about that you're keeping an eye on? 

SHAWN: There's just so many opportunities. People are saying there's a lot of opportunities, but not thinking of how deep it goes. Think about the journey of the fan who's going to the World Cup. They're going to take the Uber to the airport, get on the plane, land, take an Uber back to a hotel, go out for dinner, meet up with a friend, and the next day go to the game. Take that journey, all of the touch points, there's someone who's going to want to be part of the World Cup story. 

There's an airline that wants to tell their soccer story, there's a hotel that's gonna want to tell their soccer story. Uber wants to give you the story of how you get to and from the game without having the hassle of driving. I can go on and on, but the trickle down - it's not just going to be the Nikes and the Adidas’ of the world and the official sponsors. All the way down the funnel, there's going to be stories to be told. 

There's going to be a lot of business to learn and a lot of clients to capture. I think the best thing any agency can do right now is proactively look at your client roster and say, ‘If I were them, how would I want to show my involvement in the World Cup?’ Even though I might not be an official partner, how would I want to include myself as part of the journey?

PATHWAY: Simply, what's your favorite thing about working in soccer? 

SHAWN: It's super nerdy actually, but it's the fact that it's still so nascent in this country. You know, Major League Soccer, it’s not quite hit 30 yet, it will very soon. U.S. soccer, I don't know, man - ‘94 seems like a long time ago, but really it's not. It's only 30 years ago. It's funny because we have so many options to watch soccer now on TV and streaming here in this country. But even 15, 20 years ago, it wasn't like that. 

For me, the fun thing is watching it grow, but being a part of the growth of the game - It feels like you're being a part of history in a lot of ways.

I look at baseball and I often think, man, if you could have been around, if I could have been around in the 1920s or 1930s, when baseball was forming, when a league is forming, when a pastime is forming, when a culture around the game is forming, that's a once in a lifetime thing. I don't think there's anyone under the age of 70 in this country that can say they were around for baseball, football, basketball, or hockey. 

Soccer is the one sport where you can say you were there at the beginning, at the ground floor, and really, hopefully if you're lucky enough, make some sort of lasting impression or do something that affects the growth, that affects culture.

Ed. note: You can connect with Shawn on LinkedIn.

SOCCER JOBS: THE MOST INTERESTING NEW JOBS IN SOCCER

New soccer jobs get posted every week and we like to highlight a few of the roles that stand out to us. So… here they are. 🙂

• Assistant Men’s Coach - UMBC

• Director of Ticketing - USL Portland

• Manager, Player Care - Angel City FC

• Coordinator, Safeguarding - U.S. Soccer

• Coordinator, Marketing - North Carolina FC

• Senior Director, Partnership Marketing - Philadelphia Union

Want to see all the soccer jobs in one place? Sign up for our weekly “Pathway Jobs Newsletter” where we aggregate as many as 100 new soccer job listings - and drop it into your inbox every Friday.

WHEN YOU’RE READY, HERE ARE A FEW WAYS WE CAN HELP:

1. If this email was forwarded to you, you can sign up here to ensure you get every issue (sent on Wednesdays!) directly in your inbox.

2. You can subscribe to our Pathway Jobs Newsletter, which hits inboxes every Friday and lists as many new soccer jobs in North America as we can find (usually 80+ per issue!).

3. And, if you’re a club or brand looking to hire the most ambitious talent in soccer, drop us a line and we can tell you about our process, our growing talent pool, and the services we offer.

GIVE US A FOLLOW

• X [Twitter!]

• Instagram

• LinkedIn

Until next time!

• John Bello

• Kyle Sheldon

• Nolan Sheldon