IN THIS ISSUE

INTRODUCTION

Hello, Pathwayers -

Last week, I referenced my first professional year in MLS - 2005 at D.C. United.

The League was only 10 years old at the time.

It was The Freddy Adu Era.

I was an entry-level Communications Coordinator making $24,000 a year (seriously) and living in a Capitol Hill row house with four other guys (seriously).

And, truly, I was absolutely living the dream. I couldn’t believe I was getting paid to work in the sport I loved. I was having the time of my life.

It’s the reality of those early days that serve as the inspiration for today’s Career Tips article - and an acknowledgement of just how far soccer has come over the last 10-15 years.

It’s written especially for the person who has pursued a career outside of soccer in mind - perhaps because they didn’t see a career in the sport as a viable option.

I don’t think that’s the case anymore. And I do my best to outline why below.

Let me know what you think. I can’t reply to every email we receive, but I do read every single message and love hearing from all of you.

-Kyle Sheldon, Co-Founder & CEO

PS: We’ve recently launched our newsletter storefront - you can now sponsor the newsletter, post a featured job, or ensure a job listing in our weekly rundown.

NEW SOCCER JOBS

Most of us won a World Cup in our backyard growing up. We dreamed of the packed stadium and the PA announcer shouting our name. We dreamed of glory on the field.

Like me, perhaps your playing career didn't pan out (DIII collegiate bench warmer over here!).

But, like me, perhaps your love for the world’s game never wavered - and that's the part that actually matters here.

You already know the business-side jobs exist in soccer. That's not the gap anymore. People coming up today can name the job functions long before they'd have known to look for them ten or fifteen years ago.

What's still holding experienced people back isn't awareness.

It's a much quieter assumption: that some of those jobs aren't quite real careers.

That working in soccer means trading down. Smaller budget. Smaller team. Less sophisticated work than whatever you may be doing now. The job is the reward - you take it because you love the game, and you accept less in return.

For a long stretch, that was true.

I’m not so sure it is anymore.

WHAT ACTUALLY CHANGED

Over the last decade, soccer in America stopped being a passion project with a business attached, and fully became a business.

You don't run any of that on hustle and good intentions.

An organization at that scale needs what every serious business needs: people who can set the right prices, build a data stack, negotiate a contract, own a P&L, protect a brand, and hire well.

Which means these roles aren't favors handed to whoever was willing to work for the badge, in the sport they loved. They're jobs with budget, headcount, and consequences.

YOUR EXPERIENCE IS THE POINT, NOT THE PROBLEM

The old worry was that ten or fifteen years outside the sport made you an outsider.

The maturing of the soccer industry has started to invert that.

Clubs and leagues are now hiring out of media, tech, CPG, entertainment, and hospitality - on purpose. When you're building a real commercial function for the first time, you don't want someone learning it on your budget. You want someone who has already done it somewhere in a serious fashion with serious consequences.

If you’re a subscriber here, you already have the soccer part down.

You've followed this sport closely for years - you know the leagues, the clubs, the calendar, the culture. Nobody reading this needs to go learn the game.

What you've been carrying around as the disqualification - some number of years spent building a career somewhere else - is the thing many of these organizations are actually short on.

WHERE THE GROWTH ACTUALLY IS

A few functions where the work has changed the most:

A quick aside: I've watched this one up close. In 2007, at D.C. United, I hired the first full-time videographer in MLS history. Less than ten years ago, I tried to get a single full-time photographer approved at Seattle Sounders FC and couldn't get it across the line. By the time I was head of marketing at the Chicago Fire (from 2018 to 2022), I had a content team of ten. Today most MLS clubs have video, design, photography, and motion graphics in house - actual studios, staffed year-round.

THE TIMING ARGUMENT

The risk used to be joining a club too early in your career - landing somewhere small and stalling out.

Now the risk runs the other way.

The org charts at these clubs are evolving right now. The roles that come with real influence are the ones that may be being built for the first time, by the person who gets there before the department has a shape.

In five years those become established teams with internal succession and a line of candidates. The window where your outside experience is the most valuable thing in the room is open now, and it isn't permanent.

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU

You aren't giving something up to work in soccer anymore.

The business of soccer has grown into the kind of place where the thing you're already good at is genuinely needed - at your level, at real scale, with real money behind it.

👉 This week, open the careers page of one MLS or NWSL club and find the job closest to what you do today.

Read the requirements line by line. If you can do 70% of it, you're not starting over.

You're just changing industries.

-Kyle Sheldon, Co-Founder & CEO

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SEE YOU SOON, SOCCER FRIENDS