Podcast Alert: Radhika Duggal – MLS

Transcript

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Radhika Duggal: [00:00:00] We’ve just been really planful of saying, “How do we take advantage of where our product is amazing? How do we form a relationship with fans and prospective fans? And then how do we market the hell out of what we have to offer in a way that is palatable to our consumer?” And again, we’re showing, striving viewership, it’s working.

Jeff Nelson: Welcome to the Navigating Sports Business Podcast, where we uncover insights from the most prominent leaders in our industry. Today, I am happy to be joined by Radhika Duggal, the Chief Marketing Officer of Major League Soccer. As Radhika and I talk today, we are getting closer and closer here to being on the eve of the World Cup, but coming right in the middle of a Major League Soccer season, this has to be an incredibly interesting and busy time for you.

Radhika Duggal: Interesting and busy are definitely two ways to describe it.

Jeff Nelson: I appreciate you making the time. I wanna start [00:01:00] really with your start at MLS and a, a– From a career standpoint, you had been at Fintech before MLS, Super.com, before that Chase, doesn’t get much bigger than that.

Before that, Pfizer, before that, Deloitte, right? It’s not the traditional work your way up the sports ladder to CMO career. So can you give us a little color on why move into sports and MLS, and how did you approach those first ninety days when it’s not like you were just promoted within the league or coming over from another league?

Radhika Duggal: And the first thing I’d say is why make the jump from something somewhat of a non-traditional sports background into sports? I think the better question is how could you not if given the opportunity? I was really fortunate Major League Soccer reached out to me. I’m like a LinkedIn success story.

I went through a number of interviews [00:02:00] with a number of folks and just fell in love with the people. The people that work here, a- and you get to know people through an interview process, are passionate and humble and smart and excited about what they do every day just in a way I’d never really experienced- throughout my career. And for me the most important thing is do I like the people I’m gonna show up at work with every day? And so- For sure … y- take that and add it to Messi had joined the league a year roughly prior. The World Cup was coming. It– there was just no way to say no by the time I had gone through the interview process.

But to your point, with no sports background transitioning was not super straightforward, and I’d say there were three things that I really focused on in kinda that first 90-day period, but they all come down to listening. The first was about our brand- … and really trying to understand. I understood what MLS was at a surface level, but I started to try to poke and ask questions, like the typical CMO question.

What is our brand strategy? What do we stand for? Can every person in our organization talk about it in one [00:03:00] sentence? A- and I think while it was so clear that MLS had incredible momentum, there was an opportunity to get slightly sharper on how we articulated what we stood for.

So the first conclusion I came to over that 90-day period was, okay we can be thinking about our brand strategy, and that became job number one in my first, call it, six months.

The second thing was I’d never worked anywhere where you truly split the funnel. You know- … at Chase, for example, I– you can control everything from brand marketing through seeing every conversion. And yes, some of the conversions happen in a branch, and some of them happen in an app, and you don’t have full visibility, but you mostly do because that’s all contained in your ecosystem.

At MLS it’s really different. Consumers don’t become fans of leagues as much as they become fans of clubs and of players, and so we don’t own the full funnel. We split it with our clubs, and so the second thing I realized was Oh shit, this isn’t a job where I can control the whole thing. I have to have a relationship and a friendship, and I gotta be able to rely on our 30 club CMOs.

So one of the [00:04:00] first things we did in my first year was set up essentially like a one-on-one every month with myself and each of our 30 heads of marketing, so 30 different sort of meetings every month. And I will say I’m so grateful. One of the best byproducts of this job is I have 30 amazing marketing friends that I didn’t even know I signed up to have, and they are so smart and so passionate and care so much.

So that’s probably point number two in the 90 days- … of things I realized. And then point number three was just about my team. When you start any job, it’s gotta be about making sure you understand the organization, but everyone in the organization understands your vision, has clear goals, has a job description, understands who they report to, has like a clear understanding of where communication happens and gratitude can take place, and all those things.

Just having the nuts and bolts of a team in place were the third thing. So I think just brand strategy, understanding the relationship I needed to make with clubs, and understanding how to get my team in order were probably the first three things that I focused on during that first 90 days.

It was a busy three months. [00:05:00]

Jeff Nelson: Oh, I believe it. I wanna ask about the brand, but first, just a quick follow-up ’cause that’s so interesting the comment about the funnel and the 30 CMOs. Where do you see… And this could apply to any league really, but like where do you see the mission of you at the league as CMO, and where does that stop or transition to the club CMOs?

Radhika Duggal: If you think of the funnel as your conversion actions being about deep fandom, falling in love with a player, buying a jersey-

…

Radhika Duggal: Buying tickets or watching repeatedly, we talk a lot about at the league, the role of the league is about upper funnel brand awareness and peaking interest and consideration.

We talk a lot about data collection as maybe being one of the roles over time.

But that it’s the club’s role to really make fandom. Because again, like people, nobody tattoos MLS on their arm. They’re gonna tattoo Messi’s name on their arm I hope. And that’s an [00:06:00] action that a club can drive so much better than we can at the league office.

So we really talk about league is very focused on upper funnel. We can do a lot of things at scale that we should be doing in service of our clubs, but consumers are fans of teams, and consumers are fans of players, and we really have to rely on and know how to work with our clubs to drive that fandom across the funnel.

Jeff Nelson: So you’re creating that awareness at the top, and you’re trying to project the MLS brand, and you said you need to have of course, everybody in the organization can recite what that is. You’re all-

Radhika Duggal: Yeah …

Jeff Nelson: singing from the same hymnbook. So what is that? What is the MLS- Yeah … brand?

Radhika Duggal: And before I answer that, and I will I also wanna make really clear, we are not a brand organization only, if that makes sense.

We do have a conversion action that we optimize for, which is actually viewership. We want people- … to watch our matches across the league office, and we’ve got, which I’d love to talk to you about, really, a really strong handle on what creative [00:07:00] and what investment in paid media and what use of our orchestrated own channels it takes to drive that viewership.

We now have a great handle on that, so we can talk about that later. But I want to answer your question specifically on what in the world is the MLS brand? So we spent a, call it my first six months really thinking about this. We did consumer market research, if I remember right, three to four rounds of it.

We did a number of stakeholder interviews throughout the MLS ecosystem, club CMOs, owners league office executives, people in the industry like partners and things like that. So consumer feedback, stakeholder feedback, and then a pretty robust competitive audit to say, “Listen, across sports and entertainment, which is really where we’re competing for attention, how do others position themselves and where is there a gap in the market?”

We– I’m a consumer behavior nerd. And so we use a framework that Bain created in 20155 called the Bain Values Pyramid, and what they do is they lay out what are 30 universal elements of value that any B2C company could offer a consumer. We use that as a [00:08:00] starting point in our work so that we weren’t trying to like reinvent the wheel and what could we be offering.

And where we landed is that our primary brand value, the thing that people choose us for and the thing that we deliver on the best, is about fun and entertainment.

Full stop. That is what our product is for. And on top of that, we also are the most inclusive and di- diverse league ever. So being welcoming is really important.

Having forward momentum is really important. We found that consumers really like the idea that they’re part of our history. They’re making our history as we grow because we’re a bit younger than the other leagues, and we stand for quality soccer. Right or wrong, like people come here for the sport.

And we’ve got quite a lot to offer there. So our brand is about fun and entertainment. We have those other elements of value that are around being welcoming and creating an a culture of belonging, really high-quality soccer, and growth and momentum as well.

Jeff Nelson: From where you are in that [00:09:00] brand identity and those kind of core pillars you’ve just outlined to where you wanna be, are there aspirations you would call out that either evolve from those or add on top of those?

Radhika Duggal: Yeah. I’d say we feel really good that that’s- what we want to stand for, that people choose us, and we want them to continue to choose us ’cause we’re fun. But I think how you define fun is really important. So number one, we know that is all about the on-pitch play. How entertaining or exciting was it when someone did that incredible bicycle kick or scored that goal?

That, that is number one to our fans because that’s our product. Our product is soccer, and awesome soccer that is fun to watch.

The second piece of that we’re really focused on is how do you start to attract more and more fans to the game? Soccer in North America’s a little bit of a younger sport, for lack of a better way of putting it.

And so how do we infuse ourselves into everyday culture to make sure that we’re showing up in the right [00:10:00] places-

…

Radhika Duggal: So that a fan that’s maybe not a diehard soccer fan starts to take notice? One of the things we’ve been doing over the past, call it year and a half, is focus on using all of the levers in our ecosystem to do exactly that.

So our league is really fortunate. We have a number of folks with quite a lot of notoriety who own our clubs. And we’ve been reaching out to those folks and saying, “Hey, would you take part in our marketing campaign? Would you be willing to share our advertising?” L- listen some of our owners have huge social followings, are incredible stars in their own right, and sometimes it just takes us asking.

They’ve invested in the league because they’re soccer fans and they wanna grow it in North America. And what we’ve found is they’re also just incredibly willing and receptive to help. And so we’ve asked, and a lot of them have stepped up and started to help either by taking part in our advertising or sharing our advertising.

Jeff Nelson: Can you call out one or two of those? Yeah. Beckham is gonna be the first one everybody thinks of when they think of a MLS owner with a huge following, even though he’s not the majority owner, but he’s part of that [00:11:00] group.

Radhika Duggal: I will talk about things that have already launched, and I will ask you to watch or l- be on the lookout for our new campaign that’ll launch during the World Cup.

Jeff Nelson: Okay.

Radhika Duggal: But things we’ve already launched. At the end of last year for our playoffs and cup campaign, we had Issa Rae both t- lead a three-part social series as well as be the voice of our kinda TV campaign. She’s the owner of San Diego FC. Yeah. A part owner of San Diego FC. And by the way, like what an incredible person to have in our corner.

She has such an incredible social following. She’s so relevant today. And it’s just cool that she’s a soccer fan and she’s willing to help us out. And I didn’t get to attend the shoot, but our creative director always talks about what a joy she was to work with. And I just think that’s incredible.

Jeff Nelson: Huge.

Radhika Duggal: In addition, at the beginning of the year, we kicked off our season with Magic Johnson. Part owner in LAFC, and we had a really fun ad with him and Sonny, who’s an LAFC player and a number of other sort of l- on kind of a phone setting. And so again these are folks who have huge [00:12:00] social followings, who matter in the world of culture and sport and entertainment, and they also happen to be invested in our league and wanting to see soccer grow in North America.

So all we… Honestly, all we did is reach out and ask, and we’re just really fortunate that they were lovely to work with, that they said yes, and we’re excited to continue that trend

Jeff Nelson: From a leveraging player standpoint, you mentioned Son. I am a Tottenham fan, just so you know, so please send your sympathy and empathy I

Radhika Duggal: will excuse you for that, yes.

Jeff Nelson: Oh. Oh, no. Excuse… Are you an Arsenal fan?

Radhika Duggal: I’m… i’m learning, so it’s really interesting. I hadn’t seen a soccer match prior to joining Major League Soccer. Oh,

Jeff Nelson: okay.

Radhika Duggal: So I’m build- I am, like, the fan we’re trying to- Yep … achieve conversion of. Yep. So I’m learning. I’m, like, going around and I’m, like, reading a ton about different players in different clubs globally.

It’s so c- it’s just such a cool thing to learn.

Jeff Nelson: Yeah. My MLS fandom, just so you know is tied to who our clients are. So I am a polyamorous fan. I it’s, … [00:13:00] anybody from the Sounders to Chicago to Dallas, I

Radhika Duggal: love that …

Jeff Nelson: four or five at any one time. But when you have a player like Son come in, huge int- right, huge international- Yeah

following, huge in Asia, extremely successful in the Premier League is that a moment where you’re talking to Apple, you’re talking to LAFC, you’re all getting together at once and saying, “Here’s the strategy for how we leverage this”? Well- Or is it more siloed? How… Take us inside how that works when, “Okay, big star, what do we do now?”

Radhika Duggal: One of the things I’m most proud of is we’ve basically built this playbook as a marketing team to do exactly what you’ve mentioned. How you pull every lever if at your disposal, and how do you have a coordinated campaign to welcome someone into the league and make the biggest deal about them joining, and introducing them to the world as an MLS player.

And so with our… We have a club marketing team, we have a digital marketing team. They partner together with the club itself, and with many of our partners to inj- welcome someone [00:14:00] into the league. We have a playbook of tactics that we use. We often are doing a daily standup around transfer time with the clubs to make sure, “Hey, we’ve run these tactics.

Here’s what worked.” “What did you do? How are we collaborating?” And I think that playbook enables us to do what I think is the single most important thing when it comes to welcoming a new player into the league, and that is not only making them a star, but making sure that we are reaching the communities that have already fallen in love with them- and bringing those folks into the MLS. Yep. Just because you are a fan of Sonny doesn’t mean you are a fan of LAFC, and our job is to make you a fan of LAFC, and then ultimately a fan of Major League Soccer. The star player brings people in, but we gotta figure out how to capture those people and make sure that they stick with us.

Jeff Nelson: Yeah. No, that makes sense. By the way, just so I don’t get yelled at by Kevin Kane, who leads all of our soccer work, I’m also a fan of Inter Miami and the Quakes- … and Atlanta United, so let me- I’m a fan

Radhika Duggal: of all of our 30 clubs.

Jeff Nelson: Yes. W-w-when this [00:15:00] releases, we will be right right on the eve of the World Cup.

So let’s talk World Cup. It’s gonna be the biggest sporting event in world history and that sounds so hyperbolic, but we’ve presented about this, that it genuinely is. And in terms of the impact it’s gonna have on the US, I think the data we have from ’94 says that World Cup created 18 million fans, new soccer fans.

This one we were projecting will create upward of 55 million, and I think has already created 39 million who say that the excitement of the World Cup has started to bring them into kind of soccer fandom and the ecosystem more broadly. You have the World Cup. You alluded to the fact that we all have to keep an eye out for the campaign, but without being a spoiler on that, can you just take me inside?

You start in 2024 at MLS. As you said, one of the exciting things [00:16:00] about that I’m sure was the World Cup’s gonna be in two years. I’m sure you, like the rest of us, can’t believe it’s actually here. But can you take us inside, okay, from when you start to now as that first match happens, what does a league, a domestic league do to try to leverage the interest and excitement of a national team event like this?

How do you… Give us the playbook. How do you take advantage?

Radhika Duggal: So I’ve learned that we’ve taken four steps over the last two years. A- and I would disclaim this by saying I’m on this two-year journey. Others have been, I think, on a five to seven-year journey- … and I have the benefit of inheriting some of their hard work. I can think of so many colleagues that did so much before I got here to even set us up to have the campaign that we’re gonna have launch in a couple of weeks. So just I have such gratitude and f- for them, and just [00:17:00] knowledge that this isn’t mine, this is ours collectively, and- I can do this because of all the things they did before. So I should start with that. But four steps that we’ve taken in my two-year tenure. The first thing was, quite frankly, like build- like asking for funding. So again, first time I’ve had a role like this where you don’t have a fulsome marketing budget every year that is of size and scale and magnitude.

In a sports league, your marketing budget is sometimes smaller than what you might want.

And so we did spend some time going club to club and saying, “Hey, we think we need incremental funding for this year,” working through a campaign concept and presenting that to each of our owners and saying, “We think this is something you should invest in.”

So that was step one, and I will tell you that’s a year-long process. Step two was then making a real and clear and fulsome tactical plan. What are we gonna do? What are our clubs gonna do? How do you make sure every single partner we have in our ecosystem is primed to surround us during this moment?

And that’s not a small thing. As part of that planning process, we have [00:18:00] a once-a-week meeting with every single one of our 30 clubs. Just imagine that, 30 meetings take place every week just on World Cup. And we have a fabulous club marketing team who just does God’s work to make sure that We’re all marching to the same tune.

We all have the same ideas in our head. We’re all doing s- the right stuff at the right time. So the plan is incredibly important and very coordinated. I should also call out, it involves a number of really capable and incredible partners. In the plan, the thing I’m the single m- I’m the most proud of is the idea that we, with our clubs, are going to market together.

We have one coordinated plan across league and club. We’ve never done that before. And i- for some of the clubs we’ve even made creative assets together, which also we’ve never done before. So we didn’t make one asset, we made 16 assets, which is I just think incredibly cool. And by the way, our team size didn’t not grow as we made 16 assets.

I just… Our team has just been amazing in doing this. So get funding, make a plan and then the third thing is build all the assets. So this is [00:19:00] everything from creative assets to physical, in-person activations. We’ve launched a number of soccer celebrations. I think there’s a national press release that went out two days ago maybe, but a number of our clubs have announced their soccer celebrations- along the way over the last one month. We’ve launched a number of pieces of premium content that… And there was a, both a national press release but also, with Amazon and other partners. And so building the assets, whether they’re physical, in-person events or pieces of content or advertising assets, was the third phase.

And then the fourth is gonna be the big coordinated launch that’ll happen in July. We’re actually gonna launch our campaign at the end of the World Cup.

Jeff Nelson: Okay.

Radhika Duggal: Because our product is different from some of the others, right? We pause our season, so if we were to launch it right now, you couldn’t take an action, you couldn’t go watch, you couldn’t go buy a ticket for quite some time.

Yeah. So we’re excited. We hope that once some of the noise of others launching has passed, that there’s space and time for us in the market and we can’t wait to go.

Jeff Nelson: That’s so interesting and it’s a good point because I think as we’ve, either the clubs we work with [00:20:00] or clubs we just talk to on a regular basis, for several years now, I think a lot of them were not quite sure what they were gonna do in the run-up to the World Cup or even during the World Cup, and we have obviously seen more of that announced.

Our favorite is Seattle and the floating mini pitch that we got to do a little work on. That was very cool to see thought of and put in motion and… but the one thing I think everybody has said from the club level at MLS for years now is the most important thing is actually gonna be we have to ride the wave.

We have to be ready to ride the wave. And that’s, not everybody’s used that exact term, but it’s in effect what we’ve been hearing. And so hearing you say July, it’s afterward do you have- A measure of success between the end of the World Cup and then the end of your [00:21:00] season as MLS gets back underway?

Radhika Duggal: Yeah. So we actually have a this year target on two metrics- Okay … that is quantitative, so we will be marching towards. And then we have an 18-month goal.

Jeff Nelson: Okay.

Radhika Duggal: Because we think some of those upper funnel metrics lag, that’s just reality.

And then our lower funnel metrics, we believe we need to see them over time.

So our two goals are on brand interest and viewership at the league level. Clubs we know are super focused on taking advantage of that interest and selling tickets out of it, and making sure their stadiums are packed with fans that wanna watch their matches every night, and we will be tr- we have very clear goals, and we will be tracking towards our ability to hit them.

Jeff Nelson: Can you share what the metrics are, or is that top secret? I

Radhika Duggal: cannot share the metrics. Top secret.

Jeff Nelson: Okay. I had to ask.

Radhika Duggal: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Jeff Nelson: Okay, so then thinking out further past it, can you, for those who aren’t following, share the calendar for MLS and what that- Yeah … transition is gonna look like?

Radhika Duggal: Yeah, so listen, another big change on the [00:22:00] horizon for us, we just changed our sort of Apple TV deal to be now have all of our matches on Apple TV- Okay

instead of having a bespoke product. And then the second big change we’re gonna make is around our calendar. So we are going to align our calendar to the broader European soccer or global soccer ecosystem calendar. And I think this is a massive opportunity for us. It’ll just be valuable for us to have the alignment with sort of international competitions, transfer windows, player development pathways, and just the broader soccer conversation.

That latter piece I think is especially important for marketing, right? We wanna be aligned with broader soccer culture- … in real time.

But I think that’s the marketing challenge, right? When you shift a calendar-

Jeff Nelson: Oh, yeah …

Radhika Duggal: of a sort of sporting league, that’s an operational challenge for sure, and I’m not discounting that, but that’s also a communications challenge because fans build their days their weekends, their rituals around a calendar being a certain way.

So making that switch is about [00:23:00] educating fans on what you’re doing and why you’re doing it- … so you don’t lose anyone, and hopefully you gain a few folks along the way.

Jeff Nelson: Back to how you work with the clubs, that calendar switch is gonna impact different clubs in different ways just based on climate and weather and and what other sports they have in their market.

Right now they’re competing against maybe other entertainment options or sports options, and now, oh, we move to this calendar in the heart of the summer. Are you in a market with a baseball team or not? How do you again, from a trying to keep what you can control and your goals at the league in focus how are you working with different clubs that are gonna have very different challenges and opportunities related to this?

Radhika Duggal: I think we’re, we have general alignment across the league that this is the right thing to do. We gotta get alignment with the global soccer calendar, and I think for the most part, club marketers are aligned with that and understand the overall- Yeah … global benefit that. You’re right it is really [00:24:00] cold in Minnesota for some of those dates that we will now be playing, right?

And I think there’s just a reality that there are pockets of situations like that, that we need to go club by club and address. So we have a club marketing team, but we have a club performance group that is really tightly managing and in contact with each club to try to troubleshoot all of these issues.

No change is easy, and no change, is 100% smooth, and this isn’t gonna be any different from that. But my best hope is two things happen. Number one, we all have alignment that this is the right thing to do, so we’re all in it together. We’re all marching towards the same goal, and we all believe it’s right.

I think that’s actually already there.

But the second is we can at least as a league demonstrate empathy and willingness to troubleshoot and work through this with clubs. At the end of the day that’s really all… We’re all running a business together, and that’s the single most important thing in my mind.

We show up in the right way, we try to solve the problems, and we’re going forward together.

Jeff Nelson: Yeah. Ideally, if it’s good for the league, rising tide lifts all boats. Everybody figures it out. Also good for the league is [00:25:00] stars and star power. Yes. I’m sure you can’t do any interview…

Y- you’ve mentioned him once or twice already. Oh. But Messi always I’m sure comes up. When you started this job, he’s already at the league.

Radhika Duggal: Yep

Jeff Nelson: How did you, if at all, d- w- was that like, okay, obviously a big part of my job is a Messi strategy and a star strategy, or, okay Messi is a such a big star unto himself, I don’t need to focus on him, I need to focus on other players and other stars?

How did you h- how did you look at that?

Radhika Duggal: I will tell you, going through the interview process, I’m not sure I appreciated what a big star he was. And then I got here, and then I realized. And boy does something like that hit you like a ton of bricks. That’s an asset that, that you have in some way, shape, or form.

And what I’ve come to realize is that it’s not about marketing Messi per se, it’s about thinking about how [00:26:00] you take the attention that someone like a Messi or any other star player that we have, to whatever degree they are a star, how do you take that attention and convert systematically, convert that into fandom?

Because if someone is a Messi fan just because they fall in love with Messi, how do you then get them to become a fan of another player? Or if they’re an Inter Miami fan because they’re a Messi fan, how do you get them to watch their local team’s match if they don’t happen to live in Miami? How do you take the interest that stars bring and convert that into fandom of clubs, fandom of multiple clubs potentially, fandom of multiple players?

I think that’s the remit, and that’s the goal any time we bring in a star player. They bring awareness, they bring ceremony and excitement, but then how do you turn that into something for the broader good of the league? Once you have the product you can market, all you need is the ability to communicate with the customer in a way that makes sense to them.

Orchestrated channels, right message, right time, all [00:27:00] of that. And we’ve just been really planful of saying, “How do we take advantage of where our product is amazing? How do we form a relationship with fans and prospective fans? And then how do we market the hell out of what we have to offer in a way that is palatable to our consumer?”

And again, we’re showing, it’s driving viewership, it’s working.

Jeff Nelson: Is there anything else… this is all such good advice. Is there anything else for somebody who wants to be in your shoes that you think is a key- You could s- … as they try to build their career? I- if the… Someday, hopefully you’ll retire For those who want- I

Radhika Duggal: will retire in 15 years, I hope.

Maybe less …

Jeff Nelson: okay, so for the-

Radhika Duggal: 12 years, I hope …

Jeff Nelson: for the mid to junior career person who wants to replace you 15, 10, 12, whatever years from now, any other advice or keys you think to being successful as a CMO in this kind of new crazy era?

Radhika Duggal: [00:28:00] I think maybe a couple things. I think curiosity is really valuable.

I had the benefit of working in different industries, working in different marketing functions. Marketing is such a varied discipline- … and the CMO role is so varied in itself. It has really benefited me to have been a performance marketer, to have been a brand marketer, to have poorly worked in communications at one point.

To have been the person hands on keys on Salesforce, hitting send on CRM and messing it up, because I’ve actually done that. So the breadth and the… has been really valuable and for me that breadth comes from just being curious and wanting to learn and always wanting to learn more.

But the maybe the second thing I’d say is being adaptable-

…

Radhika Duggal: I think is now maybe the most important thing. I don’t think the marketing organization of 2026 is gonna be the marketing organization of 2030. I think it’s gonna change 14 times in that time period. And so I think not being resistant to that change, but understanding how to adapt through it and how to help your team adapt through it-

I think for me is really important. So if someone is coming up and wanting to [00:29:00] be a CMO, building the skill of adaptability and pattern recognition and knowing that change is gonna happen and how to manage through it.

Jeff Nelson: Is there anything you know now that you wish you had known two years ago relative either to the realities of- sports, the realities of the league, or the changes that have happened?

Radhika Duggal: I gotta be honest, I think every bit of soccer knowledge I gain every day would’ve been helpful two years ago. It’s… I’m a really big advocate that people can join. I’m like a poster child, right? Yeah. People can join new industries and learn new things, but geez, it’s really helpful to understand the product.

And I am, two years in, there are people that have lived and breathed and worked in this space for 30 years, and so I am so new at it. But I think knowing and understanding the product is really important, so I invest- part of my job every day is that I have to watch soccer.

I have to listen to a podcast. I have to read. I read every piece of content that we post on our website, for example because I don’t know enough, and I still don’t know enough, and in five years I still won’t know [00:30:00] enough. And someone that’s worked in this industry for 30 years will still know way more than me.

So I, I think knowledge of the product for me will always keep me humble. It’ll always be a place I have to learn.

Jeff Nelson: Are there still things kinda keeping you up at night, or things where you’re like, “I’m still not sure I really like the product,” or the future or the rate of change? Like, how are you feeling, is what I’m asking, as we’re at this kind of seminal moment for the sport and the league in this country.

Radhika Duggal: I’ll never be the person to comment on if we’re better positioned ’cause I just got here, right? So I don’t know if- … like, all the work that went into getting here- … 31 years of work and even maybe work before that to form the league and build it and build every stadium and every club, and that’s hard for me to comment on.

What I will say is if… I can comment on the work we’re doing and the campaign we’re gonna launch. And no, I- you never feel ready. On launch day you’re never ready, and 14 things go wrong. And I don’t think this is about being ready for the World Cup in this moment [00:31:00] as, as much as it is doing everything we can to capitalize on that moment and being ready for- every day that comes after. Because for us, it’s about capitalizing on the momentum after. And I think what’s great about this is it’s a little bit of a team sport, right? I got 30 marketing friends that w- I’ve been talking about that are the club CMOs. So if I’m not ready, we got the ability to pass the baton back and forth and learn from each other.

I have this incredible team that, again, if I’m not ready, I learn from them every day. And so I think if I felt like we were ready, I probably would be a little bit too complacent. I’m super anxious. I’m not sure we’re gonna be ready, but I think we’re gonna, we’ve… What I wanna be able to say when we launch our campaign is we’ve done every single thing we could.”

And I think I’ll be able to say that, and that’s maybe the most important thing.

Jeff Nelson: Before I let you go, I just wanna ask a few rapid fire questions. I feel like the first one related to MLS and all of your,

Radhika Duggal: your- Yeah …

Jeff Nelson: now two years at the league. I am a big [00:32:00] concessions guy. I like to, One of my favorite parts of going to a new stadium is trying the food.

Which MLS stadium has had your favorite concessions or in particular thing to get?

Radhika Duggal: So I don’t think I can say one is better than the other because I th- what’s so cool about our stadiums, particularly especially now we have so many new ones opening up, but I think what’s cool about all of our stadiums is they’re like little microcosms of the cities that they’re born out of.

And so many of them, all of the concession vendors are like the best restaurants in the city. So I think you should do what I did, which when I joined, which is have a little MLS stadium tour-

…

Radhika Duggal: And try them all.

Jeff Nelson: Okay. All right. I’ll take a month off and do that.

Radhika Duggal: I like that idea.

It’s part of your job like it is mine.

Jeff Nelson: Yeah. A- and I guess I could probably stretch it and have a good enough excuse, so maybe. When it’s not work where is your favorite place to travel?

Radhika Duggal: I love going [00:33:00] anywhere new-

…

Radhika Duggal: Because I get bored fast, and I don’t like to see the same thing twice. So anywhere new. We’re in this we’re in this place where I have a six-year-old, and we didn’t do a lot of travel when she was little. And my husband grew up in Hong Kong, so we’re starting to travel a lot domestically, which we’ve been married for a very long time, we hadn’t really done in the past.

We would just j- take all these international trips because those were all new. Now, even though I’ve traveled a ton in the US as a kid because I grew up here, everything is new to me because I get to see it through my daughter’s eyes. And so we’re going to, we’re going to Washington, DC tomorrow. She’s very excited.

She’s asking if she’s gonna meet the president. I’m not sure that’s gonna happen, but that’s okay.

Jeff Nelson: She’s six. You can just pick somebody and say, “This is the president.” She’ll, she’ll-

Radhika Duggal: You can’t lie to your kids. That’s not good practice.

Jeff Nelson: Oh, okay. Maybe we need

Radhika Duggal: a- Just so y- just FYI.

Jeff Nelson: Ugh. Maybe we need a parenting podcast.

Radhika Duggal: I’m not sure you’d snap me on that one .

Jeff Nelson: Who would be your dinner guest? Can be living or dead. One guest, one dinner. Who would you wanna pick?

Radhika Duggal: I’m really [00:34:00] boring. Do you remember my focus conversation? If I could go to dinner with anyone, it would be my daughter.

Jeff Nelson: Oh, that’s a nice one.

Radhika Duggal: It’s the tr- I foc- work, family, workout.

That’s it.

Jeff Nelson: Where’s your husband during this dinner? Just doesn’t matter?

Radhika Duggal: Probably having two hours to himself-

Jeff Nelson: Oh,

Radhika Duggal: yeah … which he never gets to do.

Jeff Nelson: Last question and I have a feeling I’m gonna have to make it a two-parter, but we’ll see. Who’s gonna win the World Cup?

Radhika Duggal: Fans.

We are. All of us are gonna have the best time.

Jeff Nelson: Yeah, see I said I feel like I’m gonna have to make it a two-parter ’cause I thought you might give me an answer like that, and I was gonna try to follow up and really get you on, “No, pick a country.” But I’ll let it slide. I do think it’s gonna be-

Radhika Duggal: I think it- I think that’s the right- like, honestly, can you imagine being a soccer fan in North America or a sports fan in North America or in New York in particular?

We’re gonna win.

Jeff Nelson: Yeah. It’s gonna be awesome. Radhika, I know you have… I was gonna say I know you have about a dozen meetings to get to, [00:35:00] but you have a dozen meetings for your team to get to. But I really appreciate the time and the conversation. We have been- we’ve worked with MLS on and off for almost 20 years.

We are obviously big believers in the league’s continued growth. I was gonna say growth, and it’s now we’re at a point where you can’t just say that. It’s continued growth. But really great to see someone like you in a C-suite position coming in and doing what you’re doing. And grateful for your time here and grateful for what you’re contributing to a sport I love, a league I love, an industry we all love.

Thank you.

Radhika Duggal: Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate the time.

Jeff Nelson: Yeah, of course. And for our listeners, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to reach out. My email is JEFF@NVGT.com You can also connect with us on my LinkedIn page or the Navigate page. But in the meantime this again has been Jeff Nelson joined by Radhika Duggal from Major League Soccer.

Thanks for joining us [00:36:00] on Navigating Sports Business, and please stay well.