Some interesting items going on in the world of sports this week appear interconnected to me, two in soccer and one each in baseball and basketball:
- St. Louis SC won the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, the first silverware in franchise history
- The Atlanta Dream and Golden State Valkyries began play in the WNBA Finals, each seeking their first league title.
- The World Series got underway between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Milwaukee Brewers, a pair of clubs also chasing their first championships.
- The men’s Champions League and Europa League played soccer fixtures in Europe
If you’re Major League Baseball, the WNBA, and Major League Soccer, you should be happy. Titles, and even playoff runs, generate excitement among a team’s fanbase that lasts years and even decades. I still have the “Chicago Cubs 1908 World Champs” t-shirts I purchased prior to the team’s 2016 win.
St. Louis SC has only existed since 2023. The Valkyries are only in their second season. Both have proven successful, with devoted local fanbases. They paid expansion fees, which benefitted the existing teams in the leagues they joined. Those incumbents liked the millions of dollars the new teams added to their receivables. They did not like when the two new teams kicked their butts this season. And this year has repercussions for next year and beyond.
When a team wins a title, or even has a memorable run, that franchise can trade off of it for years into the future. In North Texas, for instance, the Stars will always be the 1999 Stanley Cup champions. The Cowboys will forever be able to display five Super Bowl trophies in their headquarters. The Rangers will always have 2023 and the Mavericks 2011. Fans continue to buy commemorative t-shirts, share memories of those teams in social media circles, and attend autograph signings by the players who played on them.
Such talismans have always been hard to come by, even for teams that have been around a long time, as in my Cubs example. Dynasties like the New York Yankees and Houston Comets made it extra tough. Expansion causes trophies to become even more scarce.
Coming close can help, as with the divisional and conference play we see in American sports. Teams can hang banners for winning those. The Brewers and Rays have both made it to World Series, though they didn’t win them. Atlanta has played in the WNBA finals three times, most recently in 2013 under the leadership of former Dallas Wings head coach Fred Williams.
Certainly individual performances, like MVPs and batting titles, resonate to a certain degree in terms of creating long-term fandom. But what St. Louis won is especially significant. It’s a legit championship, a knockout competition open to soccer teams from all levels. Indeed, pre-MLS St. Louis teams had won the U.S. Open Cup in the days before the United States had Division I leagues and those triumphs helped cement the solid soccer fanbase in the city that has fueled the current team’s business-side success.
Expansion creates an abundance of teams, which can be good in terms of making more customers for a league. But you need those new supporters to be happy after the new-team glow fades and there’s a fixed supply of parade-worthy seasons that doesn’t change when you add more contenders. 20-to-30-team circuits necessarily create championship droughts that will last decades for some members. Supplemental hardware adds inventory.
St. Louis has clinched a berth in the upcoming MLS playoffs, but even if they don’t win a single postseason match, 2026 will always be remembered as a fantastic year for the supporters because of that cup win. It’s why I mentioned the Champions League – whichever side wins it creates massive goodwill regardless of what they do in their domestic leagues. Such vibes are also a big reason why the WNBA Commissioner’s Cup Presented By Coinbase has, since 2021, attempted to replicate the in-season soccer model. Neither the Dream nor the Valkyries have ever made that final, including this year – the New York Liberty get to add the 2026 cup to their repository of memorable team moments.
Titles are the currency in which loyal supporters trade. They love being able to tout such wins to each other and to those who cheer for different teams. Having fresh champions spread that wealth can make leagues deeper and stronger. That factor makes this a great year in many ways for the WNBA, MLS, and MLB.
The W is set to expand to 18 teams. At least one of those will go a minimum of 17 years without a title. It would help if the Commissioner’s Cup idea could catch on so more clubs get the boost that comes with silverware. MLB seems on the verge of a labor dispute and one of the issues is how to best allocate player compensation to allow smaller-footprint teams like Tampa and Milwaukee to compete effectively.
College football also continued its discussion this week about whether to expand the College Football Playoff. How might a CFP-or-bust mentality that eliminates the trophies team got for bowl wins and conference championship games affect fan loyalty in the long term?
On-field performance affects the off-field revenue streams that keep sports franchises viable. In 2026, at least three teams will benefit from that correlation in ways they never have before. No team can win every year, but the more ways you have to get Ws, the better your bottom line is likely to look.
