The Two Robbies & Friends: MLS Commissioner Don Garber on Messi’s Impact & What’s Next for MLS!

In a can't-miss exclusive episode, MLS Commissioner Don Garber sits down with Kyle Martino for a candid, in-depth conversation on the past, present, and future of soccer in the United States. Don reflects on the incredible growth of the sport since 1994, tells the behind-the-scenes story of Lionel Messi's historic arrival at Inter Miami, and compares Messi's global influence to David Beckham's arrival years ago. Kyle and Don share emotional reflections on how far American soccer culture has come, and as Don prepares to wind down his transformative tenure as commissioner, he reveals what's next for MLS and shares crucial advice for his successor. Catch up with all episodes of The Two Robbies & Friends, presented by Pepsi, on Yahoo Sports and OneFootball!

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Video Transcript

So, this month has been I, I feel like it's hard to put into words, but give it a shot.

What's it been like?

You know, it's, it, it In many ways, Kyle, it's like a, a love letter from the world to our country to say, "We're gonna bring you this tournament, and with all of the, the pageantry, and passion, and colors, and, nations, and we're gonna come to your part of the world and see if everything y'all have done as, as a player, as leagues and clubs on the men's side and the women's side, and show us what you got."

And I think we showed them the best of our country.

And for us, it kinda had us, open our eyes and, and really take a step back and say, "You know, we got this."

We tried in MLS to build a soccer nation from the time we were founded in '94, and we delivered that soccer nation this past month in ways that are, for me, very emotional and gratifying, and I think for our country, just so special.

What has this thing felt like for you?

If- The- If I feel pri- proud, I ca- I can imagine what you feel like.

You know, it's, it's odd, Kyle, because I, I think when you're running, you know, in many ways, a, a league that's still a start-up, it's only 31 years old.

The other major leagues, the, you know, the big leagues in, in the world are over 100 years old and have come out of, you know, community soccer, and now are, you know, the biggest leagues in the world.

And, m- my experience at the, the US games was, emotional.

Our guys playing together, almost delivering on the hopes and dreams of everybody in our country.

50 million people watching the last game in Seattle.

And, and we did it.

Not, not me.

B- all of us, the entire community of people from those who've been here from the NASL days, from the grassroots days, fr- all those people who ran US Soccer to now Cindy Cone and JT Batson, to every kid that now is going to a game and holding up an MLS jersey like they did last night in all the games we had, or holding up a US jersey.

And that's culture.

That's importance.

That's being embedded, in the heart and soul of a community, and the community is the soccer community.

And all of us who've been doing it a long time hoped for that, and it showed itself, this past month in ways far more than I ever expected for this tournament.

But not ways that I didn't hope would happen when we're all humping it and slugging it out, and you playing, and- Yeah.

Yeah, people, people don't realize the, the, the hurdles.

I mean, I There was a, there was a time where there wasn't going to be a professional league.

Yeah.

And from that day to today, I mean, I, I Major League Soccer obviously means a lot to me and, you know, as a young kid dreaming to be a professional athlete, not having a league to dream to be in was, was, you know, detrimental to, to thinking there's a path, there's a place to go.

But it was something, what, it was 45 MLS players in, in this World Cup?

Not only that, but 45 players in this tournament, and the number one player in the tournament- Yeah plays in this- How cool is that?

In this league.

Yeah.

Did you I mean I'll get to some of the stats.

We're proud of it.

45 players from, our league.

Fifth, sixth in the world.

We had the sixth number of minutes from MLS players representing different national teams.

After the big leagues, it was Major League Soccer.

And I, you know, I, I think it's pretty cool.

I can't like an individual player.

You know, I wear an MLS logo.

I don't wear a logo of a particular team unless it's the US logo.

And the best player in the history of the game is gonna come off the field, like he did coming out of Qatar, and he's gonna put on an Inter Miami jersey, w- along with Rodrigo de Paul.

And we shouldn't forget about Thiago Almada, one of the best young players we've had in the, the league.

He's also playing for Argentina and just left, Atlanta United.

So I, I, I think it is, so cool, so great.

You know, the, the legacy that we all built, and I use we because it is an ecosystem of players, and fans, and administrators, and media p- It's a, it's a, it's a world of believers, and we all believe that soc- that America could be a soccer nation, and we all did our part.

And I look back at the OG players and seeing Kobe getting a statue.

And I look at the, the, those who helped get us here, and I feel, we've at least delivered for them something that they have been a really crucial part of.

And I, I, I can't leave this yet, and I'll, I'll talk about Leo.

Now we're hearing a lot of those stories because all you guys are on, on the media.

I, I remember that you guys had to train in, you know, in, in trailers, and you didn't have MLS was packing guys in vans.

And I remember Lothar Matthus, one of the greatest players in the history of the game, having to sit in the middle seat in a Continental Airlines flight back, and coming into my office and saying like, "Do you know who I am?"

Said, "I, yeah, I think I do."

But he said, "No, do you really know who I am?"

And I don't think anybody at that time really understood that some of you, some of you guys came in and had to do things that would be unthinkable today.

T- take me to when, when you knew Messi was coming.

Like, what, did Were you incredulous, or, or- Yeah or, I mean, you've had a lot of amazing players come to this league over the years.

Yeah.

But I feel like that took a league that was, was hitting a hockey stick moment, that was catching a lot of momentum, to a, to a different level.

You know, I, I don't know that I've ever brought it to this, so, and it, it kinda, wakes up a, a memory of the last day, or the last day or, or two.

But it goes back to n- no Phil Anschutz and Tim Leiweke, who you know well, no David Beckham.

And if not getting David and Victoria aligned around their family and around the Galaxy in that moment, and you remember well, Kyle, I mean, it was one of the more remarkable experiences, not just the- The hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people, media people, who we talked to in the blazing sun, and then the party at night, which I thought was one of the, or t- today, one of the coolest, uh- Still, still South Florida.

It changed the league overnight memories.

Yeah.

A- and then so many years later, Jorge Mas comes into league.

And very similar to Phil and Tim, Jorge had a view, "I'm gonna build a team that's gonna be recognized around the world.

I'm gonna, have a identity that David created, pink flamingos."

But that wasn't exactly our first color that we were thinking about for an MLS team.

I've, I have notes.

And then Jorge said, "I'm gonna get this.

I'm gonna get a stadium built."

He needed one, four or five votes, and that's not good odds.

And he got new bank approved, and it's one of the great stadiums in the world.

And throughout that whole process, all the back and forth and friendly with Joan Laporta, and Joan saying, "We're gonna get him back to Barcelona, and you don't wanna compete against the Saudis."

It's kinda hard to compete against the crown prince.

All of that, that sort of pressure to not happen, Jorge Mas said, "I got it, I got it, I got it."

And, it got done.

And, and, you know, Leo's, he's quiet.

I- it's not the marketing guy for the league.

He's not the David Beckham of Major League Soccer, but he's humble.

He's so focused on I don't, if I was like, if I was a coach, I'd take him out of the game all the time and just save him for the future.

But the guy plays every minute of every game, no matter what game that is, and, that's, that should be a lesson to every kid in MLS and every kid in the world who's watching an Inter Miami or an Argentina game.

That's courage, and that's a level of just, focus, maniacal focus, that I wish I had.

I think it's what makes him the GOAT, because nobo- I've never met or seen anybody else like him.

No.

And, obviously, a commissioner of Major League Soccer, you know, your, your job ult- ostensibly should be very specific.

But I feel like a responsibility of growing the game in this country, you know, c- conflating, yes, we have a league, we have owners, we have to do this.

But I feel like there's been a responsibility from day one for you to, to grow the sport in this country.

I mean, what, what does that- challenge felt like?

You know, I, I, you know, somebody who's here in the audience who's been around me for a long time, you know, I've tried to think back at that.

Kyle, I, when I came in, I, I, it, I thought it was gonna be a cool job.

You know, I was at the NFL for a long time.

I was overseas for the last number of years.

I started getting introduced to broader global culture.

I started at the NFL with Roger, that, Roger was gonna be the commissioner when he was in the womb.

You know, I was the president of a division.

I knew I wasn't gonna be the commissioner of MLS.

Robert Kraft and Lamar Hunt start MLS, and they bring me over at 40, actually, years old.

And when I got in, I realized it wasn't about running a league, because the league barely existed.

It was about figuring out how we can build the sport so that the league ultimately would have to for, be the driver of growing the game.

And in that, we had, hopefully, a lot of boats on a rising tide, that ultimately we would be able to capture the opportunity.

As you probably know, Kyle, we, I, I came in, and one of the first things we did is said, "I, you know, we're losing a lot of money, and none of this makes sense to me.

I'm a young guy, and maybe this was a bad idea."

And we don't have stadiums.

We didn't have the right players.

We had, we had teams that MLS executives were running in the league office.

One guy would trade a player from one office to the next, and, and have to get me to approve it.

I mean, it was crazy.

Fun, crazy, and, and, and- A startup good stories, but a true startup, and you're very familiar with that.

And then we, FIFA couldn't sell the 2002 and 2006 rights, which is, just unimaginable today, and it's because the US was not a commercial market that really cared about the game.

All the sponsors from '94 had left.

MLS had some of them.

We were not able to, after the first couple years, renew them.

And I said, "We gotta build a commercial market."

I think I've gotten criticized that it was more about building an ecosystem than caring about whether we had this player or that player, but they didn't hire me to do that.

And we had a vision to build a company that would go out and promote US soccer and Mexican soccer and international football matches and the like.

And we bought the rights from FIFA.

We bought them.

And we went to ESPN, ESPN and said, "You know, you guys wanna show soccer?"

And they said, "Yeah."

And I said, "Well, if you're gonna do that, you gotta buy our rights, and you gotta buy US soccer rights."

And I, I don't think they knew what was, what was going on, but they did.

And look at what those rights are worth today.

So I always viewed the job of the league to grow the game.

I've been sitting on the US Soccer board for the same 28 years, and growing the game will benefit MLS.

It's been benefiting the NWSL.

Gotham FC just moves into- Yeah a billion-dollar NYC FC stadium, but nobody remembers we've been trying to get that stadium built for 12 years.

Three mayors.

Yeah.

Hundreds of meetings, and it's great.

You know, "Hey, we're gonna move into NYC FC Stadium.

Isn't that great?"

Some other guy will be there in, in my seat at some point, and probably kick out the first ball, 'cause they'll know more about soccer, and that's just the way it is.

We built it.

It, it's, it's here now.

So now that's why our campaign is, we'll take it from here.

So what's next for MLS is all of this has happened.

We got our stadiums.

We have our teams.

We got the greatest player in the world.

We've got some of the best young players in the world.

Nobody questions whether or not we have earned our right- rightful place in the, the football world.

But now MLS has gotta be one of the top leagues in the world.

And that's gonna be a journey.

Yeah, I wanna talk about what's next, but let me ask this last question about the now.

Um- W- what, what should we be most proud about, you know, American soccer people after this summer?

People care.

You know, we're embedded in the water cooler talk.

We talk about that a lot.

You know, it makes these W- when the Knicks win, the city stops.

Yeah.

And if NYC FC won, the city's not gonna stop.

They'll have a parade.

But when the Norwegians came here, and the Dutch came here, and the Scottish came here, you know, if people didn't care about soccer, they wouldn't have embraced this idea of what football in the rest of the world is, and it's here right now in our country.

And we gotta take that March to the Match, and by the way, we invented that in Seattle, as you know.

We created the supporter culture with TIFOS, and we stole it from the Italian League.

But all that energy is living right now, and the leagues, the sport, has to take that and literally take as much as they can and recognize we're not starting from here.

You know, and we're here now, and we gotta, we're starting from here now.

And that deliverable, this thing that happened that captured the attention of the entire country, is our sport.

Think about that.

Mm-hmm.

Our s- I, I, you know, Kyle, I, I was not working in, in soccer in 1994.

I remember driving down Route 3 past Giant Stadium, and there was a match going on, and the lights were on.

I go, "Wow, I wonder what, what's happening.

I don't, I don't think it's a Giants game.

They don't play in the summer."

And now there isn't a person who doesn't know.

A crazy moment, I went back to Giant Stadium in front of 72,000 people with David taking a free kick, and it's one of the only moments during a game I just, I just went like this, and you know, kind of lo- lost that I'm supposed to be playing soccer and I'm supposed to be marking someone or doing something.

And I just, I looked around, and I just thought, sorry, I'm gonna have a drink, 'cause it makes me a little emotional.

That's good.

I like that.

I was, it was You know, we were teased for being a soccer fan when w- when we were little.

Yeah.

You know?

I mean, my friends at school played baseball, played basketball, and you know, we all grew up playing multiple sports.

But I fell in love with this thing that, that I didn't feel connected me to, to everyone else.

It felt s- something from all the way over there.

Yeah.

And then playing in a, a match at G- Giant Stadium, you know?

I mean, that's, that's a very- Yeah, yeah iconic phrase, and seeing 72,000 people there, and not just for a moment, you know, f- for, for a, for a movement that was happening and, and hitting its stride.

And so g- going to the games during this tournament, I've just thought to myself, you know, we're past the is it here and all, all these things that we've had to deal with over the years, where we've had a bit of chip on our shoulder in trying to explain this global game is important to American culture.

That's the thing I, I feel like is gonna be one big legacy, is I don't think we have to explain it anymore.

Yeah.

I mean, it, it has infected, you know, the, the soccer curious and, and the soccer casual.

And so for me, I just wonder what's, what's next?

Where, where, where does it go, where does it go from here?

Yeah.

I mean, it, it, it ha- you, you all, as, as a guy who played for a national team, what's next?

You know, I, I always try to think that, that in order to get things right, you gotta get the fundamentals right.

And I've been pressured by, you, you know, your, your teammates, and pressured by the media, and pressured by investors to try to take what we've had and take it from here to here overnight, and th- that was not my plan.

I believe we need to have systematic growth so that we can look at all the areas of our, of our business and try to tackle each one one by one so that the nation is created.

And, that's why we had to build stadiums.

You know, Kyle, we built billions and billions and billions of dollars of stadiums.

Billions of dollars.

And I played in the first soccer- Yeah specific stadium in Columbus.

We had some amazing games- And, and now we have a second one there so think of how far we've come from that.

So th- think about that.

And I think now there's gonna be a move, you know, let's go sign 10 players, and that'll be great.

If any of our teams can do that, good on them.

The league doesn't influence that anymore.

The teams have way more independence than they used to have.

And I believe, by the way, nobody's looking at France, and I can say this, you know, 'cause it, I don't care anymore.

But you know, when we, when we lose that game to Belgium, the entire world says, "The system's broken.

It's pay to play."

Now, we got beat.

But when France got beat worse than we were beat by Belgium, in my opinion, probably don't know as much as you, nobody said, "The France system is broken.

You gotta tear apart League 1."

You know, you gotta have setbacks, yeah, and comebacks, right?

And setbacks, I mean, that's life, right?

Yeah.

Setbacks and comebacks.

I think about that all the time in, in running Major League Soccer.

Now we've gotta focus on how does our product get better?

All the things that we've done that have created sta- sta- stability, viability, and popularity, now we've gotta take a little more risk, and that risk is gonna be do we change our system?

Do you let teams do a little bit more?

Do you take more financial risk?

Do we have more incentives for developing players and things that coaches would never do?

But maybe you get a whole bunch of salary cap money if you play X number of minutes for y- young US national team players.

Maybe we work with the federation and other leagues around the world to work on the types of loans so you don't send a player who's young and promising to Europe and never play, and then he's not good enough.

He would be better here.

We need to have the money to pay them, and we need to have the league that that player can develop in.

And now I think our focus has gotta be about the game.

Make the game bigger, better, and more productive in delivering what people saw.

And that's not overnight.

And by the way, it's not about investing in a building.

This is, we have the hardware, now it's about software.

And in an international global market of players, that is really hard.

Really hard.

So g- going to, going to France, th- that's really interesting.

W- we spent a lot of time together when I, when I ran for US Soccer president and afterwards.

You know, I feel like people, and I definitely did, get hung up on buzzwords.

You know, pay- Oh, yeah, we hated, we hated you, man.

Yeah, exactly.

We, we, we- You and I are buddies now we went at it Let alone with each other we went at it.

But that, that experience- This is my love letter to you, buddy.

I have a short memory.

That, but that, that experience h- honestly for me, it's, and I was obdurate and, and competitive, it, it opened my eyes to, the, the, I won't say the problem.

The opportunity is different in this country than it is in any other country.

And so whether it's the college system, whether it's multiple sports, whether it's the size of our country, w- whatever it is, there's an opportunity.

I f- I look at the amount of players built off of a blacktop outside of Paris that, that before they get to Clairefontaine, before they get to PSG, before they, before they get into, you know, the system, and the system is, is incredibly important, there's this culture of good enough, old enough.

C- come, come down to the concrete and, and be, be a part of can you, can you express yourself?

Can you be a part of football?

Do you love football?

Are you gonna, are you gonna drive to go further?

And when I think about it, that's our basketball culture.

Right.

How do we get the foundation of this, the culture- Yeah of it h- heading in that direction?

You know, you know, Kyle, I obviously think about it a lot, and I've known you a long time, and I, I really respect what you're doing with your program.

You know, the US Soccer Foundation has their baller league and their, there, there's no shortage of program.

It's America, right?

It's, people are gonna have ideas and, and it's an open market, so people can basically do what they want.

I think we have a cultural challenge and a generational challenge.

So if you're a young kid who grows up and, and is living in Marseille and is living in a community, and your family might have come from Africa or some part of the country, and you're living in Paris, your way out, as Thierry will tell you many times, is to play football.

And what, what I find interesting now in our country is, you know, our basketball players have turned into business magnates.

I mean, Shaq is no different than, you know, a guy who's running a big hedge fund, and same with Magic.

And there's no shortage, a- and music as well, of idols that have come out of the community, and they've become great businessmen, and that's what they aspire to.

But in our sport, we're missing this, this, idea that you can come from the street and you can have a path to be able to play at the professional level and make a lot of money and be culturally relevant and be a giant influencer on and on and on.

And i- it's a lot of work.

You know, we gotta do the work, and that's the one thing that, you know, I, I love this ending of that movie The Martian.

I keep watching that thing, 'cause how do you live on Mars, man?

What are you eating?

You know, what's d- eating everything that you gotta eat in order to live.

And then he starts the last line in the movie when he's sitting with all these students, he said, "You gotta do the work.

You gotta do the math."

And we need to have something that's leading it.

The league needs to be a part of it.

The women's league needs to p- be a part of it.

You gotta solve all the issues at the lower leagues.

That's chaos.

We've gotta get the federation, and by the way, Kyle, Cindy's doing an amazing job.

And JT's doing an incredible job there.

They've got guys like Ken Griffin putting money in and saying, "I wanna just grow the game."

They're not saying, "I wanna own a team."

That's great.

Put your money into making the game better, and I think that's just begun.

But we need to have a plan, and somebody's gotta put that plan together.

Where does it all, all those pieces, all those dots get to net- connected?

And it's not a buzzword, you know?

It's not the 30/30 project or whatever it might be.

It's literally connecting the dots to know where we wanna be.

Good news is the mayor here wants to do it.

You know, the White House and the Congressional Soccer Caucus wants to do it.

Every governor wants to do it.

We just gotta give them, like I, I've, I've given people a reason to believe in wanting to invest in Major League Soccer, and then you gotta work to deliver it.

We haven't gone with a plan, because it's not something you just go into the potion.

We gotta do the math.

And by the way, thank you so much for everything you've done for the game.

Thanks, man.

Congratulations on your career.

As it's ending- It's ending what's your advice to the next commissioner?

W- work harder than you ever thought you would ever work.

Believe in the game.

Believe in your people, particularly the staff at the league office and at the clubs, because they are the, they're, they're the army that you have to lead.

You gotta go to your owners and get them aligned around a, a shared vision, and be the cheerleader for the sport, because if we have a pied piper to take what has existed this past summer and take it to the world, you know, we, there's no end to what we could achieve.

See you, man.

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