{"id":66725,"date":"2026-02-19T07:59:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T12:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/19\/is-the-world-cup-bump-real-mls-is-going-to-find-out\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T07:59:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T12:59:14","slug":"is-the-world-cup-bump-real-mls-is-going-to-find-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/19\/is-the-world-cup-bump-real-mls-is-going-to-find-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the World Cup bump real? MLS is going to find out"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>MLS stakeholders want to turn the interest in this summer\u2019s North American World Cup into \u2018rocket fuel\u2019 for the league. Are those realistic expectations?<\/p>\n<p>In 1998, a full eight years before Major League Soccer debuted, it got its first \u201cWorld Cup bump\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Fifa had just awarded the 1994 World Cup to the United States, but there was a stipulation. The US could host the tournament, but only if there was a competitive club league in place by the time it rolled around, something that hadn\u2019t been true since the North American Soccer League collapsed in 1985. Tournament organisers missed that 1994 deadline, but two years later, MLS became a reality. Thirty years on, it is still here.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/2026\/feb\/19\/world-cup-bump-mls\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MLS stakeholders want to turn the interest in this summer\u2019s North American World Cup into \u2018rocket fuel\u2019 for the league. Are those realistic expectations? In 1998, a full eight years before Major League Soccer debuted, it got its first \u201cWorld Cup bump\u201d. Fifa had just awarded the 1994 World Cup to the United States, but &#8230; <a title=\"Is the World Cup bump real? MLS is going to find out\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/19\/is-the-world-cup-bump-real-mls-is-going-to-find-out\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Is the World Cup bump real? MLS is going to find out\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66725\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}