For Larry Berg, a life in soccer became ‘a calling’ in quest to be MLS commissioner
The Cherry Hill native is the first MLS commissioner to take the job with past experience working in soccer. In fact, he's been in the sport since he started playing at at age eight.
NEW YORK — There are plenty of fun stories to tell about Larry Berg’s Cherry Hill roots, from his lifelong Eagles fandom to playing in New Jersey’s state high school soccer tournament against Peter Vermes’ Delran High in the 1980s.
But Berg’s introduction as Major League Soccer’s next commissioner on Tuesday wasn’t just a time to tell them. There were other priorities.
The biggest was finding out his vision for how the league will capitalize on the World Cup — especially when it comes to slashing the phone book’s worth of roster rules.
As part of Los Angeles FC’s ownership group, Berg has recently been a co-chair of the league’s powerful sporting and competition committee, which means he knows that rule book inside and out. Now he knows which of those rules need to go to make MLS more competitive on the global stage, and thus more attractive to global soccer fans who look down on it.
“We’ve accomplished an extraordinary amount over the last three decades, but success can never become an excuse for standing still,” Berg said, still with hints of a Cherry Hill accent after his years out west. “Status quo is not an option.”
Current comissioner Don Garber said that when he appointed Berg to that committee in 2019, Berg “brought to that role an entirely modern and forward-thinking perspective as to where the product could be on the field.”
» READ MORE: MLS’s new commissioner will be Cherry Hill native Larry Berg, a LAFC part-owner
The league has long discussed an overhaul that will free teams to not just spend more money, but have more freedom in how they spend it. The latter is as important as the former, with rosters chopped into so many classifications: Designated Players, Targeted Allocation Money, Under-22 signings, and so on.
“I didn’t accept this role to protect what we’ve already accomplished — I accepted it because I believe this league is ready for its next chapter,” Berg said. “We’ve come an incredibly long way in a remarkably short period of time, and everyone who has helped build Major League Soccer should be proud of that. But I also believe the opportunity in front of us is even greater than what we’ve accomplished so far.”
There is proof that overhaul is on the way. At Monday’s vote of team owners that elected Berg, Inter Miami’s powerful leader Jorge Mas was seen walking out of the lobby holding a printout of a presentation titled “MLS 3.0.” He was gone before reporters could ask him what was in it, but fans would like to know.
“The platform is in place, the infrastructure is in place, the opportunity is in front of us,” Berg said. “Now it’s time to pull the right levers, make the right decisions, and build on everything that’s been created. Together, we’ll make the right decisions to elevate our competition, strengthen our clubs, develop more world-class players, and inspire the next generation of supporters.”
» READ MORE: MLS knows it needs to loosen its roster rules to get better. But how far is it willing to go?
One of Berg’s fellow co-owners at LAFC, Bennett Rosenthal, was a co-chair of the committee that vetted commissioner candidates. He said choosing Berg “puts us in a position, and puts Larry in a position most importantly, to succeed and get consensus to make those changes.”
Another major headline is that Berg is the first MLS commissioner to have a major soccer background before taking the job. It needs to be said that he’s only the third commissioner in league history: Doug Logan had the job first, from 1996-99, and Garber has had it since. He will stay in the job through the end of this year, then spend 2027 with the new title of chairman.
Logan worked in sports marketing, in particular around basketball and hockey. Garber came from the NFL, where he had spent 16 years in a variety of roles — the last leading the league’s international business.
“In Larry, our league has found exactly the leader we need at this time,” Garber said, coincidentally speaking 27 years to the day since his hiring was announced.
» READ MORE: This summer created World Cup fans, but that's not the same as soccer fans. MLS must bridge the gap.
“He understands it because he helped build it,” Garber continued. “He knows our clubs and knows our league because he’s experienced it full time, and understands the opportunities and the challenges ahead. … I think your integrity, your ambition, your thoughtfulness, your smarts, your respect that you have for the game, is going to help take this league to where we all want it to go.”
Berg, 60, has been around soccer since his childhood. He was a fan of the old Philadelphia Atoms back in the day, and has been a devoted traveler to U.S. national team games for decades.
“I want to take you back to 1974: I was eight years old when my father saw a flyer taped to a telephone pole announcing a brand new youth soccer league in our hometown,” he recalled. “He didn’t know anything about soccer, to be clear, but he thought it looked interesting and signed me up anyway — there were only two teams, so we played the same opponent every weekend. I don’t think either of us could have imagined that one decision would eventually lead me here today.”
Rosenthal said his committee believed from the start that “we needed somebody who had a passion for the game, and there was nobody who had a bigger passion than Larry. And when we say the word passion, Larry described this role as something he had ‘a calling’ to do.”
» READ MORE: This summer's World Cup served as the ultimate proof of how big global soccer stars have become in America
It remains to be seen how much of an impact that actually has. But there surely will be some impact, directly and subtly.
“I’ve experienced this sport as a player, a fan, an owner, and now with tremendous humility as next commissioner,” Berg said. “The foundation has been built. Now it’s our responsibility to build on it, and that’s what excites me most.”
Berg specifically noted how important it is for the league to capture the afterglow of this summer’s World Cup, and ensure all the new soccer fans it created come to MLS specifically.
“Millions of people across North America experienced that passion firsthand: they fell in love with the drama, the atmosphere, the supporter culture, and the emotion that makes soccer unlike anything else,” he said. “That creates an extraordinary opportunity for all of us. The question isn’t whether people are paying attention to soccer — they are. The question is what we do with this moment.”
