The U.S. men's and women's senior national teams will play 25 home friendly matches combined in 2025, and each game requires two simple ingredients: an opponent and a host venue.
How are those opponents scheduled, and how do cities and stadiums ultimately host those games? As U.S. Soccer's managing director of administration, and vice president of events, respectively, Tom King and John Terry (not that John Terry) are primarily responsible for those answers.
Their combined task is less a single jigsaw puzzle and more a game of speed dating. As they move from one conversation to the next, they hope to find a match -- multiple, simultaneous matches, in fact, as they work on opponents and venues for several future games at once -- before they lose their potential partners.
"The relationship side of it is so important," King told ESPN. "In some ways, it can be almost a sales job where you've got a chance of getting an opponent, and you just chase that down like the last bus at night until you get 'em closed." For King, that could mean waking up at 3 a.m. to call colleagues in Europe.
Terry works in tandem to find an appropriate venue. Neither the opponent nor the venue can be finalized without the other -- and without either, there is no game.
Ideally, they try to secure the best possible opponents for the USMNT and USWNT, in addition to extended and youth national teams, while placing games all over the United States. But the hoops they must jump through can make it difficult.
"To the extent possible, we want to get our team to different parts of the country," Terry told ESPN. One of his guiding questions is: "How do we spread our national team and get as many people watching as possible?"
Fans see the results -- the opponent, the city and the venue -- and, at times, the patterns of games can appear counterintuitive to U.S. Soccer's stated goals. Why are they playing in California, Connecticut or Orlando again when they haven't played in other parts of the country, like the Pacific Northwest, in years? Why is the U.S. playing another game against the same opponent? And tickets cost how much?
U.S. Soccer's decision-makers took ESPN behind the scenes to answer how -- and why -- opponents get scheduled, why venues get selected and how that affects ticket prices.
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How the friendly sausage is made
U.S. women's national team head coach Emma Hayes and U.S. men's national team head coach Mauricio Pochettino have their own wish lists for opponents that they communicate regularly to U.S. Soccer officials. From there, King evaluates who is available and begins his sales pitch to other federations, and Terry works on finding the right venue. Everything is interdependent.
U.S. Soccer considers a handful of factors in selecting hosts for games, from the climate and the city's historical fan support, to quality of hotels and training facilities and broadcast constraints -- including for the opponent.
Venue-specific challenges are as basic as capacity and availability. Scheduling the USWNT against another top-10 team in the world like Brazil at the 70,000-seat SoFi Stadium, as U.S. Soccer did in April, might be a risk worth taking, for example, but a game against lower-tier Portugal makes more sense at an 18,000-seat stadium. The stadium requirements can be as granular as needing a venue with four locker rooms for a four-team SheBelieves Cup event, for example.
There are moments, Terry said, when he must call venues and press for a quick answer on locking in a date, or U.S. Soccer risks losing a prospective opponent. Sometimes, a venue operator is only interested in hosting a game if the opponent is appealing enough.
Lead time is "golden," King said. It means venues are more likely to be available, and it allows U.S. Soccer to better promote the game. Crisis management, however, is part of their jobs, and sometimes U.S. Soccer works for months on plans that never come to fruition.
"We've had a top-five team that we had all the economic conditions sorted, we had the venue sorted, we had the [federation] president on board, we had everything done and dusted to sign a contract to host this team," King said. "And lo and behold, there's a change to the coach, and the coach wants to play a different confederation team between now and the 2026 World Cup on the men's side. So, everything that had been done for the previous 10 months goes out the window, and you start from scratch again."
Other times, the venue is what needs to change. The U.S. women's national team will end 2025 with a pair of games against Italy in soccer-specific stadiums in Florida, but the original plan for the international window called for a different European opponent in a baseball stadium 2,500 miles away.
King had agreed to terms with the other opponent for the U.S. women's national team back in the spring. Terry worked through the usual autumn availability problems with American football and soccer stadiums -- MLS playoff dates are not set until the fall -- by coming up with a unique solution: playing the game on Black Friday with the roof closed at T-Mobile Park, the home of MLB's Seattle Mariners. The baseball season would be over by late November, and U.S. Soccer would have time to lay grass over the baseball infield. The roof solved any fear around bad weather; then the opponent's schedule changed for an official competition, and they were unavailable to play a friendly in November and December.
The next team on Hayes' wish list was Euro 2025 semifinalist Italy, but Italian officials did not want to fly their players to the West Coast of the United States in the middle of a European season. Thus, the grand idea of a unique event in Seattle, where the USWNT has not played since 2017, was dead.
Each contract for a friendly match is unique, but they all start with what the opponent needs, King said. Successful, popular teams often command an appearance fee to play on the road, and some might also require bonuses based on the commercial success of the game. (King declined to specify those costs due to the sensitivity of negotiations.) Other visiting teams might agree to get a stipend or ask to have certain expenses covered for a delegation of 30-50 people.
"We're very agile; we're not bureaucratic," King said. "When we have an opponent to go after, we go after it. We don't have multiple layers of approval to court a certain team."
They are playing who? Where?
Pratt & Whitney Stadium in East Hartford is a perfect case study for how a myriad of factors can lead to what looks like a result antithetical to the federation's desire to spread out games.
When the USWNT hosts Portugal there on Oct. 26, it will mark the 19th game for the U.S. men and women combined at the stadium since it opened in 2003. The USMNT just played there in June, in addition to their high-profile game against Germany two years ago. That's a high frequency of national team games for a utilitarian college football stadium in a mid-sized city -- but it is not without reason.
Cost is a factor in all scheduling, of course. MLS stadiums (which generally seat around 20,000 people) might cost around $200,000 to rent, while larger NFL stadiums could range from around $500,000 to roughly $1 million for a game, Terry said. Bigger markets are also more expensive because everything costs more, from utilities to turn on the lights to wages for security, ticket scanners, and every other stadium worker.
Only about half of NFL stadiums have grass fields, which is the preferred surface for the U.S. national teams and most opponents. Terry said that if U.S. Soccer needs to lay down temporary grass, that adds at least $500,000 in expenses.
Cost is only part of the equation for any game, Terry said. "The first litmus test is: Is it available to us?"
Which explains how the USMNT ended up hosting four-time World Cup champion Germany in East Hartford in October 2023. U.S. Soccer officials had no doubt that the game would be in great demand among fans no matter where they played it. The problem was finding a place to play.
Germany was keen to play on the East Coast for more favorable travel and for a better kickoff time back home, Terry said. U.S. Soccer staff looked everywhere on the East Coast for a grass field in a large stadium on a Saturday in October, the heart of the American football season, and couldn't find one. UConn football, Pratt & Whitney Stadium's primary tenant, happened to have a bye week preceded by a road game on the date of the eventual game. Terry booked the 36,000-seat stadium, and the game sold out.
Orlando has also become a frequent stop for the men's and women's national teams for its mix of warm weather and accessibility to both Europe and South America. Driven by the anomaly of the COVID-19 pandemic, Exploria Stadium (as it was called then) hosted five straight USWNT games in January and February 2021. The USMNT played there between those games and returned in March of each of the next two years for official matches.
"In a perfect world, we're not going back to the same venue within a year," Terry said. "It's an inexact science; it happens because there are other factors that require it."
The cost of being a fan
All the aforementioned factors for opponents and venues affect the cost to the fan. Rising ticket prices have become endemic across the sports and entertainment industries. Soccer -- with high-profile events including next year's Men's World Cup in the U.S., Canada and Mexico -- is not immune.
While CONMEBOL's Copa America last year and FIFA's Club World Cup this summer -- both hosted in the United States -- sparked controversy and sparse crowds due to high ticket prices, U.S. Soccer has no influence on setting prices for those games. Still, they certainly hear the complaints -- including the grievances aimed at their own events.
Terry told ESPN that the federation is intentional about making sure that the "get-in price" of a game -- the cheapest ticket -- is affordable. He said that the starting price for a U.S. national team game is often cheaper than that of an MLS game or a soccer game run by other promoters in the same city. Those numbers vary greatly by city, event and ticket tier, but a U.S. Soccer ticket is typically 25-30% cheaper than tickets for the home team in that same venue, a federation spokesperson said.
Two factors complicate that position. For a start, the resale market -- which neither U.S. Soccer nor event organizers control -- is where prices balloon. A front-row seat to the USMNT vs. Ecuador friendly in Austin last week cost as low as $84 before fees (which can add up quickly) roughly a week before the game. At the same time, a front-row resale ticket just a few sections away cost $297.50.
Dynamic pricing, which means costs fluctuate based on demand, is also a factor. The starting price for a ticket to the USWNT's game against New Zealand at CPKC Stadium this month was $45, Terry said. But the 11,500-seat stadium has sold out every Kansas City Current NWSL game to date, and high demand for the uniquely small venue choice means that current prices trend higher. Terry said that U.S. Soccer's pricing model rewards fans who purchase early, and he argues U.S. Soccer games are "more accessible than many other sporting entities in this country."
U.S. Soccer recently announced that it would cap tickets sold to the American Outlaws, the largest supporters' group for the U.S. national teams, at $45 plus fees for all games hosted by the federation through October 2026.
"We've always believed soccer should be for everyone," American Outlaws co-founder Justin Brunken said in July. "This partnership with U.S. Soccer helps eliminate one of the biggest barriers -- cost -- and makes it possible for more passionate fans to stand, sing and support together."
Still, that partnership is limited to American Outlaws members and not the wider public. U.S. Soccer is experimenting with free parking for everyone at this month's USWNT game in Hartford. The federation worked with sponsor Coca-Cola for discounted concessions earlier this year at a men's national team game in Nashville.
USMNT manager Mauricio Pochettino believes his side need to be more "clinical" after their 1-1 draw against Ecuador.
U.S. Soccer doesn't have a home stadium where the federation can control food and beverage or parking costs, which leaves those prices to be set by the venue. At the USWNT's game in St. Paul, Minnesota, earlier this year, U.S. Soccer spent nearly $38,000 to offset concession costs and create a $2 menu for hot dogs, popcorn, nachos and water. The idea came based on direct feedback from U.S. Soccer's Fan Council, which was established in 2018 as a bridge of communication between fans and the federation.
The five members of the Fan Council attend as many national team games as possible and gather fan feedback on-site both informally and formally, in addition to the input they get from fans online. They identify common themes that they then bring to U.S. Soccer in quarterly in-person meetings and monthly virtual meetings.
"Much of the feedback focuses on ticketing prices, game atmosphere and the overall matchday experience," Lauralynn Stephen, a vice chair of the council, told ESPN. "I can say that over the past year, we've seen some really exciting, tangible changes that reflect fan feedback."
Stephen said that fans communicated a desire for better concession prices after experiencing them at a game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, which is known for its affordable food and beverages as low as $2. She personally raised the topic with U.S. Soccer in one of their meetings with the Fan Council.
Stephen said that communication around gameday from the federation has improved in simple ways, like a "Know Before You Go" website page detailing parking and other logistics.
"The culture's improving; the communication, the collaboration is absolutely there; it's in place," Stephen said. "The future's looking very bright for future council members and fans in general, because U.S. Soccer is very actively engaging, and they're very interested in what fans are feeling for the matchday experience."
What lies ahead
Scheduling strong, diverse opponents -- especially from Europe -- is increasingly a challenge for U.S. Soccer.
FIFA has set the international calendars for men's and women's play through 2029 and 2030 for the women and men, respectively. European men's opponents are available for friendlies in March and June next year ahead of the World Cup, but those windows are not replicated in the three years that follow. The same issue is now true in the women's game.
"The biggest challenge really is the advent of the Nations League for women," King said. Twelve of the top 20 women's teams in the world are from Europe. Of the 10 international windows between now and the 2027 Women's World Cup, six of them are being utilized by UEFA for World Cup qualifying and playoffs, in addition to more Nations League programming.
The USWNT won't be able to schedule a European opponent in 2026 until next October, and even then, they won't be able to play teams participating in the World Cup qualifying playoffs. King said he already has "feelers" out to six potential European teams for that window.
The need for the four-time World Cup champion USWNT to play strong teams, along with the Europe's crowded official schedule, has led to the U.S. women more frequently playing Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan and South Korea as opponents in recent years.
Among U.S. Soccer's solutions for scheduling challenges is collaboration with Mexico's federation, the FMF, which gives those visiting teams two different high-quality opponents in relatively close locations. (Mexico frequently "hosts" games in the U.S., which creates its own challenges to find four venues in a week). Four days after Ecuador plays the USMNT in Austin this month, Ecuador will play Mexico in Guadalajara.
New Zealand's women's team will play Mexico twice before traveling to Kansas City for a game against the USWNT this month.
There are also venue challenges that go beyond cost and location. Particularly on the men's side, the United States often faces a partisan crowd for the visitors despite playing on home soil. An overtly pro-Korean crowd for a recent USMNT friendly at Sports Illustrated Stadium in Harrison, New Jersey, was the latest reminder of that. Last year, the U.S. lost 5-1 to Colombia in front of a pro-Colombian crowd of 55,494 in Maryland. Terry views the challenge as an opportunity.
"The cool part about the United States is that we have people from all over the world who live here, and regardless of what jersey they wear when they come to one of our games, they're in our ecosystem, and they might be a future coach," Terry said. "Their kids might be future players. They might be a player. And they could be a referees. And so, I think it's on us to figure out: How can we be in service to them? Not just in the stadium but in the other 364 days a year. It's an opportunity to connect with a lot of people and bring them under our umbrella. Our ultimate goal here is grow the sport of soccer in the country."
There is one important addendum: That entire approach of spreading out games applies to friendly matches. "The flip side of that is, for an official game -- a Nations League qualifier or World Cup qualifier -- we're doing the complete opposite," King said.
For those official matches, winning -- and qualifying -- trumps all, which helps explain why Columbus, Ohio, has hosted multiple USMNT vs. Mexico World Cup qualifying games in February, the dead of winter. There was a climate advantage for the USMNT, but Columbus was also a location that U.S. Soccer felt it could guarantee a pro-U.S. crowd, which isn't the case in many areas of the U.S. for a USA-Mexico game. King said the federation worked with former USMNT head coach Gregg Berhalter in the 2022 World Cup qualifying cycle "to make sure that the guiding principle on that was putting our team in the best possible light to win by having a raucous home crowd."
Three of the USMNT's qualifying games in that cycle were played in cold months in Ohio (including a 2-0 win over Mexico in Cincinnati) and another in Minnesota. Those locations were selected both for guaranteeing pro-U.S. crowds and for weather ostensibly more suited to American players. The USMNT has dealt with stifling heat and flooded fields for road qualifying games across Concacaf.
"It wasn't a surprise for us to play on a Saturday at noon in Azteca Stadium in June [against Mexico for World Cup qualifying]," King said. "And we're also not looking for reciprocity and being spiteful. But at the same time, how can we put our players in the best possible environment to win, when the majority of them are playing in northern climates, whether that's MLS teams or in Europe? We're used to the cold. It's also not uncommon for us to go to Honduras and play midweek at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. These are things that the home team gets the choice to do."
U.S. Soccer's meticulous planning is not the norm everywhere. There are confederations who are comfortable with scheduling games on less than two months' notice. "That's untenable for us," King said.
"The further out that we can get these games on the books is just a huge source of satisfaction with regards to knowing what we're doing, knowing where we're going from a commercial standpoint. You've got a much longer runway to be able to promote the games."
King said that U.S. Soccer intentionally has not scheduled June's men's games yet so that they can book an opponent in reaction to December's World Cup Draw. Beyond that variable, however, U.S. Soccer is already planning as far out as June 2027. The fewer late-night buses to chase down in the process, the better.