“If You Liked That, Come and Experience This”: Tom Penn Eyeing World Cup Boost With San Diego FC
He may have been born in Peoria, Illinois, but Tom Penn has made his latest legacy in California soccer.
After graduating with a Juris Doctor from the University of Illinois in 1993, Penn then made the move to the University of Notre Dame, where he played basketball and golf, captained the swim team, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics. He started off working in his father’s office as a criminal defense attorney, using his free time to educate himself on the inner workings of the National Basketball Association. And after being rejected by just about every single NBA franchise that he applied to, he decided to make a name for himself as a sports agent.
Eventually, as the 20th century transitioned into the 21st century, Penn got his first big break with the Vancouver Grizzlies (later the Memphis Grizzlies), who hired him as their assistant General Manager and lead attorney after he had led owner Michael Heisley through the NBA acquisition process. Penn spent seven years with the Grizzlies before being hired as the Portland Trail Blazers’ vice president of basketball operations and assistant GM, working alongside GM Kevin Pritchard to rehabilitate them from their ‘Jail Blazers” era. With Penn at the helm, the Blazers managed to brave a spate of injuries and become a perennial playoff side, earning him a promotion to Vice President of Basketball Operations.
Following a stint as a basketball analyst on ESPN, Penn then decided to make the leap to soccer, assembling a consortium of investors to secure an expansion team following the dissolution of Chivas USA. That team would eventually become Los Angeles Football Club (LAFC), with Penn’s guidance proving instrumental in overseeing the development of the club’s $350-million home venue, Banc of California Stadium, and quickly establishing them as one of the best teams in Major League Soccer. Shortly after, he took his talents south, serving as the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of San Diego FC and of Right to Dream San Diego, a residential soccer academy and educational institution affiliated with the club. And once again, he helped San Diego seamlessly transition to life in MLS.
“At San Diego, that first year was amazing. To create it from nothing and to have the whole community embrace the club, to create a whole supporters’ group with them – they created it themselves – to have them just take off like a rocket. And then to have our team performance on the pitch be so unexpected for everyone. We were picked last and we ended up winning the Western Conference, losing in the Western Conference Final, and then we picked up this year,” stated Penn in an exclusive R.org interview. “Now the job is continued excellence and sustained success.”
Penn administered the formation of the ownership group, led by Sir Mohamed Mansour and the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation, and helped them formulate San Diego’s long-term plan on player development, community engagement, and global pathways for young athletes. Working alongside the renowned Right to Dream football network, an academy system that identifies and develops young talent in Ghana, Denmark, and Egypt, San Diego was able to guarantee a steady flow of international youth prospects, and their state-of-the-art training facility and residential academy enabled them to provide children with both elite soccer training as well as academic education.
A Successful First Season
With over a quarter-century of experience, Penn is the perfect guiding hand for a franchise that has taken MLS by storm in its first year of existence. The club posted an expansion-record 63 points, the most regular-season wins (19) for any first-year team, a record 12 away wins in a single season, finishing with the best regular-season record in the West only to lose to Vancouver Whitecaps in the Conference Finals.
San Diego didn’t just make an impact on the pitch, but in the stands: they set their single-match attendance record on March 1, 2025, drawing 34,506 fans for their inaugural home opener against St. Louis CITY SC at Snapdragon Stadium, as well as the all-time attendance record for any sporting event in the history of Snapdragon Stadium.
Over the course of their inaugural season, the club averaged 28,064 fans per match, placing them fourth in Major League Soccer for average attendance, and first among clubs not sharing a stadium with the NFL. And with millions of Americans getting hooked on soccer over the past six weeks, there’s reason to believe that San Diego FC can parlay that World Cup momentum into heightened interest in their club and MLS.
“[The World Cup has] been unbelievably exciting for the entire country, that’s undeniable. The level of intensity, interest, eyeballs, and wallets that have been put on, spending time and energy and money around supporting soccer and engaging with it is hugely important,” added Penn.
“What we like to say is, ‘If you liked that, come and experience this, because in 30 stadiums around our league, this is being expressed in a way that is local, fun, and awesome.”
MLS has been intrinsically linked with the FIFA World Cup since its inception in 1996. When the USA won the hosting rights to the 1994 World Cup all the way back in 1988, they were forced to create a new professional league which would fill the void of the extinct North American Soccer League. And after a shaky start to life which saw them nearly fold, the USA’s run to the 2002 World Cup quarterfinal incentivized more people to start following MLS. And shortly after the disappointment of missing out on a spot in the 2018 World Cup, the USA won the hosting rights to the 2026 World Cup alongside Canada and Mexico.
I was in Moscow when the United States 2026 bid edged Morocco to the hosting rights on June 13, 2018, just a few miles away from where the final vote was cast in the 68th FIFA Congress. I spoke to an important American soccer official who told me that Major League Soccer wanted to be competing with Europe’s top five leagues (Premier League, LaLiga, Serie A, Bundesliga, Ligue 1) by the time the 2026 edition rolled around. While that isn’t quite the case, it cannot be denied that MLS has made enormous strides. Back in 2018, MLS was viewed as a top 50 league in the world – fast-forward to today, and Global Football Rankings place it as the 10th-best league in the game. There’s reason to believe that, by the time the 2030 World Cup kicks off, they’ll have closed the gap on the top five leagues in Europe.
“[What constitutes a successful World Cup cycle is] continued growth, continued expansion of the game, elevation in franchise valuations, and just continued relevance in the zeitgeist of American sport,” added Penn. “[The biggest reason for optimism in MLS] is the power of America, and this is undeniably the world’s game. Everybody knows that at some point, eventually, America’s going to be the best at this too, because that’s what we do.”