How Men in Blazers grew its media empire

When the US last hosted the FIFA World Cup in 1994, it wasn’t exactly a nation of soccer lovers: Major League Soccer (MLS) didn’t exist yet, the women’s game hadn’t had its breakthrough moment (the 1999 World Cup) and, perhaps most symbolically, some of the stadiums needed real grass, not Astroturf (a FIFA regulation). Today, the landscape is almost unrecognizable: Soccer has fully entered the mainstream and, according to a November report from The Economist, is now the third-most popular sport in the US (following football and basketball).

One media network meeting the needs of this rapidly growing fan base is Men in Blazers. What started as a podcast in 2010 by sports journalist Roger Bennett and producer Michael Davies has exploded in popularity amid the increasing demand for international and domestic soccer coverage. Men in Blazers has grown its portfolio of podcasts to cover everything from the English Premier League to the US national team, as well as expanding into television projects (most notably a multiyear deal with NBC Sports signed in 2014), social media content, and more.

“Soccer wouldn’t be where it’s at in the United States, especially the Premier League, if it wasn’t for Men in Blazers,” said soccer journalist Michael LoRé. “If it wasn’t for Men in Blazers, Premier League, the national teams, all of that would be popular, but they wouldn’t be successful without Roger and Mike and all those guys.”

Men in Blazers has expanded to different verticals in the last two years, launching The Women’s Game in 2024 for women’s soccer coverage and Vamos in 2025 for Latin American soccer news, led by former professional soccer players Sam Mewis and Herc Gomez, respectively. According to the company, in 2025 Men in Blazers saw 44% YoY growth in overall network impressions and 65% YoY growth in overall network engagement. The Women’s Game experienced 300% growth in followers and Vamos saw 49% growth in impressions and 38% growth in engagement.

Leveling the playing field

After retiring from the sport in 2024, Sam Mewis was named the editor-in-chief of The Women’s Game, where she hosts several podcasts alongside a slew of former and current players including Becky Sauerbrunn, Lynn Biyendolo, and her sister Kristie Mewis.

“All of the people on my team are so [knowledgeable] across all of the issues going on—what’s going on with the different leagues and the rule changes and which players are moving where—that I feel constantly like I have access to people who know more than me and can help me figure out what’s happening, what’s important, what are all the different angles through which we could cover it,” Mewis said.

The growth of The Women’s Game comes alongside rising interest in women’s soccer, galvanized by the success of the US Women’s National Team in recent years: They won the World Cup consecutively in 2015 and 2019, and the Olympic gold medal at the Paris Summer Games in 2024.

“The stories that we get to tell about the players are so interesting, so emotional, and so heartfelt,” Mewis said. “The growth in media coverage, especially on the women’s side, has been huge.”

Mewis and her team are gearing up to cover the 2027 Women’s World Cup, and the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, all while continuing to hone in on their current coverage that’s resonated with a diverse fan base.

“My attitude as a player was: Put yourself in a position where you can say yes to doing extra,” Mewis said about her editorial strategy. “That’s really brought us far. I think it’s enabled our team to grow a lot.”

Speaking to the fans

Herc Gomez is no stranger to sports broadcasting: The former MLS player has been an ESPN commentator since retiring in 2017. He joined Men in Blazers several years ago and helped establish Vamos by creating content for the US-based Hispanic soccer community.

“I always grew up seeing people on TV who didn’t look like me, hearing people share their experiences that weren’t my experiences,” Gomez said. “The one fulfilling thing about doing this is it feels like your ground level with a lot of people who grew up like you, or had similar experiences, and maybe have an affinity for something you experience, whether it was playing in Mexico or playing for the US Men’s National Team, or knowing what it’s like to have a unique bond with two different cultures.”

The importance of the Hispanic and Latino communities in the growth of soccer in the US cannot be overstated: The MLS says more than 30% of its fan base is Hispanic, and Gomez said he’s seeing how the platform resonates so much with Hispanic soccer fans.

“We’re going to try to reach as many people as we can,” Gomez said. “It’s not just the World Cup. That’s the great thing about Men in Blazers, the great thing about Vamos—the ecosystem. You’ve got the Olympics coming up, you got the Women’s World Cup coming up. There are so many different events that Vamos and Men in Blazers can reach our fans in that it’s not going to stop.”

A 2025 McKinsey report predicts the US sports economy could double to more than $300 billion by 2035, with Latino fans representing one-third of that growth.

“Soccer’s growth is driven by young, multicultural, diverse, tech-savvy demographics, and a lot of that is US Hispanics,” LoRé said. “They’ll come from various countries, and they have favorite soccer teams, favorite soccer players, and they pass that down to second-generation bilingual speakers.”