Research from Kinetica Group. Please reach out to Malcolm Mizen with any inquires on how data insight like this can help your business.
Throughout this research series with Youth Sports Business Report, we’ve explored how localized intelligence can help organizations build a lasting participation legacy from FIFA World Cup 2026™. Each article has reinforced the same principle: understanding how many people want to play is only the beginning. Lasting participation growth depends on understanding where demand exists, how markets behave and where local opportunity is concentrated.
In our previous article, we introduced our “Participation Growth Archetypes”, a framework describing the prevailing way participation demand presents across FIFA World Cup 2026™ host cities.
This article puts that framework to the test by examining three of North America’s largest host cities: New York/New Jersey, Los Angeles and Mexico City. These cities share enormous scale and demand potential for Soccer, but they exhibit very different participation dynamics and require different approaches to deliver legacy.
Participation Growth Archetypes
As we’ve expanded our analysis across FIFA World Cup 2026™ host cities, four Participation Growth Archetypes have emerged.
| Archetype | Host Cities Analysed to Date | Primary Growth Challenge |
| Precision Engagement Markets | Boston, Philadelphia, New York/New Jersey, Mexico City | Converting potential demand through highly localized engagement |
| Growth Corridor Markets | Kansas City, Atlanta, Seattle | Expanding participation alongside population growth |
| Scale & Diversity Markets | Dallas, Houston, Miami | Prioritising diverse participation opportunities across large metropolitan areas |
| Network Markets | Los Angeles, San Francisco Bay Area | Coordinating multiple participation ecosystems |
Importantly, these archetypes have emerged through analysis of host cities rather than being predefined. As additional cities have been assessed, the framework has continued to hold.
These archetypes don’t describe cities themselves. They describe the dominant geographic pattern of participation demand and therefore the type of strategy most likely to generate sustained participation growth. Importantly, archetypes provide the strategic context for a given city or region, but we still need to dig deeper, more local to understand and act on differences by local community. Even within a single archetype, significant variation continues to emerge between neighbouring communities.
Testing the Framework Against North America’s Biggest Markets
New York / New Jersey
| Youth Interested in Playing Soccer | Annual Participation Opportunity | Archetype |
| 230,591 | $149M | Precision Engagement Market |
New York/New Jersey represents one of the largest reservoirs of potential soccer participation demand in North America. Its defining characteristic, however, is not scale, it is precision. It is the remarkable variation that exists between neighbouring communities. As a Precision Engagement Market, participation demand is highly localized, meaning broad citywide or even borough-wide strategies risk overlooking where the greatest conversion opportunity exists.
To understand what this looks like in practice, we can zoom from the metropolitan scale into Queens. Despite sitting within one of North America’s largest participation markets, the borough itself exhibits substantial variation between neighbouring communities. Rather than one dominant hotspot, Queens contains hundreds of localized participation opportunities.
This reinforces why neighbourhood-level intelligence is essential. Legacy strategies become significantly more effective when investment, programming and engagement are prioritised according to local opportunity rather than administrative boundaries.
Los Angeles
| Youth Interested in Playing Soccer | Annual Participation Opportunity | Archetype |
| 227,320 | $133M | Network Market |
Los Angeles tells a very different story. Rather, than one dominant urban participation pattern, potential Soccer demand is distributed across multiple interconnected participation ecosystems spanning Los Angeles County, Orange County, Long Beach, the San Gabriel Valley and beyond. Each area requiring its own localized strategy
Rather than behaving as a single metropolitan participation ecosystem, Los Angeles functions as a network of interconnected participation ecosystems. That is the defining characteristic of a Network Market.
The metropolitan view shows Los Angeles behaving as a network of participation ecosystems. Zooming into Orange County demonstrates that the story doesn’t stop there. Even within one of Southern California’s strongest participation ecosystems, participation demand continues to vary considerably between neighbouring communities
.
The implication is twofold. Organizations first need to identify which participation ecosystems to prioritise across the region, then determine where the greatest community-level growth opportunity exists within each ecosystem.
Mexico City
| Youth Interested in Playing Soccer | Annual Participation Opportunity | Archetype |
| 105,151 | $28M | Precision Engagement Market |
Mexico City is one of the world’s largest urban areas, and Soccer (Futbol) dominates youth sports participation. Perhaps the biggest surprise from the analysis is how closely Mexico City resembles New York/New Jersey. Rather than multiple distinct participation centres, the city exhibits a continuous urban environment where participation demand varies significantly between neighbouring communities. This firmly places Mexico City within the Precision Engagement Market archetype.
Like New York, the metropolitan view only tells part of the story. Zooming into Iztapalapa reveals why localized intelligence remains so important. Even within one borough, participation demand varies considerably between neighbouring communities, demonstrating that broad citywide strategies risk overlooking where the greatest conversion opportunity exists
.
The lesson is consistent with New York. Scale creates opportunity but neighbourhood-level intelligence determines where legacy investment is likely to have the greatest impact.
What North America’s Biggest Markets Teach Us
New York/New Jersey and Mexico City are among North America’s largest urban populations, yet both emerge as Precision Engagement Markets, where success depends on identifying and engaging communities with the greatest potential demand to play Soccer.
Los Angeles presents an entirely different challenge—a Network Market requiring coordinated investment and engagement across multiple participation ecosystems.
The key lesson is that market size alone is a poor guide for participation strategy. New York/New Jersey and Mexico City share a common archetype despite being separated by geography and culture, while Los Angeles demonstrates that equally large markets can require an entirely different approach. Understanding how a market behaves is therefore more valuable than simply understanding how large it is.
The implication extends well beyond FIFA World Cup 2026™.
Whether the objective is increasing participation, improving community health, maximizing facility investment, growing membership or strengthening local sports ecosystems, organizations need more than citywide averages or demographic profiles.
They need to understand:
- how participation demand behaves across their market
- which communities present the greatest growth opportunity
- who the existing and potential participants are
- how to reach and engage those audiences effectively
Looking Ahead
In the final article of this series, we’ll bring together all FIFA World Cup 2026™ host cities into a complete Participation Growth Planning Framework, providing governments, sports organizations, parks and recreation agencies, sponsors and community partners with a practical model for planning participation growth long after the final whistle.
Understanding markets is only the beginning. Lasting participation growth comes from identifying opportunity, engaging communities and cultivating participation ecosystems, one neighborhood at a time.
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