‘Where the hell does Harry Kane play?’ - How the Bundesliga is carving its U.S. niche while vying with the Premier League and MLS for viewers

The World Cup was seen as an inflection point for soccer in America. This was the bit when everyone was supposed to wake up and realize that this sport is quite cool. In truth, that was a simplistic assumption. Some leagues do better than others. Some, such as La Liga, benefit from star power. Others, such as MLS, benefit from proximity.

The Bundesliga has a bit of everything. Yes, Bayern are very good, and one of their best players - Harry Kane - might yet win the Ballon d'Or. Yes, there is, more broadly, an American interest in the way German soccer functions. But most importantly, it had timing on its side.

"After the World Cup, we actually want to leverage that momentum, and we have seen the soccer hype over the summer, and what we are trying to do now, and what we can actually see, is transferring the soccer fan from the World Cup in and translating that into a season-long journey. In an ideal case, with the Bundesliga," Robin Asutermann, Bundesliga's Executive Vice President for the Americas, told GOAL.

The clubs noticed it, too.

"I think the way we thought about it was that the World Cup is going to be a huge moment, and it will definitely accelerate interest," Dee Kundra, Managing Director of Bayern Munich's American strategy, added.

As such, they had been preparing for a while. Bayern first opened an American office in 2014 - by pure coincidence, right after Germany won the World Cup. Borussia Dortmund established a permanent presence in the U.S. in 2024, and has since held activations nationwide and tapped into creator culture in New York City. RB Leipzig partnered with youth soccer setup "Top Baller", and invited winners of 1v1 competitions to try out for the senior team in November 2025.

None of this is really possible without a viable broadcast deal. If there is one thing the Premier League has taught America, it's that accessibility to the sport is everything. If you can't watch soccer, then you won't learn to love it.

Good thing, then, that the Bundesliga's American TV deal ran out right before the World Cup. Their deal with ESPN was worth around $30 million per year, but all games were behind a paywall - with a tiny handful, mostly big Bayern Munich games, available on terrestrial TV. That included both English and Spanish language broadcasts.

This time, the Bundesliga has opted to split things up in the U.S. A combination of USA Network and movie-platform Fandango paid $100m over five seasons for the English-language deal. Those two services are under the same parent company, Versant, which has a strong presence in both the NBA and NFL. Every single game is available in some form. Thirty-plus games are on USA Network, which requires a standard cable subscription. The remaining 270 can be watched for free on Fandango.

Spanish language broadcasts have been sold off separately, with NBC Universal's Telemundo buying rights to all Spanish language broadcasts for $10 million for the next three years. Basically, the Bundesliga is making the same amount by doing two separate deals.

Sound complicated? Well, there's a method to the madness.

"The new era that we are entering in terms of the broadcast setup, we are setting ourselves up in a way that we are way more accessible than before," Austermann said. "It gives us way more reach actually than we have ever had before in the States."

And the numbers look compelling, too. In Spanish-language broadcasts, the Bundesliga reaches around 300,000 people per match - a tad behind the Premier League, and well ahead of Serie A.

"It's been a nice surprise. I think what we're doing is we're changing the perception of the Bundesliga in this country," Joaquin Duro, EVP of Sports and Head of Streaming at Telemundo, told GOAL.

That certainly got something of a World Cup bump, too. Telemundo's viewing figures spiked during the tournament, with Spanish-language consumption of soccer almost equaling English-language viewership.

"We ended up in the World Cup almost 50/50 in share for the first time ever. And it's not even a fair comparison when you really look at the addressable audience for FOX. It's like 150 million people, and our addressable audience is like 45-50 million people. So being 50 percent of the share and the ratings in a World Cup, it means even more for us," Duro added.

Of course, this is still a star-driven economy. And it helps that Bayern are enjoying a glut of stardom on the world stage. They have, of course, always had world class talent. But when Robert Lewandowski departed the club for Barcelona, there was something of a vacuum that needed filling. The club responded, albeit belatedly, by bringing in Kane a year later. The England captain smashed pretty much every goal record available to him in domestic football, and is among the frontrunners for the Ballon d'Or this year.

That makes the Bundesliga an easier sell.

"I think it has to be on all of the superstars that people probably discover through the World Cup," Duro said. "And they say, 'Oh my God, this is Harry Kane! I knew about Harry Kane! Where the hell does Harry Kane play?' Oh, you know what? A place in Germany."

Bayern themselves know that having elite talent boosts the American market - even if they don't necessarily make signings to appease U.S. viewers.

"As we internationalize, as we try and reach new markets, there's very much a star culture which we have to play into because we do have some of the biggest stars as well. So for us, it's really important to capitalize on that style culture," Kundra said.

More broadly, this is a strong era for Bayern as a whole. They pushed PSG all the way in the Champions League semifinal last year, and have to be considered among the favorites to win the competition this season. They wrapped up the Bundesliga by 16 points last year, and lost just once in the league. Sure, there's a concern about disparity. But a good Bayern tends to be good for German football in the States; there is no doubt.

If anything, the league sees Bayern as a way into the league - a window into the various stories that make the Bundesliga as a whole immensely compelling. One of those, for example, is the fact that the German top flight has always been a breeding ground for American talent - something fans in the U.S. connect with.

"It doesn't have to be necessarily always the super top star. There could also be a rising talent with American roots. You could also talk, 'Okay, Malik Tillman, is it his breakthrough season at Leverkusen? Yes or no?' He might get the overall recognition on the same level as as Luis Diaz, but it's it's it's a story. We have the league with the most U.S. American players in history, with more than 80," Austermann explained.

And then there's the other stuff. Frankfurt, Dortmund, Leverkusen, Hamburg - these are all immensely captivating clubs with glittering histories. Now, the Bundesliga is trying to tell their stories more effectively. Jobe Bellingham, Serhou Guirassy, Christopher Nkunku; these guys are all immense talents. Their fanbases are massive.

"What is it to be a Frankfurt fan, a Dortmund fan? What's so special about the Yellow Wall? Why are the stadiums always so loud? Those are kind of the stories that we need to actively tell. Because again, I cannot take it for granted that you, your friends, people in the U.S., just know about them. We need to, in this case, promote it and educate the audience in a certain way," Austermann added.

That means using talent with significant followings to do deep dives on individual clubs. That's part of the 'Discover a Club' initiative that has opened up so-called smaller Bundesliga teams to a much wider audience.

"We are sending one creator from the United States, one from Mexico, over to Germany. They spend an entire week with the club and tell the story of Frankfurt, Schalke or so, in a completely different way from an American angle. We provide it to our broadcaster, and we use it on social. And this narrative can be used throughout the entire season," Austermann explained.

It helps, too, that Bundesliga clubs are far more intrigued by global collaboration than those of other leagues.

"Our clubs are super open to that. They are really active. They want to tell the stories for sure. They're competing on the sporting level, but when it comes to international activities, specifically in the U.S., we know that people follow players, clubs, and then the league. Yeah. So we can do a lot, but we also need the clubs," Austermann added.

There's other stuff, too. German football carries a certain mythology. Clubs tend to be run pretty sustainably. They seldom spend big and are fan-owned. Their atmospheres are entirely unmatched. The rest of European soccer is corporate. Germany isn't perfect, but there's a folksy charm about it, too.

On Sep. 18, Bayern Munich booked out Timeout Market in Union Square, in the middle of lower Manhattan, for an Oktoberfest event. The principle was pretty simple: Die Roten had a game against Union Berlin. The annual, Munich-based beer festival had just begun. The club wanted to bring it to the Americas.

This is nothing particularly new. There are hundreds of Oktoberfests all over the U.S. every year, such is the fascination with German culture (and appetite for alcohol). But seldom are they league-backed.

"We were like, 'hang on a minute, we're an authentic Bavarian brand. Our beer partner is Paulaner, who are one of only the six beers that are allowed to be served at the original Oktoberfest; why don't we do something together and make it really authentic?'," Kundra explained.

The result was immensely compelling. Hundreds packed into a relatively small space. There were mascots, steins, and massive screens to watch the game. Bayern battered Union, 7-0. Kane scored two. Michael Olise scored three. It wasn't a great advert for parity, but it did show how good the product could be. At full time, organizers put on a stein-holding contest, in which participants are required to hold a full liter of beer with a straight arm - without letting it drop or falling over.

The Red Ladies had a presence, too. New York City is 4,000 miles from Munich. But there, on that day, it felt a lot closer.