US soccer participation hits record 16.8 million outdoor players

By Arklavo News Room · Published July 28, 2026, 4:26 p.m. ET

Outdoor soccer participation in the United States reached 16.8 million players in 2025, an all-time high, and clubs are opening fall registration with the World Cup just finished.

The figure comes from the Sports & Fitness Industry Association, which tracks participation across US sports. Outdoor soccer grew 15.8% between 2024 and 2025. Indoor soccer reached 6.6 million players, also a record.

SFIA projects roughly 25.5 million Americans will be playing indoor or outdoor soccer by June 2026, about 8.2% of the population. Among children aged 6 to 12, 5.5 million already play outdoors.

The more useful number for anyone who sells into the sport is what happened last cycle. Outdoor participation rose 8.1% in 2023, the year after the tournament in Qatar, and indoor rose 7.5%. The cycles around the 2014 and 2018 tournaments, both played overseas, recorded declines instead. The lift tends to arrive after the final rather than during it. Clubs stocking up for that lift can browse our custom sports team apparel collection.

Growth is not confined to children. Between 2018 and 2025, outdoor participation among players aged 45 to 54 rose 247%, and the 35 to 44 group rose 118%. Female participation grew 65.5% over that period against 36.9% for men. Hispanic participation climbed from 2.6 million in 2022 to 4.2 million in 2025.

US Youth Soccer said on July 16 that it will convene its 2026 Grassroots Symposium and Leadership Weekend in Dallas from August 27 to 29, under the theme Moving Legacy Forward. More than 400 league and club leaders are expected, after more than 420 attended in 2025. The organization is running it alongside Common Goal USA and Soccer Forward, US Soccer's national legacy initiative.

"This Symposium has always been about bringing together the people building the game every day," said Tom Condone, CEO of US Youth Soccer.

Mary Connor, CEO of Common Goal, said the future of soccer in the United States will not be built by one organization alone.

Why the record lands on apparel desks

A participation record is also an ordering event. Every new squad needs shirts, and the businesses that sponsor a side want their mark on the chest.

Arklavo's own order data points to how small those orders really are. Across recent orders the average is 5.7 items at an order value of $129. That is a coaching staff, a keeper rotation or a single age group, not a warehouse pallet. Where the decoration method is recorded, about 63% is print and 37% embroidery, a split that tracks with Arklavo's own guide to back-to-school spending hits record $146.8 billion as apparel demand rises.

Order minimums are what historically pushed clubs into one bulk run a year and left them stuck with the wrong sizes by November. Arklavo, which has served more than 13,000 businesses, sets no minimum, so a club can order nine goalkeeper shirts without buying ninety. Production runs two days, and shipping then takes two to five business days, alongside Arklavo's custom apparel brands.

The registration windows opening now will close well before the tournament fades from memory. SFIA's projection has the participation curve still climbing through 2026, which makes the coming fall season, rather than the summer just gone, the one that decides how much of the World Cup actually sticks. Clubs and their sponsors working out kit for that season can request a quote on kit for the roster they have.