NEW YORK — When the ownership vote was finished, Bennett Rosenthal, a Los Angeles FC co-owner, and Jimmy Haslam, owner of the Columbus Crew, sought out Larry Berg at Major League Soccer headquarters in New York City.

Read more How Mariners fit 50 seasons into biggest celebration in their history

By the time they reached him, news was starting to leak. Congratulations, they told him. The final vote was unanimous. He was the next MLS commissioner.

They escorted Berg, who is also an owner of Los Angeles FC, back into the meeting room, where 28 other owners were waiting. They greeted the new commissioner with a standing ovation.

On Tuesday, Rosenthal and Haslam, who chaired the succession committee as MLS picked just the third commissioner in its 30-year history, joked that they invited Berg out for a celebratory dinner only for him to turn it down.

“I got to work,” Berg said. “I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

A former senior partner at the private equity firm Apollo Global Management, Berg will transition into the role of commissioner full time beginning Jan. 1. Don Garber, who has served the last 27 years as commissioner, will remain on as chair through the end of his contract in 2027.

A lifelong soccer fan who grew up in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and once lost to U.S. World Cup veteran Peter Vermes in the high school state soccer playoffs, Berg says he has missed just one U.S. men’s national team match either in person or on television in the last 40 years.

He called the MLS commissioner job “a calling.”

“It has been a passion my whole life, starting at 8 years old,” Berg told The Athletic a few hours before his introduction. “I’ve never known exactly why, but it’s just always been really deep in my heart. I’ve always had this tremendous desire for soccer in this region to elevate, be better, ultimately maybe win a World Cup someday.”

He added: “With Don’s leadership, we’ve obviously built MLS to something that’s pretty extraordinary, but I think there’s so much upside left, and I want to see that come to fruition.”

Berg will have plenty to do immediately. He will take over the job at the start of a “sprint season” ahead of MLS flipping its calendar to a summer-spring format. That change will be accompanied by significant alterations to the competition structure, which includes divisions and a new postseason format.

League owners are also working on a new roster investment model, one that may have to be linked to a new collective bargaining agreement with the MLS Players Association. The current agreement expires Jan. 31, 2028.

Berg said he believed MLS could get changes across the line ahead of the start of the 2027-28 season, even as the MLS board of governors has opposing viewpoints on how the league should move forward in evolving its on-field product. He pointed to a solution he helped craft on sporting and competition that allowed teams to choose either three designated players or two designated players with extra cap space and an extra under-22 initiative slot as an example of finding ways to bridge divides.

“I feel everything is possible,” Berg said. “That’s one of my better skill sets, the deal-maker skills: be creative, galvanize people, bring them in alignment. It’s not easy. There’s different owners that have different views of how to do it. Everybody wants to move forward, but they want to do it in different ways.”

He added: “You kind of run into these roadblocks, and then you find this unlock. And the challenge for me is to do that on a big scale, and to do it with 30 owners. And I’m looking forward to that.”

Berg will begin working on those problems immediately in collaboration with Garber, who said “the future of this league is in the hands of Larry Berg, and my role is to help him be successful.”

Berg called Garber “a great mentor to me the last few years” and said he took comfort in knowing Garber would be there through 2027 in an official role and “probably unofficially for a lot longer.”

Read more Hilo man indicted, charged with second-degree murder

“We’ll figure out what we need to do to execute on one of the most important transitional plans in the history of the league,” Garber said. “If we get things done together, then we’ll be successful.”

Berg said that his passion for the U.S. national team has made youth development a focus of his and that it is an important part of the long-term solutions for improving the on-field product.

“Youth development is an incredible opportunity,” he said. “We have the clay, but I think we can continue to make it so much better. More minutes for younger players, more teams at the right levels, so that’s really high on my list.”

He pointed to the success of the World Cup, and MLS’ growing role with players in the tournament, as important markers for owners, but also said that it was yet another indicator around building the fanbase.

“The only way to really build this league is ultimately significant fan growth leading to significant media growth, which leads then to more significant fan growth and becomes a flywheel,” Berg said.

A new media deal will be a big part of that. MLS will go back to market soon, with its current deal with Apple set to expire in 2029.

“My view is it’s product first, right? It’s quality on the field first. It’s the playoffs. It’s the divisions. It’s the new calendar,” Berg said. “And if we get all that going, and especially now, it’s almost like cheating, right? I have this ‘rocket fuel’ that Don talked about from the World Cup. Everybody’s interested in talking about it.”

The search for a new commissioner started in earnest last fall when Haslam and Rosenthal were picked to chair a committee of owners to oversee the search. The committee also included Cliff Illig of Sporting Kansas City, John Ingram of Nashville SC, Jonathan Kraft of the New England Revolution, Joe Mansueto of Chicago Fire FC and Oliver Mintzlaff of Red Bull New York.

The committee hired Korn Ferry to lead the search.

Initially, 125 names were identified. That group was narrowed to 25, then reduced to 13, then to six. The final six candidates made presentations and were interviewed again over two days in Chicago in June, before a final three were selected.

Those three were Berg, former Fox executive David Nathanson and longtime San Francisco 49ers executive Paraag Marathe. According to sources briefed on the process, the committee said it was looking for a “transformational leader” who could help evolve MLS into a league that was more locally, nationally and globally relevant.

Marathe dropped out of consideration — he also left the 49ers, to focus on the organization’s European soccer teams — leaving Berg and Nathanson to make final presentations Monday ahead of the vote.

In the end, Berg, who has served as co-chair of the sporting and competition committee, a powerful subcommittee that oversees the on-field product, won the vote.

“Larry’s a very capable executive,” Haslam said.

“Apollo is one of the top P.E. firms in the world, and he helped build that firm. Then he went to work for Josh Harris, and I think his knowledge of the game, his love of game, his business background, his understanding of the league. We have 30 great owners and partners, but I think Larry, as an owner, has probably worked harder and spent more time with the league than any of us as owners.”

Rosenthal said: “People might perceive LAFC as a big-market club, but Larry and his role on product strategy, I think, proved to everybody that he has an ability to process everybody’s needs and concerns, and then address it and collaborate and drive to a decision. Being able to get a group to consensus and get to a decision, getting to action, is something that was something we really focused on as well.”

Read more FEMA reviews Hawaii’s COVID funding after Sylvia Luke indictment

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2026 The New York Times Company