Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber recently signed a four-year contract that will see him remain at the helm through 2027.
MLS owners voted in July to extend Garber, who has held the role since 1999, a representative for MLS said in a phone call. Garber’s previous contract expired after the 2023 season, and he started this year without a long-term deal as the new contract was finalized. The new deal will see him through the 2026 men’s World Cup, which is being co-hosted in the U.S., and the full MLS season afterwards.
The MLS representative declined to comment on how much Garber is paid.
Under Garber’s leadership, the business of MLS has changed dramatically. Expansion fees before he took over were in the $5 million range; owners of the new San Diego franchise recently agreed to pay $500 million. The total number of teams has jumped from 12 to 30, while total attendance has risen from 2.7 million in 1999 to 11 million this past season. The average MLS club is now worth $678 million, according to Sportico’s numbers, with four teams over the $1 billion mark.
More recently, Garber helped the trio of North American nations land the World Cup, saw Lionel Messi sign with Inter Miami, and negotiated a league-wide media deal with Apple that is unlike any other in U.S. sports. That 10-year, $2.5 billion deal, which bundled all local and national broadcast rights to provide to a streaming service, will be a major part of his legacy as commissioner. It is a gamble of sorts on the shift of media consumption to streaming, one that likely shrunk the league’s overall viewers, at least in the short term, but also likely paid it more money.
Garber joined MLS in 1999 as a soccer outsider, having worked previously at the NFL in marketing and international growth. He is the second-longest tenured commissioner in major U.S. sports, trailing only the NHL’s Gary Bettman, who has held his position since 1993.