Ken Griffin’s $26M gift helped land Pochettino and power Team USA’s 24-year knockout breakthrough

The U.S. men’s national team’s World Cup run ended Monday night in Seattle when Belgium beat the Americans 4-1 in the round of 16, eliminating the last of the tournament’s three co-hosts. But the match also capped a measurable era shift: the loss still set a U.S. television record for soccer, with the audience peaking at more than 36.8 million viewers between 9:15 and 9:30 p.m. ET, and Fox said 30 million watched the game. For a U.S. sports ecosystem that often treats “soccer momentum” as hypothetical, these numbers are not subtle.

That momentum has a paper trail behind it. The financing story the U.S. team could not do on its own starts with Citadel founder and CEO Ken Griffin, a soccer obsessive who “personally had a hand in bringing star coach Mauricio Pochettino to the men’s national team.” In the lead-up to this tournament, Griffin contributed the largest financial gift among a group of benefactors who helped hire Pochettino, and U.S. Soccer ultimately recruited him on a two-year deal to rebuild a squad after the 2024 Copa America ended with elimination. After Monday’s loss, Griffin told Fortune, “I’m pleased to see the progress the U.S. Men's National Team has made under Mauricio's leadership and the excitement this World Cup has generated across America,” and he added, “I look forward to building on that momentum in the coming years.”

Why does this matter beyond sports fan talk? Because U.S. Soccer’s coaching problem was structural. Unlike most national federations, U.S. Soccer receives no direct government funding, relying on its own revenue, sponsorship, and donations. Last year, U.S. Soccer reported $264 million in revenue, with $50 million coming from donations. And more than half of that donation money was restricted in how it could be spent. In other words: even when U.S. Soccer has money, it may not have the kind of flexible money required to buy elite outcomes like an internationally proven coach.

The “how it happened” details are where the business lesson hides. Fortune reports that a push to land a marquee coach began with an offhand text to friends from Scott Goodwin, co-founder of hedge fund Diameter Capital Partners. Goodwin then spoke with U.S. Soccer chief executive JT Batson, who told him the federation’s leading candidates were unaffordable. So Goodwin turned to Griffin. A Citadel spokesperson confirmed to Fortune that the push landed with Griffin, and that Griffin’s confirmed contribution closed the gap on a deal that would otherwise have been out of reach. Griffin, for his part, said at the time the donation would help the team succeed, adding that it would “expand the reach of this great sport.”

The check also came with a cost signature that decision-makers can’t ignore. Pochettino, previously managing Tottenham Hotspur, Paris Saint-Germain, and Chelsea, was brought in on a two-year deal. He is now described as the highest-paid coach in U.S. Soccer history, earning a base salary of roughly $6 million a year. Tax filings cited by Fortune show he collected more than $5 million in his first seven months on the job, including a signing bonus of about $2.5 million. That is not the profile of a bargain hire. It’s the profile of a strategic bet, one that U.S. Soccer could make only because private capital arrived to untie a spending constraint.

On-field, the payoff showed up through the tournament’s expanded 48-team, round-of-32 structure. The U.S. opened with a 4-1 win over Paraguay, then beat Australia 2-0 to top its group despite a 3-2 loss to Turkey. In the round of 32, the team beat Bosnia and Herzegovina 2-0. That match included a controversial red card against striker Folarin Balogun, which FIFA later suspended. Then came the end: Belgium’s 4-1 win in the round of 16 ended the run. Even so, the run delivered the first time in 24 years (and second in the team’s history) that the Americans have won a World Cup knockout match.

Now zoom out to the second-order effect: these donors are not only buying game-day outcomes, they are expanding the experience itself. Griffin’s giving around the 2026 tournament extends to access. Griffin Catalyst has funded nonprofit-hosted watch parties at its Miami mini-pitches, complete with match broadcasts, soccer activities, music, and food. The organization is also an Official Miami World Cup 2026 Host City Supporter and sponsor of the FIFA Fan Festival Miami. Griffin and Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross donated more than 1,200 World Cup tickets to youth served by Boys & Girls Clubs across Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties. This matters because television ratings and tournament performance are high-velocity metrics, but youth access and community infrastructure are what determine whether the next cycle’s “momentum” survives the news cycle.

There is also a governance and compliance angle lurking in plain sight. When donations are restricted, spending becomes a logic puzzle. The story suggests Griffin’s contribution was the largest among benefactors who helped hire Pochettino, specifically to close an affordability gap for marquee coaching. For U.S. Soccer, that means a recurring question for leadership: can the federation build a model where elite talent is not dependent on rescuing the budget every cycle? For boards and executives across sports and media, the headline takeaway is simple: talent is expensive, but the real bottleneck is often flexible capital. In a world where fan attention peaks at tens of millions, the organizations that solve the spending constraint fastest get to translate hype into results.

And the quiet truth in all of this is that “24 years” is a long time to wait for infrastructure to catch up to ambition. Monday night ended one run, but Griffin’s involvement helped prove that when the right resources line up, U.S. Soccer can move from “almost” to “knocked out the knockout round.”