Why Canadian sports fans are embracing international soccer like never before

In a few weeks, Graham Page and his seven-year-old son will make the pilgrimage to Old Trafford stadium, the largest club football stadium in the U.K. and the home of Manchester United. It’ll be the first time Page’s son will take in a Man United home game, but the same can’t be said of Page, who has been a passionate fan of the team since childhood and now chairs the Manchester United Supporters Club of Canada.

“I grew up watching sports with my dad,” Page says. “My family’s from Northern England and he went to school in Manchester, so I grew up watching the club with him.” Of course, he’s hoping to spark the same passionate fandom in his son, aided – he hopes – by their upcoming trip.

For years, this was how many Canadian soccer fans were made: passionate fandom for a Premier League or La Liga team passed down from generation to generation, despite how difficult it was to actually watch their team compete on this side of the pond. In fact, that’s what prompted a group of expats to form the Manchester United Supporters Club of Canada in Toronto in the early 1980s. But in recent years, things have changed, says Ann Pegoraro, a University of Guelph professor, Lang Chair in Sport Management and director of the school’s International Institute for Sport Business and Leadership.

“First, more and more international leagues are having their games broadcast in Canada and/or are available through streaming services, such as DAZN, giving more access. The international time zone also works well, allowing North American audiences to watch [Premier League] games at breakfast time on the weekends, when there are no live sports happening in North America. So, media, broadcast and streaming have played a large role in building fandom and interest,” she says.

“Next, many of the top teams have undertaken global marketing campaigns to attract new markets. Also, ownership stakes in some of the top teams are being bought up by U.S. professional athletes – for example, LeBron James and Liverpool – and these athletes are promoting the teams, acting as global ambassadors and influencers and even creating clothing lines.”

That increased accessibility has contributed to the growth of Canadian soccer fandom, but there are other factors, too. Immigration is a major driver of interest in the sport; according to Statistics Canada, immigrants are more likely to report playing soccer.

“Many of the newcomers to Canada come from countries with attachment to different sports such as soccer or cricket as their top sports, so the audience is also comprised of knowledgeable sport fans who have immigrated to Canada,” Pegoraro says.

There has also been an overall increase in interest after the men’s national soccer team qualified for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar – the first time the team had done so since 1986 – and Toronto was announced as one of the host cities for the 2026 World Cup. According to a 2022 Business in Vancouver survey, after 2022, 15 per cent of Canadians began considering themselves soccer fans, and 24 per cent of Canadians reported being “more interested in Canada’s national team … including 18 per cent of women, 32 per cent of moderate soccer fans and 30 per cent of casual soccer fans.”

Page has seen this shift first-hand. “There’s still a fairly strong expat, immigrant population,” he says. “But the more that people talk about the sport, the more it’s on the mainstream news, the more it’s reported on, the more that social media has grown, it means there are more people following the drama, and the ups and downs of both club and international level football. I think it has grown from just being the expats and the immigrants to become tier one news.”

This is great news for Canadian companies that see business opportunities in this increased interest and, Pegoraro says, for the international leagues and teams themselves, who have largely saturated the market in their home countries and “need global audiences to expand their fan base and create new revenue streams.” La Liga, for instance, partnered with multinational sports and entertainment company Relevant to form La Liga North America in 2018, specifically to promote Spanish soccer culture in Canada and the U.S.

And it’s also great news for the fans. “I think [the appeal comes from] the nature of the Premier League and how they play. It’s very high speed. They call it drama fuel – you can get in on subplots and the storylines,” Page says. For a soccer fan, there’s nothing better.