It’s the timeless hypothetical hovering over American men’s soccer. *What if our best athletes played the sport?* U.S. men’s national team and Crystal Palace center back Chris Richards isn’t offended by it. “I understand it. I truly do,” he said. “I just think it’s very unrealistic.” Salivating for the shortcut to a dominant USMNT, the mainstream sporting public often wonders aloud if NBA or NFL superstars could have conquered soccer instead, and if their next-generation clones are the answer. But that’s missing the point. “I think the argument gets lost pretty quickly when it’s about, like, ‘If LeBron James was our center midfielder … ’ It’s not really about that,” said former MLS and USMNT midfielder Kyle Martino, who noted that Lionel Messi is 5-foot-7.
Indeed, peel off the literal layer of the question, and there’s the socioeconomic connotation that Richards and Martino both address. “I just think because of how accessible basketball and football are, our best athletes don’t really choose soccer over any other sport,” Richards said. In addition to the inner city accessibility of basketball, Martino highlighted its economic appeal. “It’s upward mobility, it’s a life-changing possibility, and it’s the stakes of if it doesn’t happen, what? What happens in your life?”
The life-changing potential of a career in football or basketball has dramatically expanded in the era of college athletes being paid. Name, Image, and Likeness compensation plus schools directly sharing revenue with athletes — funneled overwhelmingly to football and basketball players — has reinforced the stature and draw of those sports. Could that ultimately limit the ceiling of the U.S. men’s national team, preserving that hypothetical as no more than a fantasy?
(Getty creative image) As NIL money floods football and basketball, could U.S. Soccer’s ceiling be capped before it’s even reached?
In Hoover, Alabama, where Richards is from, football is a religion. “Every Friday night we were going to high school football games, that was like the fun thing to do. That’s why I was kind of devastated that I wasn’t allowed to play football growing up because of how big Hoover was when it came to that,” he recalled. His father, Ken, played basketball at Birmingham-Southern College and then four years overseas. Chris was hooping from third grade until the end of his sophomore year in high school. He was about 5-foot-6 and, having fallen in love with soccer on an Olympic Development Program trip to Argentina, exclusively focused on it that summer entering junior year.
Richards has always been a Crimson Tide football fan but he also loved the University of North Carolina basketball team — he remembered touring their facilities during an official visit — and that was partially why he committed to the school for soccer. He ultimately never suited up for the Tar Heels, signing with FC Dallas instead. Fellow USMNT defender Alex Freeman also opted not to follow his former professional athlete father’s footsteps when soccer became his focus at 14. Alex “played a little bit of everything” growing up, consumed a lot of college football and hoops, and there was “a little bit of pressure” from Green Bay Packers legend Antonio Freeman toward football. But in the end it was up to Alex, and it was an easy decision. “Soccer was always my love,” he said.
Richards, 25, and Freeman, 21, have taken different professional paths to the national team. Although Richards signed a homegrown contract with FC Dallas in 2018 he never appeared for their first team, heading to Bayern Munich on a loan that led to a transfer when he was 18. Instead of being a freshman at UNC, Richards was beginning his professional career with one of the biggest clubs in the world. He remembered accidentally opening mail from his youth soccer club indicating that his family — among the many hit hard by the 2008 financial crisis — was behind in payments to the club, and telling himself then: “I need to make it. Whatever I do, I need to make it.” With Bayern, before NIL burst the dam of dollars flowing to college athletes, Richards was in a unique financial position compared to his friends in the States. “I remember coming home I guess the first Christmas and like I had friends who were playing college sports, whether it was football, soccer, basketball, they were like, ‘Oh, *yoooo* can you lend me a few dollars?’” he said with a chuckle. “I feel like a big man, you know.” “I didn’t even think about it until now. But like, yeah, I guess it makes sense. I was legally allowed to make money playing professional sports when they were still going to college.”
Freeman, on the other hand, has remained in MLS for the first chapter of his professional journey, enjoying a breakout 2025 with Orlando City and attracting serious European interest. The timing of a possible transfer is uncertain — Freeman should be in the mix for the World Cup squad even if he stays in MLS until next summer — but the move seems inevitable. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see him eventually land where Richards is today: starting in the Premier League, by far the richest league in global soccer. Freeman isn’t bothered by the money he may have missed out on in college football or basketball, which can now easily eclipse the earnings of homegrown players in MLS and most American players in general. Per the MLSPA website, his 2025 base salary is $104,000. While there’s a lack of transparency around exactly how much college athletes are earning, that figure is below the estimated range for Power 4 conference football starters at essentially every position in 2025. And Georgia football head coach Kirby Smart told Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger prior to the approval of the House settlement — which ushered in direct revenue sharing and was supposed to better regulate payments from boosters via collectives — that there were some *high school* athletes being paid more than $20,000 a month to stay committed to their school. But Freeman keeps the disparity between soccer and other domestic sports in perspective, eyeing a future abroad. “There’s more money in Europe. But obviously as a young player myself, signing as a homegrown, I feel like you’re signing for the process, being able to eventually make that step,” he said. “People can get attracted to the money, but it’s obviously about making that process, to be able to go to the best teams in Europe and everywhere.” He acknowledges that college is now a more appealing avenue for elite athletes in this new era of compensation and that “some sports get paid more than others,” but he doesn’t think he would have made a different decision about which one he chose.
Richards admits the new landscape of college sports could’ve made it a tougher call today. “Potentially. I did love basketball to a point, but I just didn’t really know what avenue I could go through. I remember hearing about my dad playing overseas, but I never thought about myself playing overseas for basketball,” he said. “It’s amazing to know that you can represent your country at such a young age,” Freeman said. But will that patriotism and chance for global exposure resonate enough to overcome the newfound financial pull of the hardwood and the gridiron for a consequential amount of elite athletes? Don’t discount the power of what will be the biggest sporting event in history, but Martino maintains that to capitalize on that excitement and ensure participation trends sustainably in the right direction, it is investment in the grassroots infrastructure that will be key.
