Liverpool's 2026 pre-season has taken the club coast to coast across the United States, with fixtures against Sunderland in Nashville, Wrexham at Yankee Stadium in New York, and Leeds United at Soldier Field in Chicago. It is the club's second US tour in three pre-seasons, and it comes at a moment when Liverpool's commercial presence in America has never been bigger.
The club has been direct about why these trips keep happening. Liverpool has described the USA as its primary international retail market, with the club citing more than 26 million fans across the country. That scale of support helped make Liverpool the top-earning club in the Premier League according to this year's Deloitte Football Money League, with total revenue reaching £702 million, a large share of it now coming from commercial activity rather than matchday income alone. Growing that American fanbase further, particularly in markets the club has not yet toured, including California, is clearly part of the long-term plan, and interest in the club's growing US presence has extended into related areas like sports and entertainment coverage, including sites focused on California betting sites, as American audiences engage with Premier League football in ways that go well beyond just watching matches.
This year's schedule was always going to be shaped by the World Cup, which was staged across the US, Canada, and Mexico and wrapped up less than a week before Liverpool's tour began. That timing complicated planning significantly, since several first-team players were still involved in the tournament right up until the final. Manager Andoni Iraola confirmed he would be without a number of key players for the early fixtures, with the likes of Ryan Gravenberch, Alexander Isak, and Florian Wirtz expected to rejoin the squad partway through the trip, while Virgil van Dijk, Cody Gakpo, and Alisson Becker began their pre-season back on Merseyside instead.
That gap gave several younger and fringe squad members a real opportunity to impress early in the tour, a pattern that has become familiar for Liverpool's US trips in recent years. It also meant an extra friendly against Como was added to the schedule, giving Iraola more flexibility to get minutes into players joining the group later than planned.
Liverpool's last US tour, in the summer of 2024, turned out to be a strong sign of things to come. Arne Slot used that trip to begin building the squad that went on to win the Premier League title later that season, with friendlies against Real Betis, Arsenal, and Manchester United serving as an early test of his ideas. With the club now under new management heading into 2026-27, this tour is being watched just as closely for early signs of how Iraola intends to set his own team up before the Premier League season gets underway.
Beyond the football, these tours have become a significant earning opportunity in their own right. Based on figures previously disclosed by Manchester United for similar trips, clubs touring the US can expect to earn well in excess of £10 million from a single visit, a meaningful boost to commercial revenue before a ball has even been kicked competitively.
Liverpool's American following has grown steadily for years, helped along by the club's ownership under Fenway Sports Group, an American group that also owns the Boston Red Sox. That ownership link has always given Liverpool a slightly different relationship with US audiences compared to some of their Premier League rivals, and the club has leaned into it, choosing US cities for friendlies almost every time a pre-season tour is planned.
According to ESPN's coverage of the USA Summer Tour, Liverpool were joined this year by Sunderland, Wrexham, and Leeds United as part of a broader six-city series, reflecting just how much appetite there now is across English football for pre-season fixtures on American soil.
With the tour concluding in Chicago and the club now turning its attention to two more warm-up fixtures at Anfield against Como and Monaco, the real test begins on August 22 when the Premier League season kicks off. For a club that increasingly measures its growth in international terms, this US trip is as much about building the brand for the next decade as it is about preparing the squad for the weeks immediately ahead.
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