"People do not become Arsenal fans because it's easy," New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani told Front Office Sports. He's not wrong. Two decade-long title drought. Back-to-back collapses from the top of the Premier League. Years of being, in Mamdani's own words, "the butt of a joke." And yet the Gooners kept multiplying.
Now Arsenal are in a Champions League final against PSG in Budapest on Saturday, and the club's global footprint looks less like a fanbase and more like a movement. When they won the Premier League on May 19, celebrations erupted not just in North London — the Premier League's official account posted footage of fans flooding the streets of New York, Uganda, and Kenya.
The U.S. is Arsenal territory now
Since NBC picked up Premier League rights in 2013, American viewership has surged — and Arsenal have consistently been the draw. The Gunners featured in each of the five most-watched Premier League matches in U.S. history, all in the last four seasons. April's Arsenal vs. Manchester City title race clash pulled 2.6 million viewers across NBC, Peacock, and Telemundo. A fan event NBC put on in Tampa Bay for that game drew over 15,000 people.
"When you looked out on the crowd, it was all red," NBC's Rebecca Lowe said.
American owner Stan Kroenke — who also runs the LA Rams, Denver Nuggets, and Colorado Avalanche — has been at the helm since 2007 and clearly understands how U.S. sports franchises build audiences. Arsenal have leaned into that. The club has cultivated relationships with supporters groups across the country in a way that feels less like a corporate strategy and more like genuine community-building.
Nowhere is that more visible than New York. The Brooklyn Invincibles, founded in 2021, started with the founders essentially begging a Fort Greene bar called FancyFree to open early on Saturday mornings. Now they have 16,000 Instagram followers, Spike Lee showing up as their self-appointed "patron saint," and queues snaking out into the rain for a game that was already decided in the table. That last detail matters — fans lined up in the wet for a meaningless Crystal Palace fixture because the league title had already been clinched. That's not casual interest.
Wenger planted the seeds worldwide
The global spread — particularly across Africa — traces back to Arsène Wenger's arrival in 1996. He signed African players when other English clubs weren't looking there. By 2002, Arsenal became the first English top-flight side to start nine Black players. That wasn't just progressive optics; it made the club feel like somewhere people from all over the world could actually see themselves.
"People have seen themselves in this club that has always been universal in its makeup," says Brooklyn Invincibles cofounder Mosito Ramaili, who is originally from South Africa. Mamdani, born in Uganda, describes it the same way: falling in love with "a style of play and with an identity."
That identity built loyalty that outlasted the trophyless years, the 8th-place finishes, and the endless "banter era" mockery. Manchester United and Liverpool had global fanbases for decades before Arsenal got there — but Arsenal built theirs through something that felt less manufactured.
On Saturday, Ramaili won't be at FancyFree for the final. He'll be in Johannesburg, watching with around 400 Arsenal supporters at a bar he started himself. "Everywhere in the world I go," he says, "I collect Arsenal fans."
At this point, it's hard to argue with the method.
