La Colombe ties summer soccer fandom to coffee retail push

La Colombe is trying to make coffee feel like part of the match-day uniform, not just the thing you grab on the way to the game. Its new Must Be the Coffee campaign, launched June 11, tied the brand’s role as the Official Coffee Partner of U.S. Soccer to a summer push built around the U.S. Men’s National Team, with retail sampling, limited-edition U.S. Soccer packaging on ready-to-drink lattes, television and digital advertising, and a film meant to set the tone for the rest of the season.

The most concrete move lands in cafés. Starting June 12, fans wearing U.S. Soccer merchandise can get a free iced Americano in select La Colombe cafés on U.S. Men’s National Team match days. The brand is also sending a full-time barista to the U.S. Men’s National Team basecamp so players can get their go-to beverages during the tournament. That is a sharper play than a logo swap: it puts La Colombe inside the routines of both fans and players, with the product tied directly to the game-day moment.

La Colombe also extended the campaign into Venice Beach, where it ran a Soccer Fan HQ pop-up from June 11 through June 26. That sits alongside U.S. Soccer House presented by Bank of America, a free fan destination one block from Venice Beach that is open June 11 through June 26 and built around watch parties, live programming, special guests, music, podcasts, post-match shows, and live storytelling. In other words, La Colombe is not just buying shelf space; it is buying access to the rituals around the tournament.

The timing fits the brand’s bigger sports and growth story. Chobani acquired La Colombe in December 2023 for $900 million, then announced a $567 million expansion of La Colombe’s Norton Shores, Michigan, plant in March 2026. That expansion is expected to add more than 200,000 square feet of production space and nearly 340 jobs, while retaining 312 existing jobs. La Colombe, founded in 1994, has also been selling ready-to-drink lattes since 2016, which makes the U.S. Soccer packaging push feel less like a side hustle than an effort to keep a fast-moving coffee brand in the center of a bigger cultural play.

The real test for Must Be the Coffee is whether it turns fandom into habit. Free iced Americanos, a basecamp barista, and a Venice Beach fan HQ all point to the same goal: make La Colombe part of the pregame, the watch party, and the post-match routine, so coffee shows up where soccer already lives.