England transformed soccer in America. Now its players stand in USA’s way

When the US meet England on Friday night, they will effectively be facing one of the reasons for the sport's rising profile back home

USA captain Tyler Adams was a 13-year-old New York Red Bulls academy prospect in 2012 when NBC became the exclusive US media rights-holder for the Premier League in a deal that has since been credited with propelling soccer to new heights of popularity in the United States.

Until then, nearly all English league matches were carried on Fox Soccer, a pay channel buried deep down the cable listings, inevitably limiting the sport's mainstream exposure. NBC's deal for both the English- and Spanish-language media rights to all 380 Premier League fixtures - for a then-bargain fee of $250m over three years that has since been renewed for $2.7bn over the next six - established soccer in the American sports firmament like never before by making matches available on both free-to-air television and NBC's family of cable networks.