Scoring a Dream Job

As a guy who grew up on Capitol Hill, playing soccer at Seattle Prep and earning a degree from Seattle University, it was a surreal moment. That’s what Will Trogdon, vice president of brand and marketing for FIFA World Cup 2026 (Seattle), was feeling as he stared out the window from the just-opened media center in a building just north of Lumen Field, where the world’s biggest sporting event would soon kick off.

“That moment really hit,” Trogdon says. “I had to take a step back and say, ‘This is crazy.’”

The World Cup road started a couple years prior for Trogdon, who earned a digital design degree from SU in 2016. A senior designer for the Seattle Kraken NHL team at the time—joining the organization in its earliest days—Trogdon felt like he’d reached his ceiling with the team. He approached Kraken COO Rob Lampman and Kraken CEO (and Seattle University Board of Trustees member) Tod Leiweke for guidance. Leiweke connected Trogdon with Peter Tomazawa, CEO of the Seattle World Cup local organizing committee.

“What stood out was they wanted to make sure everything they did was for the betterment of the city,” Trogdon says. “We hit it off, they made an offer and we got to work.”

Working with a small team, Trogdon’s job included contracting photographers and videographers, developing relationships with influencers and celebrity ambassadors, working with Seattle’s pro sports teams to involve them and essentially overseeing the marketing, brand strategy and guidelines that would be used to promote the event in a uniquely Seattle way.

“We developed our own branding, look and feel apart from FIFA,” he says. “We wanted it to be something the city could fully own. I wanted to help rewrite what Seattle was known for with a more modern take. It’s more than just the birthplace of grunge, Starbucks and throwing fish.”
By any measure the effort was a success, as Seattle was regularly highlighted as one of if not the best host cities during the World Cup.

One project Trogdon was most proud of was a partnership with Seattle Children’s Hospital in which kids battling serious health challenges produced a variety of artwork that he was tasked with turning into a display on the pillars along the Monorail route. It was no easy task as each piece was a different style and medium, but the final result was extremely well received and meaningful.

Working on a World Cup was not on Trogdon’s radar when he transferred to Seattle University after playing two years of soccer at University of Puget Sound. Wanting to pursue classes in design, he considered transferring to Oregon but after visiting SU’s campus he connected with Professor Naomi Kasumi, director of the design program. Kasumi helped him work through the unique challenges transfer students, especially student-athletes, can face.

“She was so supportive and understanding and really set the path before me of what I’d need to do, who to talk to, what classes to take,” Trogdon says. “I owe her a huge thank you.”

“I walked him through the planning and he knew I was on his side,” says Kasumi, who had a similar experience when she was a student-athlete in Japan. “He was really open and honest with me and I was blunt and honest with him and promised that I’d always be on his side. I gave him options to create a pathway, but he had a lot of choices to make.”

SU helped his adjustment, says Trogdon, by connecting him with other transfer students who could form a support system and community. He says he likely wouldn’t have had the academic success without that support and also joined a few organizations and clubs to build out his community.

While he may never have imagined working on the World Cup, Trogdon’s career path has been sports-heavy, doing design work for the University of Washington football team, the Seattle Sounders, the Seahawks and the U.S. Soccer Federation.

“I’m really proud to see how he’s excelled,” Kasumi says. “He has a great passion for this work and an understanding of the athletics world. It’s been great to see what he’s done.”

With the World Cup in his rearview mirror, Trogdon is looking to what’s next. It took awhile to come down from the adrenaline of working 6 a.m. to midnight every day for months to make the tournament come alive, but he’s ready to keep that momentum going.

“What I loved was overseeing how the brand strategy as a whole came alive. That’s what I found I’m really passionate about and what I want to keep working on.”