As I posted, the World Cup is a ratings bonanza, but it’s only a once every four years event, and has only been held in the USA twice.
It has never resulted in MLS being able to compete in terms of TV ratings or total attendance with “The Big Four” (NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL).
MLS is a league run by incompetents determined to shoot themselves in the foot. NHL ratings would suck if their games were exclusively broadcast on Apple TV, too. I would advise against drawing broad conclusions about the popularity of Soccer as a whole based on MLS.
When I talk about soccer popularity, I don’t necessarily mean in terms of how many people like it, how many people consider it to be their favorite sport, or how many people play it.
It’d likely be well ahead of hockey in those measures.
But as a sport that either sells tickets or get TV eyeballs except for the World Cup, it’s pretty far behind hockey at all levels, and not just professional (MLS v. NHL).
The D1 college hockey “Frozen Four” generally gets 600K to 900K viewers. The D1 men’s soccer championship only gets 100K to 200K. College hockey generally gets two or more times the average attendance of men’s college soccer as well.
The Stanley Cup Finals gets about 10 times the TV eyeballs that the MLS Cup does.
Soccer remains #5 in the USA in those regards. And I kinda hate to say it, but I don’t really see that changing anytime soon.
Anyway, since this is the World Cup string, I’m still pulling for Norway.
That said, I think another France v. Argentina final is realistic.
It’s the World Cup in the US. Lol
You’re using a league as a proxy for a sport, and that’s a mistake. Soccer is fundamentally different in a couple key ways from most US sports:
If MLS suddenly had Premier League-level budgets and talent, it would probably be a lot more popular. The fact that a league that’s barely top-25 in the world, played exclusively in a different country (Liga MX) gets ratings comparable to NHL across non-local markets speaks to the fact that there’s a huge, largely-unmet market for the sport here.
Are the NBA Finals, Stanley Cup Finals, College Football Playoff National Championship, and World Series played somewhere else?
FIFY.
Once the NHL playoffs start (which, to be honest, is almost a whole new season), the NHL wins that TV ratings battle pretty handily over any pro soccer league in the United States, including the EPL and the Mexican League. Those leagues can match or exceed the ratings for NHL regular season games, but the NHL buries them in the post-season.
And in terms of attendance…consider this.
Most people don’t know this, but in total attendance, the NHL even beats the NBA.
Here are the top leagues for total attendance:
MLB: 71.3 million
NHL: 23 million
NBA: 22.3 million
NFL: 18.7 million
EPL: 15 million
Again, games not featuring a US Team (a more direct comparison) still don’t come close to numbers that match top Liga MX teams.
If a league isn’t popular except for the playoffs, it’s not popular; the playoffs are just a popular event. (see also: College Basketball)
On the contrary, a sport’s popularity can often be determined by how big its playoff, and especially, how big its CHAMPIONSHIP is in terms of TV eyeballs.
Take D1 men’s college basketball. The PLAYOFFS (March Madness) are what makes it such a “popular” sport, with the later rounds getting tens of millions of viewers. It’d be dumb to say that men’s college basketball isn’t “popular” simply because its playoffs are such a big deal. The opposite is true. Yet that’s basically what you just tried to argue.
The Super Bowl gets 127 million viewers, far more than even World Cup Soccer matches. See how a sport’s POPULARITY can be determined by its playoffs and championship? All right then.
Guess what?
Those leagues ARE (NCAA men’s basketball, NFL, etc) popular. The fact that their playoffs are title are ESPECIALLY popular doesn’t change that fact, as you suggested. On the contrary, they help to ESTABLISH that fact.
Indeed…their playoffs and title matches/series are among the very best indicators of just how popular they are.
The World Cup was being played in the US for the first since 94 with the US team having some momentum. It got viewers for that alone. It’s not more popular than baseball and I doubt that it’s more popular than even hockey.
No, College Basketball is a niche sport. Nobody cares until March. If all of your sport’s fans are bandwagoners who only show up for a month at the end of the year because your postseason is fun to gamble on, it’s not a popular sport.
The Super Bowl is big, but the NFL regular season is also much, much bigger than anything else in the US. Only the very most popular College Football matchups can measure up to even the least-watched NFL regular-season games. It’s extremely popular all year. The NFL Draft regularly beats the NBA and Stanley Cup Finals.
Attendance would suggest that NHL hockey is anything but a “bandwagoner” sport.
It even outdraws the NBA, and no one would dare claim that the NBA isn’t “popular.”
If the NBA is indisputably “popular” in the USA, and the NHL outdraws it, then it goes without saying that the NHL is “popular” as well.
And plenty of people care about college basketball during the regular season. If they didn’t, then we wouldn’t have a basketball board on coogfans.com.
It’s HARDLY a “niche” sport. VERY popular, even though it gets EVEN MORE popular during the playoffs.
Same for the NHL…once its playoff starts, it gets FAR MORE popular in terms of TV ratings than any pro soccer league in the USA.
If your regular season starts in October and “fans” don’t tune in until March or April, it’s a niche sport. The overwhelming majority of play in a sport happens in the regular season. If fans aren’t paying attention to that, they’re hardly fans.
Nationally broadcast NBA games draw triple what the NHL does for the first six months of the season. MLB does more than that. The NHL doesn’t even beat Liga MX.
But again, once you factor in the playoffs, the NHL beats Liga MX and EPL in TOTAL eyeballs.
Ya gotta look at the WHOLE season to get the WHOLE picture.
Advantage NHL.
Even AI agrees on that, as I posted above.
And the whole picture shows that the NHL doesn’t have a particularly large fanbase, even if a lot of casual viewers who couldn’t explain an Icing call tune in for “their team’s” playoff run.
You can make AI say whatever you want. For example:
Sure Bro.
The second highest attended league in the USA doesn’t have a large fan base.
That’s ridiculous.
Whatever man.
It’s the MLS that doesn’t have a very large fan base.
That’s why they are hardly on linear TV any more.
That should tell you that soccer is #5 as a spectator and TV sport in America.
Nobody has said anything about MLS except that it’s a crappy league that even its fans hate. (I’m an MLS fan! Take it from me, MLS sucks!) Liga MX and the Premier League both get nationally broadcast on over-the-air TV.
And again, trail the NHL in total eyeballs, which is what matters for ad sales and revenues.
That makes soccer #5.
And in attendance, it ain’t close.
That’s not true, though. The Premier League gets more TV revenue per team from their US deal than the NHL does. When Liga MX goes to market, they probably will, too. Throw in MLS, and the total eyeballs and revenue for soccer on US TV is not close.
And again, popular European teams put tens of thousands in US stadiums when they come over here for meaningless preseason tours.
It might be fans who recently moved here from abroad, since stadiums are usually pro visiting team when the US plays friendlies here.
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