‘Stay the course’: do MLS’s anemic ratings in the Apple TV era matter?

It's certainly strange that MLS apparently struggles to outdo pickleball in the broadcast TV ratings. But with a North American World Cup looming, there's no reason for panic

There are a number of good-news stories that MLS is eager to bring to a wider public as attendances rise and sponsorship revenues fatten. Broadcast ratings are not one of them.

This month's MLS Cup final between the Los Angeles Galaxy and the New York Red Bulls, two venerable clubs in the nation's biggest media markets, was watched by an average of 468,000 viewers on Fox and Fox Deportes - a drop of nearly half from the audience of 890,000 on those channels in 2023. The title-clinching game of October's MLB World Series, meanwhile - another LA-NY clash, as the Dodgers beat the Yankees - drew an average of 18.6m people on Fox.