North America’s top-flight Major League Soccer (MLS) competition drew record interest across the 2025 regular season, both in terms of viewership and attendance.
The regular season, which began on February 22 and ran through October 18, achieved a strong year-on-year viewership uplift, with the 510-game regular season averaging 3.7 million gross viewers per gameweek, up 29% on the 2.8 million average from the 2024 campaign.
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While Apple TV remained the primary distributor of MLS games through the pair’s bumper 10-year agreement, the viewership figure also includes data from other domestic broadcast partners such as US media giant Fox, Canada’s TSN and RDS, its range of international media partners, domestic MLS Season pass carriers Comcast, DirecTV, Prime Video, alongside social media platform TikTok and gaming service EA FC Mobile.
The league claims that this new approach to calculating broadcast reach, used for the first time this campaign, gives a “more complete” perspective on its total overall viewership.
The viewership growth itself, the MLS adds, has been driven by the high-profile names now attached to its franchises, such as the continued presence of Argentine icon Lionel Messi at Inter Miami, and the addition of South Korean star Son Heung-Min, the latter of which has helped the league to new broadcast deals in that market since his arrival.
In terms of in-person audience, the 2025 regular season was the second-best attended campaign in league history, drawing a cumulative 11.2 million fans (21,988 per game), and notching the league’s highest ever cumulative ticket revenue for a campaign.
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By GlobalDataOverall, league average attendance has grown 12% since 2022, and in terms of social media, the league boasted a 10% year-on-year growth in followers, boasting 109 million collective follows across its various accounts.
Earlier in 2025, Wasserman managing executive for global soccer Rich Motzkin spoke on an edition of the GlobalData Sport podcast, and suggested that it was ‘just a matter of time’ before the league reaps the benefits of the AppleTV partnership.
“If you look at where this league was five years ago, 10 years ago, versus where it is now, you know, it's just growing rapidly in every way, shape, or form,” he said.
“We live in a world of instantaneous results. But things take time. I guarantee you a year from now… [MLS] will be in the top five in social media, and it will continue to rise in its metrics.”
Meanwhile, the US Soccer governing body has announced a new partnership with the US-based food brand Chobani.
Going forward, Chobani will sponsor all of US Soccer’s men’s women’s youth category, and disability national teams, 27 in all, as official nutrition partner, while its La Colombe Coffee brand will gain official coffee and cold brew designation.
The multi-year partnership will include the upcoming 2026 FIFA World Cup, which the US will jointly host alongside Canada and Mexico, and will see Chobani collaborate with US Soccer on grassroots-focused initiatives.
Elsewhere in North American soccer, the Canadian Soccer Business (CSB) enterprise has appointed Michael Beckerman as its new chief commercial officer.
The commercial arm of the Canada Soccer governing body and the top-tier Canadian Premier League (CPL) has brought in Beckerman to the newly created role with the remit to help the body’s commercial growth trajectory.
Beckerman joins from Canadian mass media company Torstar Corporation, where he had been chief client officer.
In the past, Beckerman has held a wide range of role across and beyond the sports industry, including director of advertising for Europe at sportswear giant Nike, chief executive officer of sports agency MKTG Canada, and chief marketing officer at Bank of Montreal.
James Johnson, the CSB chief executive appointed earlier in 2025, commented on Beckerman’s addition, saying: “When we launched our vision earlier this month, we made a clear commitment to evolve CSB into a true catalyst for growth for Canadian soccer. Now we must act.
“Michael will play a critical role in driving this forward, helping us build the commercial engine that strengthens our business, creates value for the broader Canadian soccer community, and connects us more powerfully to the global game.”
