US soccer’s top-flight MLS has announced viewership figures from the early stages of the current 2026 campaign that suggest the move to end the ‘MLS Season Pass’ concept on primary broadcaster Apple TV may have been justified.

Across the first three months of the 2026 MLS campaign, which began on February 21, coverage generated an average of 7.9 million cumulative live viewers per gameweek spanning the league’s domestic linear broadcast partners in the US (Fox) and Canada (TSN, RDS), and global viewing figures (both domestically and internationally) on the AppleTV OTT streamer.

That 7.9 million number represents a 62% increase on the equivalent figure in the 2025 season, the last year where MLS coverage on AppleTV was paywalled under the now-defunct MLS Season Pass add-on.

Viewership across the 2025 campaign on AppleTV had been strong, the strongest since the league migrated to the OTT platform in 2023, but it was felt that the $99 annual cost of MLS Season Pass was holding the league back from even greater viewership increases, an opinion that has now been lent credence with the strength of these new numbers.

MLS’ league-wide and club-specific social media channels now boast 113 million combined followers (up 14% year-on-year), and these accounts generated 5.71 billion impressions through the period.

The broadcast and digital growth was supported by strong in-person attendance across the games thus far.

Chief among these was Colorado Rapids’ April 18 game against Inter Miami, hosted at the Mile High Stadium in Denver (home of the NFL’s Denver Broncos), which drew a crowd of 75,824, the second-highest MLS attendance of all time.

MLS games in 2026 have averaged 22,109 supporters per match, the second-highest average in league history (behind Lionel Messi’s first year in 2024).

MLS has suspended play until July 17 to facilitate the US and Canada’s co-hosting of the 2026 FIFA World Cup (alongside Mexico).