The Major League Soccer (MLS) Cup final brought in 1.071 million viewers for US broadcaster Fox as the Columbus Crew beat the Seattle Sounders 3-0, a 30 per cent rise on the 2019 edition, reports, www.sportspromedia.com/.

Those figures mark the third most-viewed MLS Cup final on an English-language network since 2010. On the Spanish language UniMas network the final brought in another 459,000 viewers, a two per cent year-on-year uptick and an increase of 137 per cent over the 2018 edition – the most for the game on Univision since 2016.

According to reports, TV ratings for the MLS regular season were down on the 260,000 average for the 2019 campaign after a strong pre-pandemic start. The 2020 season-opener between Los Angeles Football Club and Inter Miami drew a combined 663,000 viewers on 1st March, with an average 489,000 combined viewers through its first four broadcasts of 2020 on ESPN and ESPN Deportes, marking a 27 per cent increase compared to the first four fixtures shown on the networks in 2019.

When the league came back from its Covid-19 enforced hiatus it got mixed viewing figures. The opener of the MLS Is Back Tournament between Inter Miami and Orlando City got 503,000 viewers, but the average audience for the tournament was 226,000 per game, albeit without factoring in Spanish-language viewership.

The final of that tournament between Orlando City and the Portland Timbers drew an audience of 394,000 on ESPN platforms, making it the third most-watched game of MLS Is Back.