Major League Soccer (MLS) has had a stellar year in 2024, setting multiple records across various domains including attendance, sponsorship, retail, social media and digital media. The season's success has placed the MLS behind only England’s Premier League and Germany’s Bundesliga in terms of attendance.
The regular season concluded on October 19th with record-breaking attendance numbers. A staggering total of 11,454,205 fans attended the matches during this period. This figure is expected to rise to approximately 12 million by the conclusion of the MLS Cup - the league's post-season playoffs. This represents an increase of 5% over last year and a whopping growth of 14% compared to the figures from two years ago in 2022. The average match attendance was recorded at an all-time high of 23,234 per match with ten clubs either setting or tying their previous records for average attendance.
Season ticket sales also saw a significant surge with an increase by about 12% compared to last year. Furthermore, there were as many as 213 sold-out matches throughout this season which led to venues being filled at a record capacity rate of 94%.
Sponsorship sector flourishes
The sponsorship sector witnessed substantial growth with both MLS and Soccer United Marketing (SUM), its commercial arm recording revenue growths in sponsorships by 13%. In addition to this impressive financial performance, they also managed to secure partnerships with 18 new sponsors who signed on as sponsors for either MLS or SUM properties.
July 16 marked a historic day for retail sales on MLSstore.com driven primarily by the launch of Adidas x MLS Archive Collection along with third kits worn by five clubs during this season. Inter Miami’s third kit set new records becoming not only fastest selling kit but also recording most sales within first day, week and month of any newly launched jersey in the history of MLSstore.com. The league's social media presence also saw a significant boost with its follower count growing at a higher rate than any other major men’s North American sports leagues on platforms like TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. The growth rates were recorded at 26% for TikTok,21% for YouTube and 10% for Instagram.
Inter Miami TikTok account emerged as the most-followed North American sports team on TikTok with 9.4 million followers and the third most followed on Instagram with 17.2 million followers.
Global streaming agreement
MLS' 10-year global streaming agreement worth over $2.5 billion with Apple has been another highlight of this season according to Chris McGowan, executive vice president and chief club performance officer of the MLS who stated that all their metrics have skyrocketed since the announcement.
Executive Vice President of the MLS, Chris McGowan, said:
“Capitalizing on the momentum of the league because of the star power of certain players [such as Messi and fellow Argentine superstar Luis Suarez at Inter Miami] is sometimes easier said than done. Collectively, everyone's done an amazing job taking advantage of this moment, but particularly to see the amount of growth in ticket sales is really encouraging, especially with the belief that this is going to continue.
“I always point to what the most important barometers in our business are, are people going and watching your product, and do partners want to be a part of it? I think just by the statistics, the answer is yes to both of those.”
The 2024 MLS Cup Playoffs are set to begin on October 22nd culminating in the grand finale - The MLS Cup scheduled for December 7th which will be broadcasted live via the MLS Season Pass available on Apple TV.
