Major League Soccer (MLS) has been making waves in the sports broadcasting industry, with its partnership with tech giant Apple. The MLS commissioner, Don Garber, recently provided some insight into the league’s viewership on Apple TV.
Garber revealed that the MLS Season Pass service on Apple TV is averaging 120,000 unique viewers per match in 2025. This figure represents a significant increase of 50% from the previous season. However, it remains unclear whether this figure represents an average minute audience for each individual game or each match window on MLS Season Pass. The commissioner also did not disclose if these figures included international viewers outside of the US.
MLS is currently in its third year of a decade-long global broadcast deal worth $2.5 billion with Apple. Despite being guarded about specific numbers for MLS Season Pass, Garber expressed satisfaction with their performance last December stating that they had more subscribers than anticipated and were pleased with their viewership numbers. In 2023 it was reported that audiences for major matches exceeded one million viewers and by July of that year estimates suggested over one million signups to the service.
Streaming consumption habits & traditional broadcasting partnerships
Garber emphasized the need for a new metric to better reflect streaming consumption habits within sports broadcasting as traditional methods may not accurately capture these trends.
MLS commissioner, Don Garber, said:
“Is that metric, average minute audience? Is it unique viewers? How could we figure out the right way to compare the audiences that we’ve had in the past to the audiences that we have now?”
“At some point soon, we’re all going to have a measurement that the industry is going to accept, and we’ll be the first ones to be happy to talk about it.”
Interestingly though, despite its success in streaming services through partnerships like those with DirectTV and Comcast’s Xfinity, MLS has also been actively pursuing traditional broadcast partnerships suggesting a desire for increased exposure since moving behind a paywall.
Comparing viewership figures
The disclosed figure by Garber is considerably lower than what ESPN networks averaged per match during their last season before moving to Apple - approximately 343k viewers per match in 2022.
Sports Media Watch also reported that the last MLS All-Star Game on linear television in 2022 had a combined audience of 1.53 million viewers. The last MLS Cup to air exclusively on linear TV, the 2022 game on Fox and Univision, averaged 2.16 million viewers, making it the most-watched in over two decades. However, Fox’s linear coverage of the 2024 MLS Cup Final saw a significant drop with a year-over-year decrease of 47%, averaging only about 468k viewers.
The partnership between Major League Soccer and Apple TV has shown promising results so far with an increase in unique viewers per match and high subscription numbers for their Season Pass service. However, as streaming consumption habits continue to evolve and traditional broadcasting partnerships remain relevant for exposure, it will be interesting to see how these dynamics shape future strategies within sports broadcasting.
