MLS continues its climb in every quantifiable manner. The league broke its attendance record and now is the seventh-most popular soccer league worldwide.

MLS teams averaged 18,807 fans per game during the 2012 regular season, a 5 percent bump from last season, which previously held the best attendance mark. Total attendance also broke the 6 million mark for the first time.

The Bundesliga in Germany leads the world in average attendance at 42,387, followed by the English Premier League at 35,719 and Spain's La Liga at 28,138. Italy's Serie A, Argentina's Primera División and Mexico's Liga MX also rank ahead of MLS.

Attendance this season was boosted by a host of factors, including the Seattle Sounders continuing to post record-setting numbers, the addition of the Montreal Impact and the Houston Dynamo's move to soccer-specific BBVA Compass Stadium.

The Sounders set an MLS attendance record for the fourth consecutive season at 43,144 per game, up 12.1 percent from '11. The defending champion LA Galaxy, with stars such as David Beckham and Landon Donovan, averaged 23,136 fans, second-most in MLS.

During its inaugural season, the Impact ranked third in attendance at 22,772, despite some noted ticket-pricing issues. The Dynamo's venue change led to a league-best 18.8 percent jump at the gate to 21,015 fans per game.

Following several years of solid attendance after the club's founding, Toronto FC saw a 10.4 percent drop at the gate to 18,155, fueled in large part by poor on-field performance.

Chivas USA suffered a double whammy at the gate this season—lowest average attendance in MLS at 13,056 and sharpest percentage drop among all clubs at 12 percent.

-- This article originally appeared on SportingNews.com