Major League Soccer — and soccer in general — is increasing in popularity in the United States. Not only is the popularity of viewers rising and doing well, but the quality of players and academies is also becoming better.

Players and Playing Quality Increase

In the past couple of months, we have seen lots of transfer movement pointing towards the increased quality in the league. With players from South America who likely have the quality to be in Europe choosing to come to the MLS, players leaving the MLS for record fees to top European teams, and players, new or returning, coming from Europe to the US to play, it is evident that the MLS is growing.

A lot of high-quality South American players have recently moved to an MLS side. Some of the more notable players include Franco Escobar, 24, Atlanta United, Ezequiel Barco, 19, Atlanta United, Kaku, 24, New York Red Bulls, Diego Rossi, 21, LAFC, Junior Moreno, 25,DCU, Nicolas Lodeiro, 30, Seattle, and many more talented players. If these players were to become some of the best in the league it would not be surprising, nor would seeing them sold for high transfer fees to larger European teams as they show their skills.

Outgoing to Europe

Some players from the United States and MLS teams are already beginning to be bought up by top tier teams in Europe. Just this past season the MLS transfer record was broken multiple times with Alphonso Davis being the first one to leave Vancouver to head to his new team, Bayern Munich, for upwards of a reported $20 million. Others were quick to follow. Zack Steffen is leaving Columbus and will be joining Manchester City in July for a fee reported to be over $10 million and Miguel Almiron left Atlanta after winning the MLS cup to join Newcastle United for over $25 million. Another player who is finding success after leaving the MLS is Cyle Larin, who left Orlando to join Turkish giants Besiktas.

With these players leaving and joining European teams, it is evident that Major League Soccer clubs are doing something right. Not only are the North American league’s clubs producing talent, but some United States youngsters are being recruited to European academy teams. Some US players who are beginning to break through European academies and make impacts for the first team include 20-year-old Christian Pulisic who has played 85 games for Borussia Dortmund and is transferring to English giants Chelsea FC next season, Weston McKennie who originally was an FC Dallas youth player joined up with Schalke 04 and has made 42 first team appearances as a 20-year-old, and Josh Sargent who played for a club in St. Louis has joined Werder Bremen. As a 19-year-old hemade nine first team appearances, scoring two goals and 12 appearances for the second team, scoring seven goals.

There are many other United States internationals or youth internationals playing in the top leagues of Europe as well, such as Timothy Weah, Cameron Carter-Vickers, Tyler Adams, and DeAndre Yedlin.

With all of the players who have already moved from the US and MLS to Europe, there are surely more to follow. Some are bigger names, such as Josef Martinez, who was bought by Atlanta and has broken scoring records left and right in the league, and some are players that MLS teams have brought through their academies and are making big impacts for their teams such as FC Dallas’ 23-year-old Kellyn Acosta and 19-year-old Paxton Pomykal and the Philadelphia Union’s center back pairing of 20-year-old Auston Trusty and 20-year-old Mark McKenzie.

Smart. 🤓

Strong. 💪

Quick. 💨



Is Auston Trusty @austheboss3 set to be the MLS' next great centre-back? 👉 https://t.co/hSwVGJnECO pic.twitter.com/ExNTKavfxh — Dugout Asia (@DugoutAsia) August 27, 2018

Academy Focus

Teams are beginning to shift their focus towards academies as well. In the most recent draft for players who are graduating college, some teams such as the Philadelphia Union decided to trade all of their draft picks away. They have been pouring money into their academy since they were established, and are just now beginning to see the results and reap the benefits. With academy products coming through such as Derrick Jones, Auston Trusty, Mark McKenzie, Matthew Real, Anthony Fontana, and Brenden Aaronson, they felt no need to draft more players who are older than the higher quality but younger players coming through the ranks. Another notable academy is FC Dallas’, who have produced a league leading player like Kellyn Acosta, Paxton Pomykal and had Weston McKennie in their system. Following the example of the Philadelphia Union and FC Dallas, and after realizing that most draft picks do not make an impact on a club’s first team, many other clubs have begun to focus more on their own youth teams and acquiring home grown players.

BREAKING | D.C. United sign Academy Product Griffin Yow as 12th Homegrown in Club History!



READ | https://t.co/vmyLzpJpRz#DCU pic.twitter.com/GlL8WQaRVz — D.C. United (@dcunited) March 19, 2019

Incoming from Europe

Along with the league growing through players from South American and other non-EU nations, as well as youth and home-grown talent, the league is also gaining traction and becoming a popular destination for some top European players. Players like Jozy Altidore, who transferred to Toronto from Sunderland and Marco Fabian, who transferred to Philadelphia from Frankfurt, are players in their prime ages deciding that the league is a good choice to spend their best years. Some older players have also decided it was worth it to transfer to the MLS to compete and experience the league such as Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Wayne Rooney and Bastian Schweinsteiger. With prime players and some older legends coming from Europe to the MLS it makes the US an even more attractive destination for players who are still young and have their best years left ahead of them, such as Gedion Zelalem who recently moved from Arsenal to Sporting Kansas City and Carlos Vela who joined LAFC from Real Sociedad.



Messi has been asking his Argentina teammates about MLS 👀 pic.twitter.com/eI02fKWF4j — FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) March 22, 2019

Viewership and Attendance Increase

The sport is gaining a lot of traction in the US. Since 2014, during the regular MLS season, the average total viewers per year has been increasing steadily each year. From 2014 to 2015 there was a 15% increase. From 2015 to 2016 there was a 8.5% increase. From 2016 to 2017 there has been a 4% increase and from 2017 to 2018 there has been a 6% increase. That is an average of about 8% per year. If the trend continues, 2019 will have just below 300,000 average viewers.

A breakdown of the total viewers per channel per year is shown in the graph below. ESPN and FOX shared broadcasting rights for the english broadcasts, while UniMas had the rights to broadcasts in spanish. For the most part, there was growth spread over all of the channels each year. In 2016 FOX put out some Over-The-Air broadcasts which had about 696,000 total viewers, so they continued the trend with other stations following along each year after.

The top five single game regular season record number of viewers were all set in 2018.

MLS Cup Final

While the viewership of the regular season has been steadily increasing, the MLS Cup Final has been up and down since 2015 as it took turns between ESPN hosting and FOX hosting. During 2015 and 2017, ESPN hosted with 1.2 million viewers in 2015 and 1.1 million viewers in 2017. FOX has 2016 and 2018, bringing in 2 million viewers in 2016 and 1.8 million views last season.

Attendance

While viewership has been increasing each year, attendance has been generally bumpy each season, going up and down in different patterns for each team; however, four of the top five record attendances were set in 2018 and the fifth was in 2017. All of the record attendances were above 70,000 total fans and all set in games involving Atlanta United. The last attendance record not set by Atlanta United was in 2013(Portland vs Seattle – 69,000+). Most teams do not have the stadium capacity to compete with Atlanta United’s attendance records.



Graphic by @phat7deuce

Attendance this season has been down from last year, but there have been a lot of factors playing into this and it is expected to rise in the coming weeks. Some factors that have affected the attendances so far include the polar vortex making temperatures much colder than the seasonal averages, some teams moving into new stadiums, such as Minnesota who moved into a smaller capacity stadium, but still basically sell out, and teams like the Portland Timbers, who generally sell out, have had stadium renovations causing them to have no home games this season thus far. So, with the cold weather, rainy weather across the states, and some stadium changes and renovations, attendance has been down from the past year, but is still showing strong numbers and is looking like it will increase as the season continues and weather gets fairer.

Check out the newest expansion side’s home opener – in front of a sold out crowd. If their stadium was larger, they would probably be a lot closer to the records of Atlanta United.

"Welcome to Cincinnati, Major League Soccer." #TBT to one of the most epic nights in #FCCincy history. Soak it all in. pic.twitter.com/D4UPKXHcSc — FC Cincinnati (@fccincinnati) March 21, 2019

Overall, with new players of higher ability and talent joining MLS teams, the quality of the league is increasing – attracting new viewers and fans alike. There are no signs of the viewership and expansion of the league slowing down anytime soon, with team owners continuing to pour millions of dollars into their franchises and new franchises bidding to join the league year after year to put a team in their city. Teams will continue to attract higher quality players as the league grows and the investment into youth that’s starting to become an important factor in every team’s success will contribute to the success of the league and its standing in the world of soccer.



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