Lionel Messi claimed his first MLS Cup—and his 47th trophy between club and country competitions—last Saturday while Fox drew its biggest audience for the title game in three years.
An average of 994,000 watched on Fox and Fox Deportes, according to Nielsen, with Inter Miami’s 3-1 win over the Vancouver Whitecaps also airing on Apple TV and TSN in Canada. That reflects Nielsen’s “panel only” measurement system—a revised number based on its more recently launched “updated big data plus panel sample” is expected in the coming days.
This was the third Cup of MLS’ Apple era, with the previous two finals seeing declining viewership on traditional TV, down to 468,000 for last year’s matchup. The 2022 final on Fox and Univision drew more than 2.1 million viewers. The 2023 final averaged 890,000 viewers on Fox and Fox Deportes.
More than 3.6 million viewers checked out Saturday’s game across Apple TV, MLS Season Pass, TSN, RDS, TNT and HBO Max in Mexico, and other distribution platforms around the world, the league said. Over time, it is likely that some number of MLS fans get in the habit of watching the sport via Apple’s service rather than traditional TV.
Apple previously said postseason action was drawing a 23% increase in viewership this year, reaching 711,000 viewers globally per match.
The league’s biggest international stars contributed to that increase, including Messi, Vancouver’s Thomas Müller and LAFC’s Son Heung-Min, who lost to the Whitecaps in a semifinal that went to penalty kicks.
“It really becomes an exclamation point on a very succesful year for us from a viewership standpoint,” MLS EVP of media Seth Bacon said in an interview.
Playing at home Saturday, Inter Miami grabbed a 1-0 lead in the eighth minute and held on for victory, with Messi assisting on two of the goals.
MLS moved up its start time this year to minimize overlap with the SEC Championship Game. The change also made the game more accessible in European time zones.
MLS promoted the matchup in the preceding week during Fox’s NFL and World Cup draw coverage.
Apple and MLS recently updated the terms of their media deal, letting the league potentially land with a new partner as early as 2029, while also having the ability to continue licensing some games to linear television in the meantime. Games will be available to all Apple TV subscribers beginning next year.
The following year, MLS will flip its calendar, beginning the 2027 season in the summer and ending in spring 2028, in part to relocate the playoffs to a less crowded stretch of the American sports calendar.
But maybe most significantly, earlier this year Messi extended his contract with Miami, which will see him play in pink through the 2028 season. On Tuesday, Messi was named MLS MVP for the second straight year, as he became the first player to win the award back to back, after a dominant season in which he recorded 29 goals and 19 assists to win the league’s Golden Boot.
“They said soccer would never make it in America,” MLS commissioner Don Garber said during Saturday’s trophy ceremony. “Inter Miami fans, has soccer made it?”
(This story has been updated to include a quote from Seth Bacon.)