{"id":81727,"date":"2025-12-13T01:55:32","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T01:55:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/81727\/"},"modified":"2025-12-13T01:55:32","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T01:55:32","slug":"messi-miami-win-garners-viewership-spike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/81727\/","title":{"rendered":"Messi, Miami Win Garners Viewership Spike"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tLionel Messi<\/a> claimed his first MLS<\/a> Cup\u2014and his 47th trophy between club and country competitions\u2014last Saturday while Fox<\/a> drew its biggest audience for the title game in three years.<\/p>\n

\n\tAn average of 994,000 watched on Fox and Fox Deportes, according to Nielsen, with Inter Miami\u2019s 3-1 win over the Vancouver Whitecaps also airing on Apple<\/a> TV and TSN in Canada.\u00a0That reflects Nielsen\u2019s \u201cpanel only\u201d measurement system\u2014a revised number based on its more recently launched \u201cupdated big data plus panel sample\u201d is expected in the coming days.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis was the third Cup of MLS\u2019 Apple era, with the previous two finals seeing declining viewership on traditional TV, down to 468,000 for last year\u2019s matchup.\u00a0The 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.<\/p>\n

\n\tMore than 3.6 million viewers checked out Saturday\u2019s 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\u2019s service rather than traditional TV.<\/p>\n

\n\tApple previously said postseason action was drawing a 23% increase in viewership this year, reaching 711,000 viewers globally per match.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe league\u2019s biggest international stars contributed to that increase, including Messi, Vancouver\u2019s\u00a0Thomas\u00a0M\u00fcller and LAFC\u2019s\u00a0Son Heung-Min, who lost to the Whitecaps in a semifinal that went to penalty kicks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt really becomes an exclamation point on a very succesful year for us from a viewership standpoint,\u201d MLS EVP of media Seth Bacon said in an interview.<\/p>\n

\n\tPlaying 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tMLS 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. <\/p>\n

\n\tMLS promoted the matchup in the preceding week during Fox\u2019s NFL and World Cup draw coverage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tApple and MLS recently updated<\/a> 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBut maybe most significantly, earlier this year Messi extended his contract with Miami, which will see him play in pink through the 2028 season.\u00a0On 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\u2019s Golden Boot.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThey said soccer would never make it in America,\u201d MLS commissioner Don Garber said during Saturday\u2019s trophy ceremony. \u201cInter Miami fans, has soccer made it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t(This story has been updated to include a quote from Seth Bacon.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lionel Messi claimed his first MLS Cup\u2014and his 47th trophy between club and country competitions\u2014last Saturday while Fox…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[7936,15067,1660,123,125,124,5692],"class_list":["post-81727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-apple","tag-fox","tag-lionel-messi","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-mls"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}