MLS All-Star viewership plunged from last year’s record-high.
Wednesday’s MLS All-Star Game generated a combined audience of 947,000 viewers across ESPN and UniMás, down 50% from last year on Univision and FS1 (1.9M) but up 8% from 2016 on ESPN and UniMás (873K). Last year’s audience was the largest ever for the game.
The plunge was caused by a two-thirds drop in the Spanish-language audience, the result of a move from over-the-air Univision to cable network UniMás. On UniMás and Univision Deportes Network, the audience of 495,000 fell 67% from last year’s 1.5 million on Univision/UDN — still the largest MLS All-Star audience ever on a single network.
Even with the drop, this year’s game was still the fourth-most watched MLS All-Star Game on Spanish-language TV, and the most-watched on UniMás since 2011.
English-language coverage on ESPN delivered a 0.28 rating and 452,000 viewers, up 12% in ratings and 8% in viewership from last year on FS1 (0.25, 420K) but down 15% and 12% respectively from 2016 on ESPN (0.33, 513K). It was the third-least watched MLS All-Star Game on English-language TV since 2009, ahead of only last year and 2013 (319K).
The MLS All-Star Game trailed the equivalent exhibitions in the NFL (5.3, 8.55M), MLB (5.2, 8.7M), NBA (4.3, 7.65M), NASCAR (1.5, 2.5M) and NHL (1.2, 2.0M), but topped the recent WNBA All-Star Game (0.5, 709K).
[Numbers from Nielsen via Programming Insider 8.2, Univision]
