The FIFA World Cup has resulted in some of the highest MLS ratings in a decade.
Airing immediately after FIFA World Cup coverage, last Saturday’s Sounders-Timbers Major League Soccer match had a 0.8 rating and 1.16 million viewers on FOX — marking the third-largest MLS regular season audience since 2008 (Galaxy-United: 1.22M).
It trails a pair of regionalized windows that aired adjacent to FOX NFL coverage, one last year (1.35M) and the other in 2016 (1.30M).
Outside of those regional windows, the three largest MLS audiences in the past decade have come just in the past month, each airing on FOX after FIFA World Cup coverage. Sunday’s Toronto F.C.-Red Bulls match ranks second (0.7, 1.11M) and Atlanta-Portland the previous weekend third (0.7, 1.07M).
Not including exhibition matches, each of those matches ranks among the 20 most-watched regular season telecasts in MLS history. Sounders-Timbers ranks 14th, Toronto-Red Bulls 17th and Atlanta-Portland 20th.
Just six of the top 20 matches have come since 2004 (the 1990s accounts for nearly half of the list), but five of those have come past three years — each airing on FOX adjacent to the NFL or World Cup. The all-time record for a regular season MLS match remains 1.97 million for D.C. United against San Jose on ABC in 2004.
Notably, both of last weekend’s MLS matches on FOX had a larger audience in adults 18-49 than the final round of the PGA Tour National — featuring a Tiger Woods top five finish — on CBS. Outside of the World Cup, only Red Sox-Yankees games on FOX and ESPN had a larger audience in the demo.
[Numbers from Fox Sports, ShowBuzz Daily 7.6]
