Guest Post: MLS Viewership Compared to Available Seating

Recently I was on Twitter and saw Jed Kirchenwitz (FOLLOW HIM HERE) tweeting out an interesting thought process he was working through concerning how stadium capacity compared to TV viewership numbers across the "Big 5" sports in the United States. I asked him to write a guest post for this blog... and I'm really glad/thankful that he did. I would love to hear your opinion on it in the comments or on social media (Don't forget to use the #ProRelForUSA hashtag). 

MLS Viewership Compared to Available Seating

One of the big obsessions with American soccer fans are the TV ratings for MLS games.  As I was looking at these numbers recently a question came in to my mind:  What if all the “average” viewers of national MLS telecasts were to show up for games in person?  How much of the available seating would be filled?

On the surface, it probably seems like a strange question.  After all, a LOT more people can watch a game on TV than can attend a game in person.  In theory all those viewers should easily fill the available seating; perhaps they would fill it several times over.  I’m not talking about playoff and championship matches that tend to draw larger audiences either.  I was curious about the viewers of the day-to-day, regular season games.  It would seem logical to say that those regular season games are going to attract the “real fans”, those that care enough about a sport to watch whatever game is on the television at any given moment.

So the question is this:  If all the average viewers for a nationally-televised regular season MLS game showed up at the stadiums person, how full would those stadiums be?

It’s a simple equation—take the total available MLS seating and divide by the average number of viewers.  Since we’re looking at American telecasts only, I even went so far as to exclude the Canadian seating.  Let the Canadians fill their own stadiums!

Total available MLS seating capacity in America in 2016: 384,132

Average American MLS national broadcast viewership in 2016: 257,683

So, if the average American viewership of a nationally broadcast MLS game on TV showed up at American stadiums in person, they would be 67% full.  Sixty-seven percent.  In other words, MLS viewers for an average nationally televised game couldn’t even fill the seats.  

Quite literally, the same people who are going to MLS games might be the only people watching it on TV.

How does the number compare to the NFL, the king of TV sports in America? The NFL would fill their seats almost 8 times over, and that’s even with the fact that NFL stadiums are typically three to four times larger than the average MLS venue.

MLS - 0.67 to 1

NFL- 7.85 to 1

I can already hear the complaints, though.  “You can’t compare MLS to the NFL!  Nothing compares to the NFL!”

Let’s look at some deeper numbers across the “big five” sports, then.  In fact, where we can let’s break down the numbers even further.  For all sports except NFL, good numbers are available for both “mothership” broadcasts on Fox, NBC, etc. and games shown solely on cable.

MLS
1.34	2016 National Broadcast Only, 6 games
0.67	2016 All networks
NFL
7.85	2016 All Networks*
NBA
5.90	16/17 National Broadcast Only
3.84	16/17 All Networks
NHL
2.93	16/17 Broadcast Only
2.00	16/17 All Networks
MLB
1.35	2015 All Networks**
1.78	2015 Broadcast Only**

* NFL Cable broadcasts are also shown on local over-the-air affiliates, unlike other sports.  Therefore I only included the number for both cable and over-the-air broadcasts.

** MLB telecasts have become more regionalized since 2015; finding good numbers after 2015 is more difficult.

What about the trend for the current year?  MLS is two-thirds of the way through the 2017 season as of this writing.  MLS has also added two additional franchises bringing the total seating capacity to 448,527.  What has this done to the viewers-to-seats ratio?  

MLS
0.57	2017 All networks
0.98	2017 Broadcast Only, 4 games

You read that correctly.  Even though MLS added two franchises, TV viewership so far this year is essentially flat.  The viewers-to-seats ratio has actually worsened.  By this measure MLS broadcasts are actually reaching less of the American soccer market!

This is only part of the story, though.  If you only went with the numbers you see above you would assume that soccer is a distant fifth place to the traditional “big four” leagues in terms of popularity.

According to World Soccer Talk (http://worldsoccertalk.com/2017/08/24/most-watched-soccer-games-on-us-tv-for-august-15-20-2017/) , and cross-referenced as much as possible through the various TV ratings reporting sites on the web, the numbers are startlingly higher for soccer in general.

1. The total average TV audience for ALL regular season league soccer games (EPL, Liga MX, MLS, Bundesliga, and “other” leagues) is about 1,534,000.  This is almost six times larger than the average for MLS broadcasts alone.

2. If all the average American viewers across all soccer leagues are included, the viewers to seats ratio skyrockets to 3.4 to 1.

The breakdown of viewers-to-seats, from largest to smallest, is as shown here.  For simplicity’s sake, I only used the numbers for looking across all networks, but the list would be in the same order.

NFL
7.85	2016 All Networks*
NBA
3.84	16/17 All Networks
All Soccer
3.4	All Soccer Broadcasts All Networks
NHL
2.00	16/17 All Networks
MLB
1.35	2015 All Networks**
MLS
0.57	2017 MLS Viewers-to-Seats all Networks

That’s a stunning increase and shows just how little reach into the American soccer market MLS truly has.  That’s not the 8:1 ratio of the NFL, but it is in line with the NBA and ahead of both the NHL and MLB ratings.

In the end, these numbers are just another measurement of what we already knew:  MLS is failing to capture the American Soccer market, and failing in a big way.  More importantly, these numbers also represent the huge opportunity that MLS and US Soccer are not taking advantage of.  

Perhaps what this number really gives us is the full potential that US Soccer has for growth with fans of the game.

This also brings some other thoughts to mind:  American soccer fans are clearly interested in promotion/relegation leagues.  Could AMERICAN SOCCER, by simply changing to a promotion/relegation structure, be as popular as the NBA?  And if so, shouldn’t we be clamoring for it to be implemented now?

I realize this is a simplistic view, but US Soccer is missing the true market this badly then we should be doing everything we can to take advantage of what is an obvious opportunity to truly grow the game.