Philadelphia helped MLS Cup draw its biggest U.S. TV audience in 25 years

During the penalty kick shootout, 26% of all household TVs in the Philly area were tuned in to watch the local soccer team fall just short of its first championship.

Union fans watching the MLS Cup final at Yards Brewing in Philadelphia.Read moreElizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer

by Jonathan Tannenwald

Published Nov. 8, 2022, 11:58 a.m. ET

The Union’s first appearance in Major League Soccer’s championship game helped deliver the event its biggest U.S. TV viewership in a quarter-century.

Nielsen announced Tuesday that Fox’s English-language broadcast drew 1.487 million viewers, and Univision’s Spanish-language broadcast (simulcast on cable channel TUDN) drew 668,000 viewers. The combined total of 2.155 million viewers is the biggest audience for an MLS Cup final since 1997, the league’s second year of existence, and the second-biggest in league history.

Both networks’ respective audiences were also their second-highest for any MLS title game they’ve broadcast. Fox’s previous record was 1.571 million in 2018 for a game televised in prime time (Atlanta vs. Portland), and Univision’s was 678,000 in 2014 (L.A. Galaxy-New England).

Data from Nielsen showed that Saturday’s game was the most-watched Union game on any TV channel in the team’s 13-year history. During the penalty kick shootout, 26% of all local household TVs were tuned in.

Philadelphia was the No. 1 local market for Fox’s broadcast with a 4.78 rating. That’s about 347,000 viewers, which is a bigger number than some MLS regular-season games draw from the entire country. The local rating peaked at 7.6, which is about 552,000 viewers.

One source with knowledge of the data said the local viewership for the Union game beat the combined local totals of the Penn State-Indiana and Georgia-Tennessee college football games.

Among markets nationally, the local rating here nearly tripled No. 2 Houston’s 1.79 (which might have been influenced by waiting for the World Series broadcast). Portland, Ore., was No. 3 (1.54), Austin was No. 4 (1.51), and Los Angeles was No. 5 (1.35).

It’s a sign that a lot of Philadelphia sports fans tuned in to watch a team and sport that they’ve historically ignored. That will get attention in halls of power at MLS, along with TV networks who’ve made a lot of money over the years by putting Philadelphia teams on national TV a lot. (Think of how often the Flyers have been on national TV even when they’re not performing well).

Philadelphia did not make Univision’s top-10 ratings markets for the game. That list was led by Los Angeles (1.06), which has a bigger Spanish-speaking population. That group makes up a big portion of LAFC’s fan base, as fans saw when they tuned in — and especially saw if they attended the game in person.

Staff writer Rob Tornoe contributed to this article.