Garber releases base viewing figures, but is MLS’s Apple gamble paying off?

July 24 – MLS commissioner Don Garber finally cracked open the vault on the biggest secret in American soccer – the MLS Season Pass viewership, and perhaps the numbers tell a story of under-performance. 

Garber revealed Apple TV’s streaming service is “averaging 120,000 unique viewers” per match in 2025 – a figure that confirms what many suspected: MLS traded eyeballs for Apple’s $2.5 billion check.

That 120,000 represents a 50% jump from last year, which sounds impressive until you remember where they started. The league’s final season on ESPN networks in 2022 averaged 343,000 viewers per match, which is nearly three times their current Apple audience.

The contrast gets starker when you examine the big occasions. The 2022 MLS All-Star Game on linear television drew 1.53 million viewers across ESPN and Univision. That year’s MLS Cup Final hit 2.16 million. Fast-forward to 2024’s Cup Final on Fox, and viewership cratered 47% year-over-year to just 468,000.

Garber didn’t clarify whether the 120,000 figure represents average minute audience or total unique viewers per match window. We also didn’t get to hear how the league is doing in international viewership.

Garber said, “we have more subscribers than we and Apple thought we would have” and claimed the league was “very pleased with the viewership numbers.” He promised transparency “at some point” while arguing the industry needed new streaming metrics.

“At some point soon, we’re all going to have a measurement that the industry is going to accept, and we’ll be the first ones to be happy to talk about it.”

Ultimately the only metric that matters for the Apple investment is the number of new subscribers or subscribers retained who would have been lost.

The league’s recent scramble for traditional broadcast partnerships suggests that the subs numbers are concerning. MLS has inked deals in key markets and made Season Pass available through DirectTV and Comcast because Apple’s paywall is strangling growth.

MLS sacrificed accessibility for guaranteed revenue, banking on Apple’s marketing muscle to build audiences. Three years in, that gamble looks increasingly questionable.

The Apple experiment continues, but these numbers suggest MLS may have sold its soul for Silicon Valley gold. Ultimately sacrificing the league’s profile.

Contact the writer of this story at moc.l1753449415labto1753449415ofdlr1753449415owedi1753449415sni@o1753449415fni1753449415