Football has set off since the MLS was founded in the nineties, because the competition is celebrating its 30th birthday.
This weekend the 2025 ml season started in packaged stadiums throughout the country, where San Diego FC became the thirtieth team to join the competition with the Mikey Varas with a victory over champion La Galaxy.
Because it is celebrating its 30th season, MLS has taken a long way since its foundation in the nineties and its growth is a measure of how the competition and indeed the game has grown in the United States over the past three decades. Despite this positive evolution, however, football still follows in comparison with the Big Four in terms of traditionally popular American sports: NFL, MLB, NBA and even the NHL.
Prior to the new season, MLS stated that their total presence for the regular season 2024 and Audi MLS Cup -Play -offs second in the world is under all football competitions, according to data from OPTA.
More than 12.1 million fans attended an MLS match during the 2024 season, while the US Soccer League only lagged the English Premier League in the total part of the 2024 conference.
Despite the impressive number, many ordinary American sports fans do not know that the nation, for example the World Cup will organize with others next year, not even know what a world cup is!
1994, year zero
The 1994 World Cup, organized in the United States, would be an explosion factor in seeing football exploding states. The MLS eventually started in 1996, but experienced financial and operational struggles in the first few years and lost millions of dollars, causing two teams to go to the wall.
In a recent interview with AS, MLS head of the Alfonso Mondelo competition, that in the coming years it claims to be crucial for the sports fan of the United States to discover how football can be in a country like the US.
“The 1994 World Cup was the start of the transformation of football in the United States. We have certainly grown. The World Cup 2026 will be the final step in establishing football as one of the royal sports in this country, “explained Mondelo.
American obstacles
Despite dominating the Concacaf region, the American men's team still needs to create really waves on a worldwide level and this will also have hindered the game at national level with the USWNT -Discharge enjoying more popularity. The arrival of Lionel Messi in Miami was undoubtedly a shot in the arm for the game, but there is still a lack of big star names to ignite the sport in a nation where personality is the key as we saw with the Wnba and the Caitlin Clark effect.
Despite the positive work by Apple TV+ with its MLS strategy via the MLS season pass, subscribers are never published and despite a positive progress, an MLS Cup final hardly registers on the radar of the average sports fan.
This summer, the US is organizing both the inaugural FIFA Club World Cup that is supported by the new US President Trump and the Concacaf Gold Cup. Both tournaments will clear the road for the 2026 World Cup, which is partly organized by Mexico, Canada and the US and is certainly the silver bullet for football.
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