MLS Sees Viewership Gains On ESPN, Fox Sports During First Year Of New TV Deal

MLS saw viewership gains during the ’15 regular season, its first under a new media-rights deal with ESPN and Fox Sports. ESPN and ESPN2 as part of the new deal saw more late Sunday-afternoon windows for matches this season, including many premiere matches moving to the flagship net. That change helped ESPN2 and ESPN combine to average 249,000 viewers for 34 matches, up 4% from 240,000 viewers for 18 matches last season, when coverage got an exposure boost from the FIFA World Cup. When ESPN/ESPN2 aired matches primarily on Sunday evenings in ’13, the nets averaged 220,000 viewers over 20 matches. The high mark for Bristol’s MLS coverage remains ’12, when the net averaged 311,000 viewers for games -- a majority of which aired on ESPN. Meanwhile, in its first season broadcasting MLS matches, FS1 averaged 197,000 viewers for its 32 matches, up 40% from NBCSN’s average last season for 38 matches. For Spanish-language MLS matches, UniMas averaged 229,000 viewers in the first year of its new deal, up 12% from last season. ESPN Deportes and Fox Deportes also saw gains for their respective broadcasts. On the digital consumption side, MLS saw an all-time high of 3.2 million average, monthly unique viewers during the season, which also is up 20% from '14. Video views were up 220% and mobile usage accounted for 60% of all MLS digital traffic.