If you’re a soccer fan, there’s a high chance you care little about the MLS. But over the past few years, various things have made it so that you may want to follow it closely. The Major League Soccer regular season is ending on October 18th, and the 2025 season saw more viewers than ever before. According to Sports Dunia, the United States soccer league has the 6th highest viewership globally in 2025 alone, with a total stadium attendance of over eight million and a reach of over 180 countries. This is a significant development considering the MLS has historically been largely overshadowed by the likes of the Premier League and La Liga in Europe. With the growth the MLS is currently seeing, it appears that this may not be the case for much longer.
MLS, the top soccer league in the US, has had a reputation for being one of the worst major soccer leagues in the world in terms of quality and interest, with it consistently losing money and having teams that are just not good enough for people to care about. Now, better players with more fans are signing contracts with MLS clubs, and club values are rising fast. This is bringing significant growth to the league’s interest and quality, finally drawing the eyes of soccer watchers who were once uninterested.
World-class players with large fanbases are being contracted to MLS teams. Lionel Messi, one of the most famous Argentine soccer players of all time, joined the MLS team Inter Miami in 2023 under a two-and-a-half-year $150 million contract, making headlines and giving the MLS publicity and interest in the process. Since then, many clubs have brought in talented players with large fanbases under expensive contracts. This has increased the value of the MLS and also its interest and viewership. In August of the 2025 season, Heung Min Son was transferred to LAFC, another MLS team, for $26.5 million. Heung Min Son is a Korean player who arguably has one of the largest bases of dedicated fans from his home country, South Korea, in the world. He is extremely famous and loved by South Korea right now, which means the MLS could be opened to a whole new East Asian market, and millions more people could become interested in MLS teams. Because of this, new players like Son are starting to break the stigma of the MLS being the ‘retirement league’.
Due to this influx of new players, Americans who once only paid attention to European soccer are starting to take an interest in the MLS.
“[Recently] I’ve definitely become more interested in the MLS,” Austin Chen, a freshman, had to say. “Since 2023, when Messi went to Inter Miami, I started to actually watch some of the games.”
According to Mirror Review magazine, the MLS is currently one of the fastest-growing and most profitable sports leagues in the US. While the total growth of other sports leagues is mostly linear, the MLS is exponentially increasing in value each year. Profluence Sports has the NFL at only about 600% growth and the MLB at 700% since 2004, while the MLS is at about 1600% since 2008. The percentage of growth is also consistently higher than the year before. American Soccer Analysis claims that the net returns of the MLS have also risen to 600% of those in 2007, more than that of any other American sports league. The average player salary is, according to the New York Times, almost seven times larger than it was in 2003, at over $530,000. All of these statistics point to one thing: the MLS is exploding in value and quality and may be on track to become one of the biggest sports leagues in the US.
This is all very promising data, but what really matters is how the MLS really stacks up against big soccer leagues around the world. Statista editors state that since 1995, the Premier League has risen over eight times in value. The MLS? Sixty times. The MLS was a very new league with little money in 1995, making it much easier for it to grow that much, yet its value increase each year has not slowed down, but rather quickened. The MLS is still not near the same value and popularity as the Premier League, but its growth signifies that may change soon.
The season is near its end, and Major League Soccer finishes it with another record in viewership. It’s been showing great promise over the past few years, due to good players finally filling the rosters and club values skyrocketing. It is slowly shaking its title as one of the worst leagues in the world and may become one of the best.
