Is there a big enough market in the US for five major sports leagues?

25 comments

1. It’s not that the market isn’t there, it’s that people just prefer other sports to soccer. We have NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA… then there’s NCAA football, which has as many fans as any other major sport, plus NCAA basketball and NASCAR. In some areas, high school football is practically a major league event. Soccer has gotten more popular in the past few decades, but it’s still nowhere near the popularity of the others I listed, even NASCAR, which has lost a lot of its popularity since it peaked in the late 90’s / early 2000’s is way more popular than soccer.

2. Twin cities has all 5.

3. MLS is making some strides.

   But it is just that soccer isn’t that popular. We have MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL and college sports which are about as popular as professional sports.

   So it is hard to get an MLS team going.

4. Seattle has room to get the NBA back. Which would put us at 5. Seahawks, Mariners, Kracken, Sounders, and Sonics.

   I’m not a sports fan so I hadn’t really paid attention to the NHL hype. But the Kracken opener season aligned with a light rail station opening near my house. In the first weeks of NHL games the amount of fans in Jerseys was off the charts. I didn’t expect there was such pent up demand.

5. >International leagues are becoming big, but not really MLS.

   I think this is part of it. Soccer is getting bigger and bigger, but the MLS itself is lagging behind the popularity of soccer more generally.

   I think Americans are used to having top-level leagues, because we mostly play our own sports. The NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL are all the highest-level leagues in the world for their sports. NASCAR is not the highest-level motor racing competition, but it is the highest-level of its discipline (oval racing).

   So I think Americans who are watching pro soccer are just as likely to watch overseas as they are the MLS. And since the MLS is so young, it doesn’t have the kind of local roots that college football or basketball do, that make them popular even though they’re not top-level.

6. >Does a city like Denver, with one team in each league, just not have room for a 5th team, no matter the sport?

   What are you talking about? Denver has the Nuggets, Broncos, Rapids, Rockies, and Avalanche.

7. I think cities tend to enjoy having professional sports teams. I don’t see why they would limit the number of teams or leagues.

   I would imagine the main question would be for the team owners on whether or not the team is going to make enough money in order to be sustainable in a given area.

8. Tbh, nobody talks about this but… i kinda wonder if the lack of pro soccer fans is related to the fact that soccer is largely a sport kids play in our society. My local MLS team is very good. I had friends and family in the Olympic Development Program. I played soccer for years and most of my friend’s children play as well. So it’s a common sport here. But even with all that, it’s still mainly a kids activity. Nearly every soccer player I’ve known quit by their 2nd year of high school. It’s seen as something fun to do when you’re a kid, I think. And so I wonder if that attitude that it’s a childish sport carries over and leads to a lack of a major MLS following.

9. it’s not about population size. It’s about lack of interest.

   I actually liked soccer when I played it as a kid, and enjoy watching my son play it now. I just can’t sit through an entire MLS game as I find it exceptionally boring.

10. Not really sure what the actual question is here. Looking at Florida and we have 3 NFL, and 2 NBA, MLB, NHL, MLS teams. And several top college sports teams.

11. We have very popular sports beyond those, too, with two large car racing circuits (and many smaller ones), plus golf and tennis (which was bigger at one time than now) and a scattering of other less big but still occasionally in the national spotlight sports like horse racing and track and field.

12. I’d be surprised to find out that Sporting KC *isn’t* already more popular in my city than whatever the nearest professional hockey team to my city is. Professional hockey is so niche here, I couldn’t even tell you what team that would be. We do have a minor league hockey team though (The Wichita Thunder), it’s also very niche but at least I know their team name and have been to some games over the years.

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14. I think the rumors of soccer gaining in popularity are astroturfing attempts by people with an interest in MLS becoming popular. I don’t know anyone that watches or has even been to an MLS game, though I know many that watch the Premier League or la liga.

15. In my town we’ve got NFL, NBA, and WNBA teams. Then we also have minor-league soccer, hockey, and baseball teams. There are enough people for the market, just not the interest.

16. Did Denver’s MLS team go under?

17. Soccer is popular, MLS isn’t. Soccer is super popular in my neighborhood, lots of places have games on, most kids play, etc. it’s just no one cares about the MLS or Fire. The European (and Mexican) games are way more popular.

18. Soccer just isn’t remotely as popular in the US as it is elsewhere. Hockey is more popular and will probably continue to be for a long time (despite southward movement of retirees, most of the population of the US is still in the “north”)

    I liked going to soccer games in Columbus, OH when I lived there… I liked hockey games more, and if I had ever managed to buy, steal, or counterfeit a ticket to an Ohio State Football game I imagine I would have liked that the most (seriously in a city of 1M people the 100k-seat COLLEGE stadium is ALWAYS sold out, that’s how much more popular gridiron football is)

    Also doesn’t the MLS have it’s season during the late spring to late summer? They’re competing mostly with baseball… which again, is vastly more popular (Columbus also had a AAA minor league team which was about as popular as the “major league soccer” team)

19. It’s just a cultural thing not market size issue

20. Let’s crunch some numbers: MLS averages about 343,000 viewers per game according to Sports Pro Media. The NFL regular season averaged 17.7 million views in 2021, the NBA averages about that many, MLB averaged around 957,000 in 2019, and even NHL viewership has reached about 460,000 viewers per game. MLS just doesn’t have the numbers.

    Plus, I think it’s become sort of a cultural thing for Americans to not care about soccer. Also, we’ve never been very good at it, and I don’t think Americans have that much desire to change that.

21. Yes.

    For soccer it’s mostly because the European leagues will get the best players. Fifth major league could possibly come from a different sport if not for that.

22. People have been saying soccer will become a big deal for like 40 years. And a decent number of places have 5+ major league teams. Just because the leagues themselves aren’t nfl caliber doesn’t make them not major leagues/professionals

23. Here in Philly, we have wildly popular teams in all five of the major sports leagues, a team in the National Lacrosse League, which is professional lacrosse and a few minor league teams across various sports. Some (Eagles and Phillies) are more popular than the others (Flyers, Sixers, Union), but all five of the “main” sports have dedicated fan bases and fit in just fine here in the city.

24. The Twin Cities has five major male sports, plus the WNBA. Also the U of M, one of the largest campuses in the US. (Used to be third; haven’t looked in awhile.) AAA baseball in St. Paul too.

25. It’s just like hockey to me, couldn’t pay me to watch either one!