The eyes of the soccer world will be on the U.S. next year when North America hosts the 2026 World Cup. Three-quarters of the games are scheduled to be played in the States, with the rest in Mexico and Canada. The first U.S. World Cup in 1994 launched Major League Soccer, which started play in 1996. The league’s stakeholders hope this tournament—the first with 48 teams, up from 32—will power MLS to a new level.
Over the last month, Sportico spoke with more than 60 people inside and outside of MLS, including owners, team executives, bankers, consultants, investors and media experts to gauge the business of the sport. What emerged is a league that is facing an inflection point in several ways, with a critical 24 months ahead.
A World Cup bump has long been priced into MLS team values that triggered value-to-revenue multiples higher than any other major sports league before the NBA jumped ahead in late 2023. Now, MLS needs to deliver on the opportunity by converting more casual sports fans—and more serious American soccer fans—into MLS fans. It will pursue this objective as it grapples with whether to shift its playing schedule to match the FIFA soccer calendar. And front of mind for many teams is how to unlock more value from the league’s media partnership with Apple.
The average MLS franchise is worth $721 million, up 6%. Los Angeles FC leads the way at $1.28 billion followed by Inter Miami CF ($1.19 billion), LA Galaxy ($1.11 billion), Atlanta United ($1.08 billion) and New York City FC ($1 billion). Collectively, the 29 teams from last year—San Diego starts play as No. 30 in 2025—are worth $20.9 billion, including real estate and team-related businesses held by owners, such as NWSL clubs.
Yet, the gains are not shared equally. Six teams rose in value at least 10%, fueled by new stadium projects or thriving local businesses, while a dozen teams inched up 3% or less.
The average club rose 31% from Sportico’s first MLS valuations in 2021, while the least-valuable club rose 22% during that time. For comparison, the NBA “get-in” price is up 127%, versus 122% in the NFL and just 10% for MLB, the latter of which has been hampered by the melting regional sports network model. The NHL had the greatest growth among its clubs at the bottom, up 159%.
MLS Economics
Last season, the 29 teams generated an estimated $2.2 billion, or $77 million per club, from their stadiums, sponsorships and non-MLS events at venues that they own or operate (player trading revenue is excluded). Sponsorships rose 13%, while ticket revenue gained 12%. Total regular season attendance was 11.45 million, up 6%, as Lionel Messi drew club-record crowds when Inter Miami traveled to Kansas City (72,610 fans) and Foxborough (65,612 fans).
Stripping out Inter Miami road games, the 22,691 average attendance was still an all-time high. Multiple teams highlighted the consistency of the schedule—most games were on Saturday nights—for helping drive season ticket sales. Eight teams sold out all 17 home games, including Austin FC, LAFC, Philadelphia Union and St. Louis City SC.
The $2.2 billion tally includes a distribution from MLS for revenue from league media deals, sponsorships, merchandise, shared gate receipts and Soccer United Marketing (SUM), a league-owned enterprise. Teams don’t actually receive an annual check from MLS. Its single-entity structure means most player contracts are “owned” and paid by the league. The cost of players and league operations outstrips central revenue, requiring teams to fund those expenses via an annual assessment.
Inter Miami set a new bar last year with estimated revenue of $190 million, including a small distribution from MLS and then matchday (tickets and stadium) and commercial (sponsors and merchandise) revenue estimated to be roughly $90 million each. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization topped $50 million.
The two LA teams ranked second and fourth in overall revenue, with Atlanta United sandwiched in between. Those three clubs generate sponsorship revenue that puts them on par with what many teams in the NHL and NBA earn.
Austin, Cincinnati and Columbus all rank outside the top 30 media markets, but their MLS clubs have built strong ticketing and sponsorship businesses. All three teams ranked in the top seven for commercial revenue in 2023 at around $30 million each, according to internal MLS documents reviewed by Sportico. Final accounting is still being completed for the 2024 season.
The documents also highlight the challenges some markets face, with revenue from ticketing or sponsorships or both hovering around $10 million in cases. Teams have found other revenue streams to buoy their income statements, ranging from corporate events to expanding youth businesses. Operating camps and clinics throughout a metro area has a two-fold effect of generating income while also helping the clubs extend their brands.
Apple on the Clock
In June 2022, Apple and MLS reached a 10-year, $2.5 billion media rights deal. The agreement included a revenue-sharing component based on subscriber targets that funneled 50 cents of every dollar above the threshold to MLS. It was a key sales point in the deal for many teams who were excited by the idea of having the world’s most valuable company—current market capitalization of $3.6 trillion—ride shotgun on their media rights and market the league across its two billion global devices.
MLS’ initial targets were for the revenue sharing to kick in during the fourth or fifth year of the deal. Yet, Messi’s arrival in 2023 boosted subscriber numbers during Apple’s first season, and many team executives were optimistic the sharing component would kick in during year three of the deal (2025) or even 2024 if everything broke right. Twelve months later, almost no one expects the rev share to happen in 2025. Some teams are hopeful it triggers in 2026, buoyed by World Cup excitement, while multiple team executives painted a bleaker expectation: never.
MLS declined to comment on subscriber numbers.
Broadcast revenues are a core tenet of the other four biggest U.S. sports leagues, representing anywhere from 27% of annual revenue in the NHL to more than 50% for the NFL. Guaranteed checks from the league office help boost lower revenue clubs and explain why the floor price in the NBA is $3.1 billion and $4.7 billion in the NFL.
MLS is on the hook for production costs, which ate up a huge chunk of revenue in the first year. The deal likely brought in low single-digit millions of net revenue per club for year two.
The shifting media landscape and challenges in the U.S. RSN model have forced teams across sports to pivot their broadcast strategies. Some teams are opting for expanded reach over dollars where RSNs have cratered. The Apple deal as currently constructed provides neither dollars nor reach, lamented multiple longtime team executives. Apple has an opt-out in the deal after year five, according to multiple people familiar with the terms who were not authorized to speak publicly.
On the product side, Apple’s presentation of MLS games has received rave reviews, and fans who tune in are watching an average of 65 minutes per match, according to MLS. The audience is also 10 years younger than when games were on linear TV.
Both sides are keen to make the partnership work. MLS games on Apple TV will have a wider distribution in 2025, as fans with Comcast Xfinity and DirecTV can now subscribe to MLS Season Pass through the TV providers. T-Mobile customers will be able to access MLS Season Pass for free in the return of a promotion from 2023.
MLS is moving its media and broadcast production arm, MLS Productions, to WWE’s new high-tech facility in Stamford, Conn. The season will also see the introduction of a featured, standalone match weekly on Sunday nights. Next month, an eight-part docuseries Onside: Major League Soccer will premiere on Apple TV+ in an attempt to generate the kind of buzz that Drive to Survive had for F1.
“We couldn’t be more excited about our future with Apple,” Don Garber, MLS commissioner, said in his December state of the league address ahead of the MLS Cup.
“What we have, really, is a communication problem,” Garber continued about the perception that all games are behind a paywall, citing the six-to-12 free games available weekly. “This is new, and we’ve got to work with Apple, we’ve got to work with our clubs, and we’ve got to work with our partners to get more exposure to what we think is a great product.”
Team Sales
Sportico’s team valuations represent a control sale estimate, versus a limited party stake. Teams have been able to sell LP stakes in MLS at valuations that far exceed prices bankers think control stakes could fetch.
It has been more than three years since an MLS team sold a controlling stake; Real Salt Lake, the Houston Dynamo and Orlando City SC changed ownership in an eight-month span from June 2021 to January 2022. They each fetched roughly $400 million or a tick lower. All three deals included NWSL teams, although they were negligible parts of the enterprise values of the transactions ahead of the explosion in NWSL sale prices.
San Diego starts play this year after paying a record $500 million expansion fee. Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Mansour is the lead owner and is paying the expansion fee over multiple years, resulting in a net present value of between $400 million and $450 million, depending on the discount rate applied. Mansour is also on the hook for startup costs and a new training facility.
MLS’ get-in price will likely get another test this year, with the Vancouver Whitecaps hiring Goldman Sachs to explore a sale. The Whitecaps, which joined MLS in 2011, are light on assets and in need of an upgraded stadium and practice facility. Revenue is near the bottom of the league at an estimated $47 million last season, including $11 million in sponsorships and a distribution from MLS. Revenue got a significant boost due to a scheduled home game against Inter Miami, which drove a 56% gain in season-long attendance.
Vancouver is the second-least valuable MLS team at $470 million. Greg Kerfoot is the largest shareholder by a wide margin, and LP owners include Steve Luczo, Jeff Mallett and Steve Nash. Bankers and many team executives think the franchise would command a premium price if moved, but the current intent of the team and MLS is to keep the club in Vancouver.
While there have not been any control transactions since 2022, several teams sold limited partnership stakes at rich valuations, which bankers think are premium prices compared with what a full sale would command.
Cincinnati FC had a recent transaction for 4% of the team at a $939 million enterprise value. The buyers weren’t people just wanting to put “team owner” on their LinkedIn page, but instead existing owners in the franchise, which last month missed out on adding an NWSL expansion club to its portfolio with Caitlin Clark as part of the bid.
In September, billionaire Marcelo Claure purchased a 10% stake in the holding company that owns NYCFC and its yet-to-be-built stadium in Queens. The deal values the entity at roughly $1.5 billion, according to multiple people familiar with the matter. The former CEO of Sprint was a co-founder of Inter Miami until he was bought out in 2021. City Football Group US Holdco LLC is now 80% owned by City Football Group (majority held by Emirati sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed), 10% by the New York Yankees and 10% by Claure.
Last fall, Austin FC hired Inner Circle Bank to sell an LP interest in the club. If a transaction is completed, the team is expected to use the proceeds to pay down debt and for growth initiatives. Austin has sold out all 70 MLS regular season and playoff home matches during its four-year history and has the league’s longest active sellout streak. It is one of the few MLS teams that has consistently turned an operating profit over the last few seasons. Sportico values the team at $865 million, sixth-highest in the league.
The average revenue multiple for MLS teams has come down to 9.4 times revenue—it was 12.2 four years ago—but it is still the second-highest among sports leagues after the NBA.
What’s Next
Part of the optimism around MLS is the potential for getting lagging markets up to speed. Chicago and New England have made some progress in their ongoing searches for stadium solutions. Dallas' home, Toyota Stadium, is getting a $182 million upgrade as part of a public-private partnership between the city of Frisco and the Hunt family. But the biggest domino to fall last year was NYCFC securing approvals for its new building, which it broke ground on last month. The $780 million—and climbing—Etihad Park will open in 2027, a year after Inter Miami opens its new stadium as part of the $1 billion Miami Freedom Park project.
NYCFC sold naming rights to Etihad Airways for 20 years, blowing past the previous record—LAFC’s deal with BMO worth $10 million annually. The New York club launched the first phase of its hospitality sales, focused on three different kinds of suites ranging in price from $250,000 to $325,000 per year on five-to-15-year terms. It sold out its eight Pitchside Lounges and has leased roughly one-third of the more traditional Broadway Suites and Skyline Suites.
It’s a dramatic shift from NYCFC's current setup, where the team had almost no premium seating revenue from its “home” stadiums, which shifted regularly and included six different venues during the 2022 season. The suites at Yankee Stadium and Citi Field were also poorly situated for taking in a soccer match.
The new digs will open up a range of sponsorship opportunities. Financial services firms avoided the club, with Bank of America signage looming over Yankee Stadium and Citi on the front of the New York Mets' home. The same applies to other major sponsorship categories, where the team was shut out based on its home fields in baseball stadiums.
"It is a complete game-changer for us as a business," Brad Sims, NYCFC president, said in a video interview. "Going from being a tenant to running your own facility opens up so many new revenue streams for us." Sims said the organization is also building the venue with a focus on running it year-round for events and concerts.
And while there are promising off-field developments in key markets, the quality of play across MLS has also improved dramatically over the past decade. Sports intelligence firm Twenty First Group tracks soccer player data and found the number of the top 1,250 players in the world—50 teams of 25 players—has increased in MLS from one in 2015 to eight this season across six teams.
It is progress, but still trails the top European leagues, led by England’s Premier League with 258 players. France's Ligue 1 has the fewest players of the Big Five leagues at 114, and there is a big drop off to Portugal's Primeira Liga in sixth at 54. MLS is tied for 19th with the Ukrainian Premier League.
"Long-term progress for MLS will require more than marquee signings," AJ Swoboda, managing director at Twenty First Group, said in an interview. "A sporting challenge for this next half decade is how MLS can sustainably evolve into an even bigger destination for top talent—whether domestic or international, established stars or rising prospects." Swoboda points to changes in roster rules, such as the Under-22 Initiative introduced in 2021, as ways for the league to help "build paths towards sustainable growth."
Most MLS ownership groups face capital calls each year, but there is a contingent of owners that want to be much more aggressive on the player acquisition side. Of course, that costs money and can lead to bigger losses if offsetting revenues are not available.
Part of the calculus on bringing more talent to the league is flipping the season to the August-through-May calendar followed by most of the rest of global soccer. As MLS’ talent improves, it would likely benefit the league to fall in line, as it loses players to international competitions every summer.
The current MLS calendar also limits teams on buying and selling players. The January transfer window has much less action than the summer one. And teams are hamstrung in the summer if they get a strong offer for a player. It sends a bad message to fans to dump a top player as the team is making a playoff push.
MLS last explored moving to the FIFA calendar in 2015, but it opted against the move with cold weather cities a major factor. Since that time, MLS has added teams in Atlanta, Austin, Charlotte, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville and San Diego, which has evened out the northern heavy presence during MLS’ initial two decades. The thinking this time is that a schedule can be created limiting winter games in places like Minnesota, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver to just one home game a month.
Yet, it would take major investments from those teams to get their facilities up to par to operate near the coldest part of the year, and it may still be a nonstarter for some clubs, such as Minnesota United FC.
"It's a terrible decision, and we would not want to do it," Minnesota owner Bill McGuire said in a phone interview. "I think it hurts our sponsors, and I think it hurts our fans." Fellow owners are sympathetic to McGuire's concerns around weather and several others are worried about the impact it could have on season ticket sales.
Yet, Sportico spoke with representatives from two dozen teams, and the overwhelming majority favored flipping the calendar. The league has cultivated a roster of well-regarded team owners who have racked up career successes across numerous industries. They have big league ambitions for MLS, which requires aligning the schedule with the rest of the soccer world.
