MLS Ticket Sales Show Early Signs of World Cup Boom

Ticket sales have increased and most teams are offering free first-time experiences.

MLS teams have seen a bump in ticket sales since the World Cup began. | Liza Rosales/ISI Photos/Getty Images

It will take years for MLS to fully feel the impact of the 2026 World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico, but the so-called “World Cup bump” has already begun for several teams across the league. 

According to a report from Front Office Sports, some MLS teams are reporting strong increases in ticket sales since the beginning of the World Cup, with certain sides seeing an increase of more than 150%. 

The heightened demand for tickets seemed to take place throughout the entire tournament, even before the “Thanks World, We’ll Take it From Here,” campaign, which MLS and its 30 member clubs launched ahead of the semifinals, with a glitzy advertisement that aired during the Fox Sports national broadcasts. Several clubs also aired team-focused ads, produced by the same production house. 

While the major changes in MLS won’t come until next year with the switch to a winter-based calendar, aligning seasons and transfer windows with the top leagues in Europe, the interest in the second half of the 2026 campaign has been evident, at least in the stadiums. 

This summer, the league has already seen an influx of superstars, with Antoine Griezmann, Robert Lewandowski and Casemiro joining, a year after Son Heung-min, Thomas Müller and Rodrigo De Paul arrived on American shores and three years after Lionel Messi signed a transformative deal which brought him, and several other stars, to Inter Miami. 

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Welcoming First-Time Fans

The Seattle Sounders offer a “First Match on Us” promotion. | Henry Rodenburg/Icon Sportswire/Getty Images

Each team in MLS has taken on its own avenues of bringing new fans into the stadiums in the first few weeks since the league resumed post-World Cup, and some have even gone as far as offering free tickets to those wanting to check out MLS for the first time. 

Twenty-two of the league’s 30 clubs have put together variations on a “First Match on Us” program, which offers those hoping to attend a match for the first time one or two free tickets to a game of their choice with limited quantities for each team, depending on which game. 

The Seattle Sounders were one of the first teams to launch a program of that type in the 2025 season, which outlined select matches that were available for first-time fans on a complimentary basis. The Sounders are among the teams that have brought back the program for the 2026 campaign, and saw massive interest in soccer across the six World Cup matches hosted at the same venue. 

North of the border, the eight-team Canadian Premier League is also looking to cash in on the interest that saw one in every four Canadians watch some of the World Cup. To do so, the league has introduced the “Your +1, On Us” program, which provides a complimentary ticket to those already holding one. 

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Television Viewership a Work in Progress

MLS’s Apple TV deal keeps most of the games off traditional linear channels. | Winslow Townson/Getty Images

While interest in attending games is rising, it has yet to be reflected in higher television ratings, even as MLS received the national broadcast spotlight on Fox for Atlanta United vs. Nashville SC and the El Tráfico derby between LAFC and the LA Galaxy, between the World Cup semifinals and final. 

Nashville and Atlanta’s game on Eastern Standard primetime brought in 587,000 viewers and was the most-watched MLS regular-season game on Fox since 2020, when MLS opted for Apple TV as its primary broadcaster. El Tráfico drew 504,000 viewers on Fox despite its 10:30 p.m. ET kickoff time. However, those figures do not include the Apple TV numbers, which averaged 125,000 per match in 2025. 

The future of the TV deal and the revenues it could bring to the league and its teams, as well as its impact on accessibility and growth, remain one of the most vital pieces in MLS’s future planning. More games have shown up on linear television in recent years, and MLS is now included in the general Apple TV subscription, but there will be an opportunity to shift the picture more significantly when the deal ends in 2029. 

Over the coming months and years, it will become clear whether MLS has truly seen a bump from the World Cup, but the early signs are positive. The biggest shifts, addressing the calendar and potentially loosening roster restrictions, are yet to come—and it’s those that will likely see the biggest change in MLS’s future trajectory. 

“Now that we have the hardware, how do we ensure that as the hardware has become best in class, that we have software that can also be best in class?” MLS Commissioner Don Garber told The Athletic. “I think that will happen over time. I will say that it is called MLS 3.0 for a reason, because it is a transformation of the way we’re going to think about going about our business. But it is not a flipping of the switch.”

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