Atlanta United vs. Seattle Sounders sets MLS regular season viewership record

Atlanta United’s match with the Seattle Sounders in Mercedes-Benz Stadium has set a new record for total viewers for a regular season MLS match, with more than 1.5 million tuning in after the World Cup Final according to Jonathan Tannenwald of Philly.com.

It seems to be a new record for an MLS regular season match, at least according to the list kept on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is, of course, an aggregation of sources, and not a source itself, so take it with a grain of salt. But considering the reported number from Sunday’s game is more than 50% greater than the highest watched game listed on Wikipedia, they’d have to be missing something pretty darn big for this not to top the chart.

It’s an impressive total viewership. Not listed in the table above is the viewership number for Atlanta United’s match against the Portland Timbers two weeks ago, which also had a World Cup game lead-in. That number was somewhere in the range of a million viewers, but it’s impossible to tell if that number was a certified record or not. This number of 1.5 million leaves no doubt.

It was a historic day in Atlanta all around, as the team also set yet another MLS-attendance record. Atlanta United has clearly set a new barometer with attendances, as the club no holds the five highest attendance figures in MLS history.

So despite a disappointing 1-1 draw on the day against the Sounders, it wasn’t all bad.