Major League Soccer is hoping for a breakout boost to its television audience and market share after Messi joins Inter Miami next month. Following Pelé's signing with the New York Cosmos in 1975 and David Beckham joining the LA Galaxy in 2007, Messi is expected to become the third supreme soccer evangelist in a nation where the sport has been playing catch-up for more than a century.
The Cosmos of the old North American Soccer League averaged 3,578 fans in 1974, the season before Pelé, and played in Downing Stadium along the Triborough Bridge. By his final year, 1977, they averaged more than 34,000 at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.“Oh, Americans will never play that soccer. Oh, what a ridiculous game." he recalled being told.
Roughly 22 teams are in new or substantially rebuilt soccer-specific stadiums and just six play on artificial turf. ABC and ESPN televised 34 MLS games last year that averaged 343,300 viewers, while the league averaged 443,000 on Fox, 138,000 on FS1 plus 254,000 for Spanish-language broadcasts on Univision and UniMás.
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