Messi Miami debut delivers in the ratings on Univision

Lionel Messi’s Miami debut delivered in the ratings like few MLS matches ever have.

Friday’s Leagues Cup match between Inter Miami of MLS and Cruz Azul of Liga MX, which featured the Miami debut of Lionel Messi, averaged a 0.8 rating and 1.75 million viewers on Univision — the largest single-network MLS audience since Freddy Adu’s 2004 debut on ABC (1.97M). Figures include pre-match coverage. English-language coverage aired on Apple TV, which is not Nielsen-rated.

Outside of that 2004 match, no MLS telecast has had a larger single-network audience since the 1997 MLS Cup, when 2.2 million viewers watched DC United defeat Colorado on ABC. Viewership surpassed the ESPN audience for David Beckham’s debut in 2007 (1.5M) and cruised past Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s 2018 debut on FOX (565K).

Liga MX matches have regularly drawn larger single-network audiences, including the final of the Clasura season on Univision less than two months ago (2.94M).

The match ranked a distant second among soccer telecasts Friday night, trailing a United States-Vietnam FIFA Women’s World Cup match that combined for 6.07 million across FOX (5.26M) and Telemundo (810K). It seems unlikely that the Apple TV+ audience could make up a 4.5 million viewer gap, particularly as the match was available only to the one million or so subscribers to MLS Season Pass. A considerable amount of co-viewing would be needed to pull even.

(Nielsen estimates from Programming Insider 7.24)