# Major League Soccer > The top professional soccer league in the United States and Canada, founded in 1993 as a condition of America hosting the 1994 FIFA World Cup. **Meta:** type: reference · date: 2026-07-03 · heads: · 3 takes · 3 lenses · 1 regions ## What it is Major League Soccer (MLS) is the top professional soccer league in the United States and Canada, sanctioned by the US Soccer Federation and Canada Soccer. It operates under a single-entity structure in which the league centrally holds player contracts and distributes revenue among its 30 member clubs, 27 in the United States and three in Canada. Commissioner Don Garber has run the league since 1999. The regular season runs from late February through October, followed by the MLS Cup Playoffs, with the MLS Cup final held in December. ## History MLS was incorporated in 1993 as a direct condition of FIFA awarding the 1994 FIFA World Cup to the United States; FIFA required the US Soccer Federation to commit to a first-division professional league before confirming the hosting rights. The inaugural season opened in 1996 with 10 clubs. Early years were difficult: the league sustained heavy losses and contracted the Miami Fusion and Tampa Bay Mutiny after the 2001 season. Recovery came through soccer-specific stadiums, beginning with Columbus Crew Stadium in 1999, which let clubs capture non-soccer event revenue and escape costly rent-sharing arrangements with NFL teams. LA Galaxy's signing of David Beckham in 2007, on a US$6.5 million annual salary, launched the Designated Player rule, allowing clubs to sign marquee players outside the salary cap. Expansion accelerated from there; by 2023 the San Diego ownership group paid a record US$500 million franchise fee, and San Diego FC entered play in 2025 as the 30th club. ## Current state The 30 clubs generated combined revenue of approximately US$2.2 billion in the 2024 season. As of Sportico's 2025 annual ranking, the average franchise is valued at US$721 million, up 31% since 2021, with five clubs exceeding US$1 billion: LAFC at US$1.28 billion, Inter Miami CF at US$1.19 billion, LA Galaxy at US$1.11 billion, Atlanta United at US$1.08 billion, and New York City FC at US$1 billion. Inter Miami, co-owned by David Beckham and Jorge Mas, recorded the highest individual club revenue at approximately US$190 million in 2024, driven substantially by Lionel Messi's 2023 arrival. The media rights framework is in transition: a June 2022 deal gave Apple a 10-year, US$2.5 billion streaming partnership, but in late 2025 the parties revised it to expire after the 2028-29 season. Apple will pay MLS US$200 million for the 2026 season, then US$275 million annually in each of the two remaining years, freeing the league to re-enter the rights market at a moment of heightened leverage created by the [2026 FIFA World Cup](/ja/n/world-cup-canada-south-africa-r32-jun28) being co-hosted across the United States, Mexico, and Canada. ## Relationships MLS and Liga MX, Mexico's first division, jointly run the annual Leagues Cup, a summer competition bracketing clubs from both leagues together. MLS clubs compete in the Concacaf Champions Cup. The league also operates MLS NEXT Pro, its second-division development arm, and MLS NEXT, a youth academy system that feeds directly into first-team rosters. Eleven of the 2026 tournament's 16 host cities are active MLS markets, giving the league infrastructure overlap with the [2026 World Cup](/ja/n/fifa-world-cup-dossier) that no previous global event has provided. Within the North American professional sports landscape, MLS sits alongside the four older major leagues discussed in the [US pro leagues: the five North American leagues that define the global sports-rights market](/ja/n/sports-us-leagues-backgrounder), with a younger audience demographic and a later-stage stadium-ownership build-out. Institutional and private equity interest in MLS clubs has grown steadily, as covered in the [Sports private equity: institutional capital in professional sports](/ja/n/sports-private-equity-dossier). ## What to watch The critical open question is what media rights arrangement follows Apple after 2028-29. League executives are expected to open formal negotiations no later than 2027, and whether domestic broadcasters or a competing streaming platform values MLS rights above US$275 million per year will be a direct referendum on whether the 2026 World Cup produced lasting audience growth. A second structural issue is competitive concentration: Inter Miami's commercial lead, built largely on a single player's drawing power, tests the equity assumptions behind the single-entity model. On the pitch, the academy pipeline in newer markets, including San Diego, St. Louis, and Nashville, will determine whether MLS develops domestic talent at a rate that reduces reliance on aging international signings. The commercial stakes of all three dynamics are tracked in the [money in global sport: media rights, club valuations, private equity and sponsorship](/ja/n/sports-money-in-sport-backgrounder). ## Regional takes (batched by bias / lens) ### official record - **Major League Soccer** (United States, en) — Official MLS page confirming the league as the top-flight professional soccer competition in the United States and Canada, founded after the USA hosted the 1994 FIFA World Cup, comprising 30 clubs. Source: https://www.mlssoccer.com/about ### franchise valuation - **Sportico** (United States, en) — Annual Sportico ranking of all 30 MLS clubs; reports a 2025 average of US$721 million per franchise, an aggregate of US$20.9 billion, and combined league revenue of approximately US$2.2 billion in the 2024 season. Source: https://www.sportico.com/valuations/teams/2025/mls-team-values-2025-lafc-inter-miami-1234825738/ ### media rights - **Sportico** (United States, en) — Reports the late-2025 revision of the 2022 MLS-Apple broadcast partnership, shortened to end after the 2028-29 season with annual payments of US$200 million in 2026 and US$275 million in each of the final two years. Source: https://www.sportico.com/leagues/soccer/2025/apple-mls-streaming-contract-change-1234876902/ ## Across the graph - Related: [[world-cup-canada-south-africa-r32-jun28]], [[sports-us-leagues-backgrounder]], [[fifa-world-cup-dossier]], [[sports-private-equity-dossier]], [[sports-money-in-sport-backgrounder]] - Entities: Mls, Don Garber, Apple Tv, Inter Miami, Liga Mx --- Canonical: https://rbtfl.xyz/ja/n/mls-dossier