Liga MX pulls strong viewership but falls behind Premier League
Liga MX’s Apertura playoff final between Club America and Monterrey saw Club America seal the first-ever consecutive treble in Apertura/Clausura history. The first leg played on Thursday, December 12, averaged 1.63 million viewers across Univision and TUDN. The second Liga MX leg did even better, averaging 2.02 million viewers on Sunday, December 15.
While impressive, Liga MX viewership has declined overall since 2023. According to sports media analyst Larry Johnson, the Premier League has been averaging more viewers than Liga MX since 2023 on U.S. television and streaming.
For instance, the 2.02 million viewers for the second leg was down from the 2.21 million who watched the second leg in December 2023 (between Club America and Tigres UANL). That playoff final in 2023 had the same number of viewers as a Liverpool versus Manchester United match earlier that day. Furthermore, a Premier League regular season game this past August for Chelsea against Manchester City averaged 2.21 million viewers across NBC, Telemundo, and Peacock.
Liga MX viewership isn’t what it used to be
Johnson from Helltown Beer analyzed the statistics on Liga MX and Premier League viewership on Univision from 2022 and 2023. The average Univision viewership for the Mexican top flight in 2022 was around 900,000. By comparison, the Premier League viewership on NBC or USA Network was just shy of 800,000. Fast forward to 2023, and those rankings flipped. The Premier League was relatively flat, as average viewership was 700,000. Comparatively, Liga MX plummeted to just over 600,000. In other words, the average Liga MX viewership on Univision was down 30%.
Comparing viewership between Liga MX and Premier League isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison. That’s because Liga MX features playoff games and doesn’t have an open-league system like the Premier League. As a result, there isn’t a playoff final in the Premier League pitting the two best teams against each other to decide who wins a trophy. Instead, the Premier League features the suspense of a balanced league system where every team plays each other once at home and once away in a 38-game season.
Recently, Liga MX executives have made several poor decisions that have upset fans of Mexican soccer. Those include getting rid of promotion and relegation, launching the Leagues Cup with MLS where none of the games are played in Mexico, and the inability to secure a league-wide media rights deal that would have benefitted the league as a whole.
Photo: IMAGO / Agencia-MexSport