Los Angeles is the No. 1 city for soccer fans in 2024, outranking cities like Seattle, Portland and Salt Lake City.
According to a recent WalletHub report, they compared 300 U.S. cities with at least one college or professional soccer team across 52 metrics, with data ranging from the minimum season-ticket price to stadium accessibility.
“America has a late-blooming but clear passion for soccer, and cities such as Los Angeles and Seattle are leading the way in creating a great environment for soccer fans,” Cassandra Happe, a WalletHub analyst, said in the report.
“Not only do these cities provide plenty of opportunities to enjoy high-level soccer at the professional and college level, but they also have cultivated highly engaged fanbases who support those teams passionately everywhere from the stands to social media,” she added.
Soccer has seen an explosion in the U.S., stemming from the record-breaking performance from the U.S. Women’s National Team in 2015, winning their third World Cup. It marked the first time a women’s national soccer team had won three World Cups.
This first came in 1991 and the second famously in 1999, when former midfielder Brandi Chastain scored the winning penalty kick in the 1999 Women’s World Cup final, clinching the championship for the United States at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.
“Los Angeles is the best city for soccer fans overall. It has two Major League Soccer teams, the LA Galaxy and Los Angeles FC, and one National Women’s Soccer League team, Angel City FC,” Happe said. “Los Angeles teams have won the MLS Cup six times, more than any other city, and LA’s MLS teams are worth more than $1 billion each on average.”
“It’s been in Ohio as early as the mid-1850s at least, brought in as an ornamental plant because of its unique foliage and white flowers,” Gardner said. “It was actually planted in people’s landscaping, and it has been spreading.”
The 2015 Women’s World Cup final became the most-watched soccer match in U.S. history, with an average of 25.4 million viewers on Fox.
LAFC is currently in the round of 16 in the U.S. Open Cup and fifth in the Western Conference, set to face Loudoun United FC.
Meanwhile, the LA Galaxy are fourth in the Western Conference with a match scheduled against the Houston Dynamo on Saturday.