The game of soccer has grown so much over the past number of years in the United States. Now a days, you see many more people wearing soccer jerseys on the streets and MLS teams selling out their stadiums each weekend. It has gotten to the point that in 2019, Google listed soccer as the third sport with the most searches behind football and basketball. Before, American sports use to be dominated by the NFL, NBA, and MLB, but now soccer is as important as these leagues.
However, this growth is not just toward Major League Soccer (MLS), but many foreign leagues as well. One of those leagues with growing interest in the United States is Mexico’s Liga MX, which is why we want to take a look to see which teams are the most popular in the U.S.
To figure this out, we used Google Trends, which knows what topics have been the most searched in a particular country or region. Based on 2019 results, we compared the numbers of five Mexican teams: América, Chivas, Cruz Azul, Pumas, and Monterrey. As you will soon see in the graphics below, a value of 100 indicates the maximum popularity of a topic, in this case, a club. A value of 50 means there was half interest, and 0 indicates there was no suficient data in regards to that topic. This way, we were able to find out which Liga MX teams are the most popular in the United States.
Liga MX in the United States
According to the International Federation of Football History and Statistics (IFFHS), Liga MX is the best league in CONCACAF ahead of MLS. That study is conducted by a private organization, but we wanted to know what the fans of soccer in the United States think.
MLS continues to grow and it is gaining more recognition around the world, but it was not the most searched soccer league in the U.S. in 2019. In fact, Liga MX is ahead of MLS according to Google Trends. To be exact, MLS was only more searched than Liga MX in 13 states: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Pensilvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Missouri, Minnesota, Montana, Alaska, and Hawaii.
The Most Searched Team
As we previously mentioned in the introduction, we used Google Trends to find these results and relate them directly with the interest in the United States. The numbers we will see are from 2019 and include América, Chivas, Cruz Azul, Pumas, and Monterrey.
Based on 2019 results, Club América was the team with the most searches on Google Trends. The surprising thing is the huge gap there between América and the other Mexican clubs. Chivas for example, América’s biggest rival, was 10 points below. Chivas only had more searches than América in two states: West Virginia and Hawaii. The other states belonged to América.
The difference between both clubs has grown in the past couple of seasons. América has always been in front, but the gap with Chivas use to be very close. In fact, just a few years ago, a single point seperated both sides.
This graphic may look difficult to understand because of all the colors, but it is more simple than it really is. To the left of the image, we can see the average search interest of each team in the United States. Going through the numbers, América had an average of 24, Chivas with 14, Monterrey 9, Cruz Azul 7, and Pumas 2.
The other part of the image shows the search results of each team during 2019, with 100 being the maximum popularity of a term. We can see América with many high points during the year while Chivas did not lived up to the expections. Monterray on the other hand enjoyed a big spike toward the end of the year as they took on Liverpool in the Club World Cup.
Popularity in Each State
To get these results, we went further into detail to see in which states Mexicans teams are more often searched.
Arizona: América dominated in Phoenix
América was the team with the most searches in the state, including in its capital city of Phoenix. Their average of 28 points led the table, followed by Chivas on 16 points. Monterrey was third with 8, Cruz Azul had 6, and Pumas in last with 3 points.
California: América ruled
América also had the best numbers in the state of California with 24 average points, while Chivas was second with 16 points. Meanwhile, Monterrey finished with 7, followed by Cruz Azul on 6, and Pumas with only 2 points.
Florida: Chivas and Monterrey tied in second place
América surpassed 40% of searches in each city in Florida registered by Google Trends. The interesting thing is that Chivas and Monterrey were tied in second place with 9 points, while América achieved 20 points. Cruz Azul would be next on the list with 5 and Pumas finished with only 2 points.
Illinois: América and Chivas ahead of everyone
Although América finished ahead of Chivas, the difference between the other three teams was significant. América had an average of 25 points and Chivas had 16 points. Meanwhile, Monterrey and Cruz Azul tied with 7 and Pumas finished on 3 points.
New Mexico: América finsihed with a 13 point difference
América had around 50% searches in all of the cities in New Mexico recorded by Google Trends. During 2019, América had an average of 23 points, distancing themselves from Chivas who only had 10 points. Monterrey were next on the list with 8, Cruz Azul had 5, and Pumas only 3 points.
Texas: Monterrey finished in second position
Like in the previous five states, América finished far ahead of the other Mexican teams. However, the surpising thing is that Monterrey finished ahead of Chivas in search results. Chivas finished third on the list, while Cruz Azul were fourth, and Pumas in last position.
Why These Numbers?
After seeing these numbers, América and Chivas were the Mexican teams with the most searches in the United States in 2019. Despite the big difference, it should be noted that some surveys of fans of Mexican clubs living in the United States give different results.
Without going any further, América, Chivas, and Cruz Azul have a similar number of fans in the United States, but that does not justify the results presented by Google Trends. This is where we must take the success of each club into consideration.
Chivas for example had a low number of searches in 2019, a year where they did not qualify for the playoffs of any tournament. On the other hand, Monterrey showed a huge spike in searches probably due to winning the CONCACAF Champions League and taking part in the Club World Cup.
What do we mean by this? Fans not just keep up to date with their team’s current events, but also search to see what is occurring with other clubs, especially if it is a team that is on the verge of winning or playing in an important competition.
There is no doubt that the fan interest for MLS and Liga MX will continue to grow in the United States. In 2019, América was the most searched Mexican team in the United States, but will they continue to keep that up this year?
