Football (soccer) revenues are still minor compare to other major sports

According to Fox Sport marketing experts, US football (soccer) has seen considerable growth in the last decade since the country hosted the FIFA World Cup tournament in 1994. Whilst football is generating by the Major League Soccer, the Major Indoor Soccer League, the United Soccer Leagues, the U.S. national teams and foreign team exhibitions over US$100m in annual revenues, there isn’t much profit being made. The Major League Soccer reported last year for losses of around US$25m and Los Angeles Galaxy was the first team in league history to declare a profit, around US$200,000. The average attendance of the Major League Soccer matches is around 15,000 a game, half of Europe's top leagues average and more than the average in the Netherlands (12,500). In the last four years the number of foreign teams playing in the US has been raising from 90 to 130, and this summer’s Champions World Series attracted an average around 53,000 a game for the eight games involving top European clubs such as Manchester United, Barcelona, Juventus and AC Milan. "The revenue side of our sport continues to grow, but it's not like we don't have challenges," said US Soccer Federation general secretary Dan Flynn. But football revenue is still a minor compared with the NFL, which generates more than US$2bn a year in TV rights alone.