Sporting Returning to Orlando and MLS Cup Ratings

The participants in the Disney Pro Soccer Classic have been announced. For the third straight year Sporting KC will be in the tournament. KC is one of five teams already announced for the eight team tournament, joining Philadelphia, Columbus, Montreal, and USL-Pro affiliate, Orlando City. The team will arrive in Orlando on February 15th and stay through March 1st. This will be their second leg of preseason, which begins in Tucson, Arizona on January 23rd.

MLS Cup ratings

Also released a little earlier this week were the ratings for MLS Cup on Saturday. Nationally, the numbers were not too great, with only 505,000 watching the game, a rating of .5 on ESPN. for the first time ever, the Spanish broadcast of the game, this year on Unimas, outdrew ESPN. The Spanish channel drew 514,000 viewers.

Locally, things were better, especially considering the game was going head to head with the SEC Championship, featuring Mizzou. Locally, the Mizzou game drew 18.5 ( per this, that means the game drew about 171,000). Sporting drew  4.3, just about 40,000. Not a bad number as a whole. In fact, Sporting actually out drew another local team that played a little earlier. KU drew a 1.8 rating, for almost 17,000. a decent drew for KC.