Liverpool Is Now the Most Popular Premier League Club in America

Months after claiming both the League Cup and FA Cup titles, the Reds of Liverpool can now boast yet another accolade: the most popular club in the United States, according to a new Morning Consult survey.

As the 2022-23 season got underway this month, the survey revealed that about 3 in 5 self-identified Premier League fans (61%) said they had either a “very favorable” or “somewhat favorable” opinion of Liverpool. Roughly 1 in 5 U.S. adults (21%) held the same opinion — the most of any club. 

Manchester United has long been considered the most popular Premier League club, both in the United Kingdom and throughout the world, but in the United States, at least, Liverpool now has them narrowly beat, based on the early August survey. Following Liverpool and Man U were Manchester City and Chelsea, all within the survey’s margin of error, while Arsenal rounded out the top five.

American Premier League fans are seeing red 

• Following Liverpool, 3 in 5 Premier League fans had at least a somewhat favorable opinion of Manchester United, with Manchester City (59%), Chelsea (57%) and Arsenal (54%) close behind to form a clear top five.
• About 3 in 10 Premier League fans (28%) said they have a favorable opinion of Brighton & Hove Albion, making them the least popular team among respondents. They returned to England’s top-flight league at the start of the 2017-18 campaign.
• Roughly 1 in 3 Premier League fans (34%) had a favorable opinion of recently promoted Fulham, who is more popular than the two other clubs, AFC Bournemouth and Nottingham Forest, that earned Premier League spots this season. Among U.S. adults, though, Nottingham Forest was the league’s most popular newcomer, with 1 in 10 Americans having a favorable opinion of the team.
• Tottenham Hotspur, seen as a popular choice for many Americans in search of a Premier League team to root for, finished in seventh place, with 44% of fans saying they have a favorable opinion of the North London club. 

• About half of U.S. Premier League fans who said they watch matches indicated they watch MLS games (53%) more than those of any other global soccer league included as an option in the survey. La Liga finished second, with 27% of respondents saying they watch the Spanish league’s games. 
• About 3 in 5 Premier League fans (62%) said they plan to watch either “a lot” or “some” of the current season, compared to less than half of self-identified soccer fans (46%) and less than a quarter of self-identified sports fans (24%).

EPL in America 

Premier League teams continue to emphasize the U.S. market. Arsenal and Chelsea, for example, were among the league’s teams who participated in a domestic tour this summer. NBC Sports Group, which started carrying Premier League matches in 2013, signed a six-year, $2.7 billion U.S. media rights deal to broadcast the league’s games, starting with the current campaign.

Liverpool, meanwhile, has made up a lot of ground in recent years. A 2019 Morning Consult survey found that Manchester United was by far the most-followed Premier League club among Americans. Liverpool’s emergence, led by Egyptian goal scorer Mohamed Salah, suggests that U.S. soccer fans, who tend to be younger and relative newcomers to the sport, are becoming more knowledgeable about the top clubs overseas. 

The Aug. 5-6, 2022, survey was conducted among a representative sample of 2,210 U.S. adults, including 405 self-identified Premier League fans, with unweighted margins of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points and plus or minus 5 percentage points, respectively. The survey also included 1,406 self-identified sports fans and 706 self-identified soccer fans, with unweighted margins of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points and plus or minus 4 percentage points, respectively.