The 2015 Major League Soccer season featured 20 total clubs (17 based in the United States, 3 based in Canada). The regular season was held from March 6 through to October 25, whereas the MLS Cup Playoffs began on October 28 and ended with MLS Cup 2015 on December 6. The defending

MLS Cup MLS Cup is the annual championship game of Major League Soccer (MLS) and the culmination of the MLS Playoffs. The game is held in November or December and pits the winner of the Eastern Conference Final against the winner of the Western Confere ...

champions were the

LA Galaxy The Los Angeles Galaxy are an American professional Association football, soccer club based in the Greater Los Angeles area. The club competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Western Conference (MLS), Western Conference. The Gal ...

, while

Seattle Sounders FC Seattle Sounders FC is an American professional association football, soccer club based in Seattle. The Sounders compete in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Western Conference (MLS), Western Conference. The club was established on ...

were the defending Supporters' Shield winners. It was the first season for expansion teams Orlando City SC and

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, who both joined the Eastern Conference, while both the Houston Dynamo and

Sporting Kansas City Sporting Kansas City is an American professional Association football, soccer club based in the Kansas City metropolitan area. The club competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Western Conference (MLS), Western Conference. The ad ...

moved from the Eastern Conference to the Western Conference.

Chivas USA Chivas USA (pronounced ''CHEE-vahs'') was an American professional Association football, soccer club based in the Greater Los Angeles area. The club competed in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Western Conference (MLS), Western Conf ...

folded at the end of the 2014 season. At the end of the regular season, the New York Red Bulls of the Eastern Conference won the Supporters' Shield, while the team on top of the Western Conference was

FC Dallas FC Dallas is an American professional Association football, soccer club based in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The club competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Western Conference (MLS), Western Conference. The franchise be ...

. The Portland Timbers won their first MLS Cup, winning 2–1 at

Columbus Crew The Columbus Crew are an American professional soccer club based in Columbus, Ohio. The club competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Eastern Conference (MLS), Eastern Conference. The team began play in 1996 as one of the 10 cha ...

Overview

The 2015 season began on Friday, March 6. The opening weekend saw an average attendance of 25,838 — buoyed by strong attendances in Orlando (62,510), and Seattle (39,782) — with seven of the weekend's ten matches selling out. Additionally, MLS saw strong TV ratings on ESPN2 (539,000 viewers), Unimas (341,000 viewers), and Fox Sports 1 (289,000 and 278,500 viewers).

Franchise changes

The 2015 MLS season featured the addition of two expansion teams,

and Orlando City SC. New York City became the second MLS team in the

New York metropolitan area The New York metropolitan area, also called the Tri-State area and sometimes referred to as Greater New York, is the List of cities by GDP, largest metropolitan economy in the world, with a List of U.S. metropolitan areas by GDP, gross metropo ...

(joining the

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

-based New York Red Bulls), as well as the first based within

itself, as the team played its inaugural season at

Yankee Stadium Yankee Stadium is a baseball stadium located in the Bronx in New York City. It is the home field of Major League Baseball’s New York Yankees and New York City FC of Major League Soccer. The stadium opened in April 2009, replacing the Yankee S ...

). Orlando was a new market for MLS, which returned to

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

for the first time since folding their

Miami Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...

and Tampa Bay franchises before the 2002 season. The Lions' ownership previously owned Orlando's

team A team is a group of individuals (human or non-human) working together to achieve their goal. As defined by Professor Leigh Thompson of the Kellogg School of Management, " team is a group of people who are interdependent with respect to in ...

that played in the league then known as USL Pro from 2010 to 2014; that team that relocated to Louisville for the 2015 season of the rebranded United Soccer League. While MLS added two teams, one team closed down.

, which had called the Los Angeles area home since 2005 and shared the StubHub Center with the

. Chivas had been owned by Mexican club, C.D. Guadalajara, who sold the club back to MLS in 2014. The league folded Chivas in October 2014, after the conclusion of the regular season, though it announced plans to add a second LA-area club, Los Angeles FC, in 2018."MLS announces new strategy for Los Angeles market, 2015 conference realignment,"
from MLSSoccer.com, October 27, 2014

Realignment and playoffs

With the addition and subtraction of the above-mentioned teams, the 2015 season saw a realignment of MLS's Eastern and Western conferences:

and Orlando City SC joined the East, while Houston Dynamo and

moved from the East to the West. Each team played 34 regular season matches: two or three against conference rivals and once against teams from the opposite conference. The regular season concluded with all teams playing at the same scheduled time, a league first. 12 teams advanced to the MLS Cup Playoffs, up from 10 the previous 3 seasons. The top six teams per conference qualified. The first round per conference had the third-seed hosting the sixth-seed, and the fourth hosting the fifth. In the Conference Semifinals, the top seed played the lowest remaining seed and the second played the next-lowest.

Television

The 2015 season saw the launch of a new United States television and media rights deal with English-language

ESPN ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...

and

Fox Sports Fox Sports is the brand name for a number of sports channels, broadcast divisions, programming, and other media around the world. The name originates from Fox Broadcasting Company in the United States, which in turn derives its name from Fox Fi ...

and Spanish-language Univision Deportes. The deal continues MLS's relationship with ESPN and Univision, while it reestablishes one with Fox Sports, whose Fox Soccer channel carried MLS games until 2011 (

NBC Sports NBC Sports is an American programming division for NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, that is responsible for sports broadcasts on their broadcast network NBC, the Cable television, cable channels NBC owns, and on Peacock (streaming service) ...

carried MLS broadcasts from 2012 to 2014). The deal, formally announced in May 2014, sees regular weekly game broadcasts on

ESPN2 ESPN2 is an American multinational pay television network owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between the Walt Disney Company (which owns a controlling 80% stake) and Hearst Communications (which owns the remaining 20%). ESPN2 was initially ...

(Sunday afternoons) and Fox Sports 1 (Sunday evenings), as well as a regular Friday night match on

UniMás UniMás (, stylized as ''UNIMÁS'', and originally known as TeleFutura from its launch on January 14, 2002, to January 6, 2013) is an American Spanish-language terrestrial television, free-to-air television network owned by TelevisaUnivision. ...

and/or

Univision Deportes Network TUDN (pronounced tu-de-ene; formerly called Univision Deportes Network) is a Mexican Spanish language sports channel. Owned by TelevisaUnivision, it is an extension of the company's sports division of the same name, with TUDN the acronym of T ...

. The networks will share coverage of the MLS Cup Playoffs, while ESPN and Fox will alternate English language carriage of the MLS All-Star Game and

championship match each year. The 2015 MLS all star game will be on Fox Sports, and MLS Cup 2015 will air on ESPN. As part of the deal, the networks also share coverage of the U.S. Soccer men's and women's national teams. The league reached a four-year agreement with

Sky Sports Sky Sports is a group of British broadcasting of sports events, subscription sports channels operated by the satellite television, satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television ...

to televise league matches live in the United Kingdom and Ireland. At least two regular season matches each week, the MLS All-Star Game, and every MLS Cup Playoff match was aired on the

Sky The sky is an unobstructed view upward from the planetary surface, surface of the Earth. It includes the atmosphere of Earth, atmosphere and outer space. It may also be considered a place between the ground and outer space, thus distinct from ...

family of networks. MLS also reached a four-year agreement with

Eurosport Eurosport is a group of pay television networks in Europe and parts of Asia, owned and operated by Warner Bros. Discovery through its WBD Sports unit, it operates two main channels—Eurosport 1 and Eurosport 2—across most of its territorie ...

to air live matches in many other

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

an countries.

Teams

Stadiums and locations

Personnel and sponsorship

Note: All teams use Adidas as kit manufacturer.

Managerial changes

Standings

Eastern Conference

Western Conference

Overall standings

MLS Cup Playoffs

Attendance

Average home attendances

Ranked from highest to lowest average attendance.

Highest attendances

Regular season Updated to games played on October 25, 2015. Source
MLS Soccer
/small>

Player statistics

Goals

Hat-tricks

Assists

Clean Sheets

Awards

Individual awards

Player of the Month

Weekly awards

Best XI

Player transfers

Allocation ranking

The allocation ranking was the mechanism used to determine which MLS club has first priority to acquire a U.S. National Team player who signs with MLS after playing abroad, or a former MLS player who returns to the league after having gone to a club abroad for a transfer fee. MLS streamlined the allocation mechanism in the middle of 2015 season. Effective on May 1, 2015, the allocation ranking is the mechanism used to determine which MLS club has first priority to acquire a player who is in MLS allocation list. MLS allocation list contains select U.S. National Team players and players transferred outside of MLS garnering a transfer fee of at least $500,000. The allocations will be ranked in reverse order of finish for the 2014 season, taking playoff performance into account. Once the club uses its allocation ranking to acquire a player, it drops to the bottom of the list. A ranking can be traded provided that part of the compensation received in return is another club's ranking. At all times each club is assigned one ranking. The rankings reset at the end of each MLS season. ^{On January 15, 2015, LA Galaxy acquired the then-number 3 allocation ranking (original ranking number 5) and allocation money from Colorado Rapids in exchange for the then-number 18 allocation ranking (original ranking number 20), Marcelo Sarvas, and an international roster slot.} ^{On January 27, 2015, New York Red Bulls acquired the then-number 1 allocation ranking (original ranking number 3) and Felipe from Montreal Impact in exchange for the then-number 14 allocation ranking (original ranking number 17), Ambroise Oyongo, Eric Alexander, allocation money, and an international roster slot for the 2015 season.} ^{♯ On December 19, 2014, Orlando used its original ranking to acquire Shea."12/19: Orlando City SC use No. 1 allocation spot to sign Brek Shea" (). Orlando used their allocation a second time when 16 teams passed and they picked Avila with the then-number 17 allocation ranking.}

Coaches

Eastern Conference

* Chicago Fire: Frank Yallop *

: Gregg Berhalter * D.C. United: Ben Olsen * Montreal Impact: Mauro Biello * New England Revolution: Jay Heaps *

: Patrick Vieira * New York Red Bulls: Jesse Marsch * Orlando City SC: Jason Kreis * Philadelphia Union: Jim Curtin *

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

: Greg Vanney

Western Conference

Colorado Rapids The Colorado Rapids are an American professional Association football, soccer club based in the Denver metropolitan area. The Rapids compete in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Western Conference (MLS), Western Conference. Founded in ...

: Pablo Mastroeni *

: Óscar Pareja * Houston Dynamo: Owen Coyle * Los Angeles Galaxy: Bruce Arena * Portland Timbers: Caleb Porter * Real Salt Lake: Jeff Cassar * San Jose Earthquakes: Dominic Kinnear *

: Sigi Schmid and Brian Schmetzer *

: Peter Vermes *

Vancouver Whitecaps FC Vancouver Whitecaps Football Club is a Canadian professional Association football, soccer club based in Vancouver. The Whitecaps compete in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Western Conference (MLS), Western Conference. The MLS ite ...

: Carl Robinson

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Major League Soccer Season 2015 2015 1