2015 Major League Soccer season
The 2015 Major League Soccer season featured 20 total clubs. 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 champions were the LA Galaxy, while Seattle Sounders FC were the defending Supporters' Shield winners.
It was the first season for expansion teams Orlando City SC and New York City, who both joined the Eastern Conference, while both the Houston Dynamo and Sporting Kansas City moved from the Eastern Conference to the Western Conference. Chivas USA 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. The Portland Timbers won their first MLS Cup, winning 2–1 at Columbus Crew.
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, and Seattle — with seven of the weekend's ten matches selling out. Additionally, MLS saw strong TV ratings on ESPN2, Unimas, and Fox Sports 1.Franchise changes
The 2015 MLS season featured the addition of two expansion teams, New York City and Orlando City SC. New York City became the second MLS team in the New York metropolitan area. Orlando was a new market for MLS, which returned to Florida for the first time since folding their Miami and Tampa Bay franchises before the 2002 season. The Lions' ownership previously owned Orlando's team 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. Chivas USA, which had called the Los Angeles area home since 2005 and shared the StubHub Center with the LA Galaxy. 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.
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: New York City and Orlando City SC joined the East, while Houston Dynamo and Sporting Kansas City 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 and Fox Sports 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. The deal, formally announced in May 2014, sees regular weekly game broadcasts on ESPN2 and Fox Sports 1, as well as a regular Friday night match on UniMás and/or Univision Deportes Network. 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 MLS Cup 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 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 family of networks. MLS also reached a four-year agreement with Eurosport to air live matches in many other European countries.
Teams
Personnel and sponsorship
Note: All teams use Adidas as kit manufacturer.| Team | Head coach | Captain | Shirt sponsor | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chicago Fire |  sortname|Brian|BlissAttendanceAverage home attendancesRanked from highest to lowest average attendance.
Highest attendancesRegular season
Updated to games played on October 25, 2015. Source: Player transfersAllocation rankingThe 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.
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