MLS Rivalries: Who fans think their biggest rivals are, complete with an interactive
/By: Eliot McKinley
Note: This article was co-posted at Backheeled
Every season MLS has Rivalry Week presented by [insert corporate sponsor here]. Most of the time it involves teams that could reasonably be considered rivals, but sometimes it creates new ones.
After seeing maps of college football and NBA rivalries, I wondered what such a map would look like for MLS. Some rivalries are pretty obvious, like Hell Is Real between the league’s two Ohio teams, El Trafico in Los Angeles, and NYCFC and the Red Bulls competing in the Hudson River Derby. But maybe there are some Trillium Cup, Brimstone Cup, Dylan Wolpers Derby, or Heritage Cup truthers out there.
The only way to truly answer who fans think is their biggest rival is to ask them. So I created a Google Form and, with the help of r/mls and Matt Doyle, collected data.
After receiving submissions from 5,450 fans, the data was collated and cleaned for trolls, e.g. anyone who said that San Diego was their team’s biggest rival, to 5,087 valid submissions.
By taking the rival most reported for each team, I created the rivalry map in the low-fi style of r/cfb.
Detailed results are below in random order for rivals that received at least 5% of each team’s votes.
St. Louis City SC (300 submissions) - Sporting Kansas City (267, 89%), Chicago Fire (19, 6%)
Unsurprisingly, SKC is seen as St. Louis’ biggest rival by a commanding percentage of fans. A small minority seem to want to continue the Cardinals-Cubs rivalry from baseball.
New York City FC (132) - New York Red Bulls (103, 78%), Philadelphia Union (22, 17%)
The Hudson River Derby reigns supreme in the minds of NYCFC fans. Although a solid, but small, percentage see Philly as the biggest bad guys.
Seattle Sounders FC (396) - Portland Timbers (359, 91%)
Continuing the obvious choices, Sounders fans consider their Cascadia Cup rivals, Portland, as their biggest rival. This was not the case for Cascadia Cup’s third wheel, Vancouver, who received a single vote. Additionally, getting serially beaten by LAFC has convinced 3.5% of Sounders fans that the Black and Gold are their biggest rival.
Sporting Kansas City (197) - St. Louis City SC (129, 65%), Real Salt Lake (31, 16%), Houston Dynamo FC (15, 8%)
Sporting Kansas City see the Soccer Capital/I-70/Darbecue/Heartland/Cease & Desist Derby (it’s only been a couple years, they’ll settle on a name eventually) against St. Louis as their biggest rivalry. However, old foes that existed before St. Louis, in RSL and Houston both received non-negligible vote shares.
Inter Miami CF (34) - Orlando City SC (28, 82%), Nashville SC (3, 9%)
While Inter Miami may have 17 million followers on Instagram, only 34 fans completed the rivalry survey. Of those, the vast majority see the in-state Orlando City as their biggest rival. Expansion siblings and Inaugural Leagues Cup co-finallist Nashville also received votes.
Minnesota United FC (156) - Sporting Kansas City (63, 40%), Seattle Sounders FC (40, 26%), Portland Timbers FC (19, 12%), Colorado Rapids (13, 8%)
The poor Loons don’t really have a rival. While a plurality of fans see SKC as their biggest rival (only 6 SKC fans reciprocated), Seattle (only 1 Seattle fan agreed), Portland (no Portland fans agreed), and the Rapids (again no Rapids fans agreed) are also seen as potential rivals.
Los Angeles FC (116) - LA Galaxy (104, 90%)
El Trafico looms large for the 104 of the 3252 that took the rivalry survey.
Toronto FC (68) - CF Montréal (61, 90%)
The Canadian Clasique is clearly the biggest rival for Toronto FC fans. The Trillium Cup is dead in their eyes, with no Toronto fan selecting Columbus as their biggest rival.
San Diego FC (7) - Los Angeles FC (3, 43%), LA Galaxy (2, 29%), San Jose Earthquakes (2, 29%)
San Diego hasn’t played a game yet and fans haven’t selected a rival. Any of the other three California teams have a shot.
Portland Timbers FC (292) - Seattle Sounders (279, 96%)
In the largest landslide among MLS teams, Timbers fans consider Seattle their biggest Cascadia Cup rival. 9 other MLS teams got more votes than the third Cascadia Cup contestant, Vancouver, who got zero (0) votes from Portland fans.
New England Revolution (103) - Philadelphia Union (32, 31%), New York Red Bulls (30, 29%), New York City FC (17, 17%), D.C. United (7, 7%)
Despite being an original 1996 club, the Revs don’t have a consensus rival. The Union and Red Bulls were within 2 votes of each other with NYCFC also considered a rivalry by a significant minority.
Philadelphia Union (215) - New York Red Bulls (106, 49%), New York City FC (75, 35%), FC Cincinnati (12, 6%)
The Union’s rivals are in the NY/NJ area, with almost half of Philly fans choosing New Jersey’s Red Bulls as their biggest rival and 35% choosing NYCFC. After Cincinnati raided Philly for their GM, Chris Albright, and coach, Pat Noonan, 6% of Union fans chose the Garys as their biggest rival.
Vancouver Whitecaps FC (61) - Seattle Sounders (35, 57%), Toronto FC (18, 30%) Portland Timbers (5, 8%)
Vancouver fans chose their nearest Cascadia Cup foe, Seattle as their biggest rival, with the Timbers being essentially an afterthought. A sizable minority chose fellow Canadian club Toronto as their rivals.
Orlando City SC (136) - Inter Miami CF (79, 58%), Atlanta United FC(41, 30%), New York City FC (7, 5%)
Pre-2020 rivalries with Atlanta and fellow 2015 expansion side NYCFC have taken a back seat to in-state Inter Miami as Orlando’s biggest rivals according to fans.
Chicago Fire FC (98) - Columbus Crew (46, 47%), St. Louis City SC (36, 37%), New England Revolution (8, 8%)
While Crew fans have moved on to a newer, closer, rival, Fire fans still see Columbus as their biggest rivals. Despite only playing twice and being in different conferences, St. Louis has almost caught the Crew as Fire fans biggest rival.
Columbus Crew (551) - FC Cincinnati (454, 82%)
Hell Is Real is the real rivalry for Crew fans. The Crew’s historical rivalry with Chicago only garnered 4% of the vote and the Trillium Cup is on life support with only 3% of Crew fans choosing Toronto as their biggest rival. Note: the coordinated effort to make San Jose the Crew’s rival was ignored for this article.
Atlanta United FC (282) - Orlando City SC (155, 55%), Charlotte FC (44, 16%), New York Red Bulls (37, 13%), Nashville SC (21, 7%)
While Orlando has moved on, Atlanta still sees Orlando as their biggest rival. Fellow Southeastern teams Charlotte and Nashville also garnered votes. The memory of 2018 still looms large in the 13% of Atlanta fans that chose RBNY as their biggest rival.
CF Montréal (48) - Toronto FC (43, 90%)
The Canadian Clasique is the only rivalry that Montreal fans care about.
Colorado Rapids (79) - Real Salt Lake (73, 92%)
There is only one rivalry for the ‘Pids and it is the Rocky Mountain Cup.
Nashville SC (130) - Atlanta United FC (51, 39%), FC Cincinnati (48, 37%), Inter Miami CF (12, 9%), Orlando City SC (9, 7%)
Atlanta United and FC Cincy were neck and neck among Nashville fans for their biggest rival, with Atlanta winning in a photo finish. The two Florida clubs also got a small number of votes.
San Jose Earthquakes (78) - LA Galaxy (73, 94%)
Almost all Quakes fans consider LA Galaxy in the California Clasico as their one true rival.
Houston Dynamo FC (113) - FC Dallas (82, 73%), Sporting Kansas City (16, 14%)
The Texas Derby with FC Dallas is considered the biggest rivalry for Dynamo fans. Copa Tejas rivals Austin FC come a very distant third.
Austin FC (94) - FC Dallas (56, 60%), Houston Dynamo (15, 16%)
Austin fans consider the other two Texas MLS teams as their biggest rivals, with FC Dallas commanding a majority of that vote. Three misguided fans also chose Columbus.
FC Cincinnati (413) - Columbus Crew (358, 87%), New York Red Bulls (24, 6%)
The Hell Is Real Derby obviously is seen as the biggest rivalry by FC Cincy fans, but curiously 6% of voters chose the Red Bulls.
Charlotte FC (107) - Atlanta United FC (79, 74%), Nashville SC(12, 11%)
While Atlanta fans don’t see Charlotte as their main rival, Charlotte fans do. A minority see Nashville as their main rival.
D.C. United (196) - New York Red Bulls (170, 87%)
An overwhelming majority of DC fans see their Atlantic Cup foes, RBNY, as their biggest rival.
New York Red Bulls (182) - New York City FC (106, 58%), D.C. United (61, 34%)
Cross-state club NYCFC are seen as the biggest rival for Red Bull fans. However, a decently sized minority chose DC United, likely fans of the team prior to 2015.
Real Salt Lake (164) - Colorado Rapids (76, 46%), Sporting Kansas City (68, 42%)
In one of the closest contests for top rivals, the Colorado Rapids narrowly won a plurality of votes as RSL’s biggest rival over SKC. A couple handfuls of spoiler votes for Houston and Seattle assured the Rocky Mountain Cup’s victory.
LA Galaxy (191) - Los Angeles FC (144, 75%), San Jose Earthquakes (33, 17%)
Three-fourths of Galaxy fans see the El Trafico as the biggest rivalry for the LA, but 17% still see the California Clasico as the most important.
FC Dallas (148) - Houston Dynamo FC (110, 74%), Austin FC (23, 16%)
Most FC Dallas fans see their long standing rivalry with Houston as their biggest, however, 16% see the new guys down I-35 in Austin as rivals.
Network Plot
The low-fi plot above shows only each team’s biggest rival, which means it doesn’t capture well when a team has multiple contenders to be their rivals. Below is an interactive network plot showing all the links between teams that were at least 5% of the total vote for each team. You can clearly see various groupings in the network, like how California is its own island, Texas is grouped together with a link only through SKC, the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic/New England all cluster together, or how Canada is linked to the Pacific Northwest through Vancouver.
Other observations
Some teams are just ignored
While some teams have the excuse of being new and other teams have pre-existing rivalries as to why nobody seems to care about them, Vancouver, Minnesota, and New England really don’t.
Vancouver is cursed to obscurity in the minds of rivals due to being so far from every other team in the League that is not also part of the Cascadia Cup – and then being the third wheel there. Minnesota also does not have any close geographical rivals, with their nearest MLS clubs being either in the other conference (Chicago) or having an even closer rival (Kansas City). Unless the Loons can start somehow seeing the same team for a number of years in late playoff rounds, or some other inciting event, they are likely to be mostly rival-less for the foreseeable future. The Revolution have the opposite problem: there are too many teams relatively close to them that already have rivals, leaving them mostly adrift. Not an ideal situation for a team that has been in the league since the beginning.
The Greatest F*ckng Rivalry in MLS
In the Google Form used to collect this data, I also left an optional section for comments, which 20% of respondents elected to complete. Some of those that commented used a particular very strong language to describe the nature of their favorite team’s rivals. While the two rivalries with the most responses overall naturally had the most “f*cks”, the most intense was the California Clasico where almost 25% of those that included a comment included some variation of “f*ck”. Interestingly all 7 came from Quakes fans, indicating that perhaps that Galaxy fans don’t take this quite as seriously as those in San Jose do.
Please join Blue Sky for the sports
I initially posted this poll on Blue Sky which got decent engagement for that platform, but only resulted in ~300 responses overall. When MLSSoccer.com’s Matt Doyle posted it on the social network formerly known as Twitter the response rate skyrocketed, which another 5,000 or so response in the next 48 hours. This clearly shows that Blue Sky does not have the juice for sports yet. But it has video now, and I encourage you to come over from X’s cesspool.
Thanks to everyone who submitted responses, and if you’d like to do anything with this data, you can find it here.