What is the Supporters' Shield? All-time winners and why MLS Cup matters more than regular-season title

Major League Soccer has long been hopeful of becoming known as a top soccer league not just in North America but around the world.

While there's a long way to go in that regard, slow growth has been achieved in recent years as the talent pool benefits not just from the arrival of late-age superstars hoping for one last paycheck, but also youth development and a more encompassing transfer strategy.

Still, the U.S. domestic league features its own quirks as MLS hopes to merge global soccer norms with the traditions and pervasive sports mentality within American sports. One of those is the presence of a postseason to award the league winner, which leaves the regular season playing second fiddle to playoff performance.

While MLS is not the only soccer league around the world to make use of a postseason of some kind, it is one of the few that utilizes a true knockout tournament. As such, the regular-season champion is often forgotten unless they manage to do the double, a surprisingly rare occurrence in the U.S. league.

Here, The Sporting News explains the difference between the Supporters' Shield and MLS Cup, and looks at the all-time winners of the former.

MORE: Which matches are streaming for free on MLS Season Pass from Apple TV this week?

What is the Supporters' Shield in MLS?

The Supporters' Shield is awarded to the team with the most points through the MLS regular season.

While a champion is crowned in both the Eastern and Western conferences, the team which tops the combined league table is the one to win the Supporters' Shield as the overall regular-season title winner.

The tiebreakers for the Supporters' Shield are the same as the traditional league table, with number of wins being the first tiebreaker, goal differential the second, and goals scored the third.

How does Supporters' Shield differ from MLS Cup?

While the Supporters' Shield is the award handed out to the regular-season winners, the MLS Cup is the trophy won by the playoff champion.

It is generally accepted that the MLS Cup winner is the true champion of each Major League Soccer season. It is considered the more prestigious award by a significant margin. Among top-level leagues around the world, it is most similar in format to Australia's A-League Men, in which the top side in the regular season wins the Premier's Plate, but the more esteemed trophy is won by the victorious team in the Grand Final.

Many fans of the U.S. league have argued that the Supporters' Shield is actually the most accurate reflection of the best team in MLS, as it encompasses success over the long and arduous rather than the relatively short span of time that is the playoffs.

The current MLS format may be counter-intuitive to many soccer fans around the globe, but this is quite normal for most American sports, where the playoff winner is almost universally considered the true league champion. Otherwise, what would be the point of the playoffs if there wasn't quite as much on the line?

How often do Supporters' Shield winners also win MLS Cup?

Oddly enough, it's quite rare that a team wins both the Supporters' Shield and the MLS Cup in the same season.

Logically speaking, it would track that the best team over the course of the regular season would win the playoff title quite often, but the randomness of playoff soccer has trumped traditional thinking on most occasions.

A team has won the regular season and playoff double just eight times in 28 total years of MLS action, which is just 28.5% of the time. Only one team has done it more than once: LA Galaxy won the double in both 2002 and 2011.

It's been even more difficult in recent years as parity reigns in MLS. In the 12 seasons since the Galaxy's second double in 2011, the Supporters' Shield winner has only gone on to win the MLS Cup title twice.

Supporters' Shield winners all-time

* Season shortened by COVID-19 pandemic