The Supporters' Shield is an annual award given to the Major League Soccer team with the best regular season record, as determined by the MLS points system.

In 1997, soccer fan Nick Lawrus on a listserv proposed the notion of a "Supporters' Scudetto", as a result of the Tampa Bay Mutiny earning the best regular season record but failing to win the 1996 MLS Cup Final.

[2][3] The following year, another group led by soccer enthusiast Sam Pierron tried to revive the idea by giving an award to the regular season champions.

Fundraising was boosted with donations from ESPN commentator Phil Schoen and MLS commissioner Doug Logan.

In the end, nearly $3,000 was donated to commission the trophy, which was a chevron made by University of Missouri-Kansas City art student Paula Richardson out of sterling silver sheet metal, for $2,200.

In 2011, the league announced that the Shield winner's opponent in the MLS Cup quarterfinals would be the lowest-seeded team remaining.

The idea continued to gain traction at the then recently formed Independent Supporters Council (ISC) the following two years in Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon.

The newly designed shield was first awarded to the New York Red Bulls on the final day of the 2013 MLS season.

A temporary replacement was fashioned from a repurposed Captain America shield with a vinyl cover by the Union's fabricator shop and lifted by the players.

D.C. United and the New York Red Bulls hold the record for the earliest exit in a CONCACAF competition as the Shield winners, being eliminated from the group stage in the 2008–09 and 2014–15 editions of the Champions League, respectively.