I thought LFL was trying to go more mainstream with International expansion. Are they trying to get the Bikini Basketball League? Slippery slope? I always thought it made more sense to make FOX Soccer into FOX Sports 2 then wait around while trying to figure out an entire plan.
Fair enough. Although, I'd perhaps also add beIN to the possible yet unknown "very small group who will be bidding on the rights" for MLS/SUM content for after 2014 -- even though beIN is still relatively niche and not yet rated by Nielsen, afaik.
yes I agree they may be in the mix as well, as possibly a second tier broadcaster. IMO, their household reach will be higher in 2015 than FSC ever was when they broadcast MLS.
MLS will probably see more prime-time games this season on NBCSPN. With confederation Cup this summer, MLS will try to show some marquee matches on ESPN to compliment that tournament. EPL ratings will trickle down in August towards MLS on NBCSPN. I would add that we might see a double header on NBC leading with EPL game, followed by MLS. We could see 2-4 MLS games on NBC in the fall following EPL.
Here is the full TV schedule. Lets break it down! http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/artic...l-tv-schedule-includes-87-matches-us-networks
OK here is the breakdown of the 87 games NBC 3 games NBCSN 38 games ESPN 8 games ESPN2 12 games Univision 1 game Unimas 25 games
No Friday night TV games until August and then NBCSN starts to show some regularly 2 of the 3 NBC games are directly against NFL games again. The Unimas slot looks to be earlier on Sunday for the most part than the typical Galavision slot (which makes some sense since Unimas is not going to give up Sunday prime time). Without the EPL schedule it is hard to see how NBCSN might line up
Unless I missed them, it looks like Toronto will not be shown even once in the 87 games. Montreal once, Vancouver once and NE twice are the other little shown teams.
NBCSN is opting for almost exclusively primetime or late afternoon weekend telecasts which begin well after the EPL windows end around 1 PM Eastern. However, two of the NBC games are early enough for a double header, though the earlier EPL game might conflict with NFL pregame shows.
20 games is that usual it seems that they had more games originally, perhaps I am remembering wrong. I guess way back they did, but 20 is the new normal. yep I went back and checked 2007-2008 were the most, but since then it has been about 20-22 games.
MLS All Stars on ESPN/ESPN2 and ESPN always has the luxury to add a game or two to their schedule. It would have been more fruitful with Univision picking a few more games. Perhaps, in the next round of tv contracts, MLS will require Univision to show a few games on the flagship network if it wants to keep MLS for it's new offspring channel. Otherwise, Telemundo might become the winner in the next round. I think MLS will have leverage here on Univision. Univision needs MLS for its new Channel because they will be desperate filling programming and at the same time, they need to diversify their portfolio. Univision is falling behind in terms of its soccer portfolio. It is going to look even more worst after 2014 WC.
look at the first couple of posts in the the thread. It provides all the data. 20 is the exact amount they had last year (10 ESPN and 10 Espn2)
Yes I know that. Those games are not broadcast in the US obviously and as such don't fall under this discussion of the 87 games broadcast in the US.
Why would you fire someone from MLS when it is the TV stations that determine for the most part what time slots the games are played in?
Absolutely. If the analysis is just of the 87-game US network package, that's fine. But SUM/MLS's business is also significant within the Canadian marketplace. Also worth noting that the RSN/TSN games are in the "national" DK/MLSLive package for US-based viewers -- not that those ppv packages are rated by Nielsen.
do you have other information to analyze at this time? I thought the 87 games was all we had so far. We have 87 games released and I listed who was covered the least, no more, no less. Not sure why you are trying to turn this into such a cluster********. Please stop. We can analyze the Canadian data when it is available.
I disagree with this pretty strongly in terms of hoping for more from Univision. The switch from Galavision to Unimas is enormous, it is really more than we could have hoped for IMO. The household reach of Unimas, as an OTA station, just crushes Galavision. More people will be watching MLS games now in Spanish than in many many years even if the ratings actually go down.
Yes, specially when they could have stuck MLS in their new Sports network TV stations UDN1 amd UDN2; very few people get those stations.
Ratings won't go down for MLS on Unimas in 2013 relative to MLS on Galavision in 2012. I'd expect the improvement will likely mimic what was seen when the FSC games were moved to (or replaced by) NBCSN games and ratings in 2012 relative to 2011. Agree that it is enormous and key any time MLS can get games shown on networks with stronger coverage of US television households.
He may be talking relative to where the ratings were on old Telefutura before Univision moved MLS to Galavision (dang they have a lot of TV networks don't they). They are to Spanish TV what Viacom is to TV music channels. BTW regarding Spanish TV I think these two numbers are more important than comparing TVMAS (or what ever it is now called) with Galavision. 2011 Final Ratings Telefutura: 12 games 233K rating 2007 Final Ratings Telefutura: 24 games 282k 2011 were the last ratings before the move to Galavision, 2007 was the peak of spanish ratings for MLS.