MLS TV Deals 2014

Discussion in 'MLS: News & Analysis' started by eddygee, Sep 3, 2011.

  1. JasonMa

    JasonMa Member+

    Mar 20, 2000
    Arvada, CO
    Club:
    Colorado Rapids
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Its about as reasonable a statement as your "just wear coats". :rolleyes:
     
  2. MLSFan123

    MLSFan123 Member+

    Mar 21, 2011
    Boston Area
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Why are you telling him to shut up? Besides being rude, he has a very valid point.

    If your plan was in action this year a ton of games would have been cancelled throwing the whole league into turmoil.

    Some of the countries in Northern Europe skip the winter months due to weather.
     
  3. eddygee

    eddygee Member+

    DC United
    May 12, 2007
    Moco, Maryland
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I think its logical and could be done. Th e big name friendlies argument is moot when u take into account the money that would be made by having thesehandful of extra regular season games 6 extra games in a 20-22 team league is an extra 120-132 league games that can be packaged and sold for TV rights think bigger money first.
     
  4. MLSFan123

    MLSFan123 Member+

    Mar 21, 2011
    Boston Area
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Ok let's ignore the length of the season issue for now since you refuse to acknowledge it.

    I have no idea why you think these extra games will have any affect on the National TV contract. Who ever wins the bid will have a limited amount of broadcast windows to show games in. If we can have ~100 total games on what ever Spanish and English stations cover the league it will be great. What ever the total league number of games is won't affect the number of windows the networks have.

    The total number of games will affect the local tv contracts but since most MLS teams either time buy or revenue share the local games, the extended number of games will not help and in some cases actually cost teams money.
     
  5. arkjayback

    arkjayback Member

    Mar 29, 2008
    Le Mars, IA
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Well, you're plain wrong, just as you were earlier in this thread.

    MLS has seen low attendances numerous times early in the season because of cold weather. Its not just one cancelled game. Fans could just wear coats, but they're not going to. They're going to stay at home and watch the local broadcast.

    There is no positive reason to force more early and late winter games on clubs because they're going to lose money by hosting games with such low attendance.
     
  6. eddygee

    eddygee Member+

    DC United
    May 12, 2007
    Moco, Maryland
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Well that can be debated some find it not likely some like me and the other poster think its doable. This is just to analyze. Some people are acting like this is back in the 90's when we had to pay people to air our games.

    If we struggle finding people to air our games than we can take the FSC approach for the time being take a deal be it small and wait it out for a better deal to come along as the ratings improve.

    Yeah what do you guys think about a MLS network. I remember Garber talking a about this. That could also be a destination for such added games.
     
  7. eddygee

    eddygee Member+

    DC United
    May 12, 2007
    Moco, Maryland
    Nat'l Team:
    United States

    If not more I remember back in 07 the crazy threads where peole would say the cap needs to be 10 mil in such. Then they get beat to death deservedly for suggesting such crazy ambitions of the time.

    But in someways I think the fans who were thinking big including my self originally weren't that far off. Some people just had high expectations. Its kinda funny because I think the league has higher expectations than some of these fans.

    I remember the talk of the cap can't be that much because you have to double the revenue just to support that hike and it must be nice to tell these owners how to spend and lose their money.

    Funny thing is in a couple of years the league may very well double or even more triple:eek: The revenue from when folks started all this debate.
     
  8. ceezmad

    ceezmad Member+

    Mar 4, 2010
    Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Red Stars
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Univision was doing ok in with MLS in Telefutura (220K+) ratings.

    Since they moved the games to Galavision, their ratings have collapsed. up to July they were getting a 70.8K rating, that is not worth 8 million.

    If they are going to pay 20+ Million like the OP wants to see, they need to move the games back to Telefutura or to Univision proper.

    I do not have the Galavison 2010 ratings, I assume about 100K, does anyone know?

    https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1742835&page=14
     
  9. MLSFan123

    MLSFan123 Member+

    Mar 21, 2011
    Boston Area
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Are you even reading the posts to educate yourself on the topic?

    Most teams still do have to either pay or enter a shared deal to get the games on local tv.
     
  10. MLSFan123

    MLSFan123 Member+

    Mar 21, 2011
    Boston Area
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    collapsed may be too strong a word.

    The number of viewers was going to drop by definition with the move and Univision knew this. Galavision, as a cable only station, simply reaches many less eye balls than Telefutura does with it's numerous OTA stations.
     
  11. Heist

    Heist Member+

    Jun 15, 2001
    Virginia
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    This part of the discussion is NOT about whether we can find someone to air the games... its about fixture congestion. We are at 34 right now, and sretched to the limit. 44 games is just not gonna happen in the US.
     
  12. eddygee

    eddygee Member+

    DC United
    May 12, 2007
    Moco, Maryland
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Current amount teams are paying on salary now
    http://www.businessinsider.com/mls-spending-is-up-but-is-it-enough-2011-8#
    Keep in mind an area where MLS teams don't lag in Global soccer is Shirt sponsorships. Besides the Mega clubs they are on par on with most clubs of the world.
    http://footiebusiness.com/2011/01/20/jersey-sponsors-mls-v-europe/
    http://www.brotherlygame.com/2011/1/17/1938619/current-jersey-sponsors-in-the-mls
     
  13. triplet1

    triplet1 BigSoccer Supporter

    Jul 25, 2006
    We tend to focus on the wrong number when we discuss "profitability" IMO. While no one likes to dig into their pockets to cover endless red ink, for very wealthy investors like MLS owners, the big return is going to come from the appreciation of the franchise values. In other words, I think they are far more interested in whether they can they turn their $10 million initial investment (plus the losses they've covered) into a $200 million plus asset when they are ready to sell. That's the potential home run for them. Which is why, even when teams have not been "profitable", MLS owners have consistently continued to up their investment.

    But if MLS is really going to create a number of franchises worth $200m plus (as even the NHL has done), it's got to generate more revenue, which means its got to improve it's TV packages. Yes, there is always room to improve attendance and corporate sponsorship money too, but MLS has done a good job improving those numbers in the last three years: attendance has never been better, and Garber noted recently "overall we feel pretty good commercially" with respect to the growth in sponsorship dollars.

    TV is the last bridge to cross.

    And while the $30 million or so the league will generate in 2012 is a far cry from where it was prior to 2006, it's also true that when the first deals were signed MLS got about $23 million annually from ESPN, Univision, FSC and HDNet which it split among 13 teams. Because of expansion, TV revenue per team has actually dropped, and even with Comcast each team's share will be less in 2012 than it was in 2007.

    http://www.majorleaguesoccertalk.com/tv-fees-the-key-to-mls-future/5913


    That's why when he's asked where the league needs to improve with so much going so well, the first words out of Garber's mouth are "We’re seeing challenges on television."

    http://www.nj.com/redbulls/index.ss...don_garber_has_overseen_growth_of_league.html

    Much like attendance discussions a couple of years ago, however, television seems to be a sensitive topic here -- the current area of focus for those who enjoy criticising every aspect of the league in order to trigger a vigorous counter attack from the league's defenders -- but if we can get past that it's clear Garber himself views it as one of the most important issues confronting the the league, and in that respect it's a good topic for constructive discussion IMO.

    Garber has asked the question himself: "We’re seeing a smaller group of people watching MLS games than watch soccer overall on television. We’re trying to figure that out."

    If MLS can figure it out and unlock TV riches, the sky's the limit IMO.
     
  14. eddygee

    eddygee Member+

    DC United
    May 12, 2007
    Moco, Maryland
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Do you think its reasonable to think we will see a doubling of annual TV revenue if not more. With an educated guess where do you think the salary cap should and will fall?

    IMO based on things like this article linked below I think we covered the additional 48.6mil additional revenue to get to 5 mil salary cap w/ the new Addidas deal which increased the annual revenue of that deal 66% to 25 mil yr and the new NBC deal add that into the 1 year increase we got from FSC.

    I think if all falls right with the TV deals expiring if we hit it big we could see somewhere with a cap of 10 mil with 3dp's

    http://www.majorleaguesoccertalk.com/tv-fees-the-key-to-mls-future/5913
     
  15. MLSFan123

    MLSFan123 Member+

    Mar 21, 2011
    Boston Area
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Obviously none of us know how the new MLS CBA will be handled in 2015, but we can look to the NHL for some broad numbers in case you would like to project.

    NHL Total Revenue: $2.9 Billion
    30 Total Teams
    Salary Cap Per Team: $64.3 million (for the upcoming season).


    I am not sure how safe it is to extrapolate these numbers to MLS's projected revenue in 2014, but if you want to play around with numbers, at least this is a some what useful formula to follow.

    Obviously the formula with MLS is significantly more complicated because of how DP's can be handled in the league, which circumvent the traditional cap.
     
  16. eddygee

    eddygee Member+

    DC United
    May 12, 2007
    Moco, Maryland
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Is that NHL's current annual revenue and based on what you can gather online what is MLS annual revenue 150-250 mil range?
     
  17. eddygee

    eddygee Member+

    DC United
    May 12, 2007
    Moco, Maryland
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    https://soccer.fakesigi.com/soccer_united_marketing_revenue.html

    http://www.oregonbusiness.com/articles/98-april-2011/5027-timbers-debut-gets-the-money-flowing

    Juat found these articles to give you a ball park range WOW :eek:
    The Timbers’ front office estimates that stadium revenues alone will bring in around $14 million each year from the 2011 inaugural season through 2015; the average MLS team’s revenue is $13.83 million

    If some teams are bringing in that much annual revenue just from stadium revenue you gotta think the teams that don't have stadiums are losing a lot of money to be bringing the overall leagues average annual revenues to 13.83 mil. Really see why Garber has been pushing the SSS agenda.

    So with this tidbit we can see the league has already financially become a league of the haves and havenots. Which will eventually regardless of the leagues single entity structure manifest itself.

    average annual revenues per team 13.83 mil X18 Teams= 248.94 mil
     
  18. MLSFan123

    MLSFan123 Member+

    Mar 21, 2011
    Boston Area
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The $2.9 billion was what the NHL made last year.

    It is very hard to find MLS info but people have speculated it is as high as $280 per year.
     
  19. eddygee

    eddygee Member+

    DC United
    May 12, 2007
    Moco, Maryland
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Which seems about right
     
  20. MLSFan123

    MLSFan123 Member+

    Mar 21, 2011
    Boston Area
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    A couple of notes

    1) There are owners/investors in SUM who are not owners of MLS. It is a minority but they exist

    2) We all need to be careful when looking at stadium revenue. Many teams share some of the revenue with the local community in trade for either using the community owned stadium and/or helping with infrastructure costs when stadium was built. Not every dollar made in the stadium goes into MLS pockets.

    3) I think the $250 Million number is as good as any we have to work with when trying to project.
     
  21. The Devil's Architect

    Feb 10, 2000
    The American Steppe
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Detroit & St. Louis. That's pretty funny. Almost as funny as Florida Expansion.
     
  22. MLSFan123

    MLSFan123 Member+

    Mar 21, 2011
    Boston Area
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I know this thread has morphed a bit into revenue discussion.

    One item that will be interesting to watch will be the shirt sponsorship for the Gals. I believe their current sponsorship expires in April of next year.
     
  23. MLSFan123

    MLSFan123 Member+

    Mar 21, 2011
    Boston Area
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The atmosphere in Orlando was fantastic last night. MLS has built on smaller foundations in the past.
     
  24. eddygee

    eddygee Member+

    DC United
    May 12, 2007
    Moco, Maryland
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Tell me why:confused:
     
  25. Heist

    Heist Member+

    Jun 15, 2001
    Virginia
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Seriously? Detroit? There's no chance.
     

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