If you believe what you read online... http://soccerblog.dallasnews.com/2014/10/sidekicks-masl-opener-on-espn3.html/
It wouldn't surprise me in the least. Keep in mind ESPN3 or "watch ESPN" has shown many sports, from all over the world, including even KHL (hockey) games for a year or 2. I would assume all the overhead would be on the league and ESPN will simply stream it through their own site. Good for eye balls that never saw the product before.
You are correct on this one. The league or packager will have to front the money. I'm not sure they even understand that. I think they believe they can just produce crap jumbotron feeds to ESPN3. Even ESPN webcasts have standards.
I would think you are correct. I do not believe that you say, "Okay, our game is going to be on ESPN3" and ESPN3 takes care of everything. But if you've ever looked at ESPN3, it's not like channel surfing where you're going to have a lot of people who just stumble upon it as they might while cycling through channels on their TV with their remote. There's a list of events, but you're not going to just come across it.
You can thank multi-point scoring for that. With just single-point scoring, it would be in only 2.2 billion homes. Tanner has a chart proving that definitively.
You actually have to have a Cable or Satellite package that includes ESPN and ESPN2 to be able to watch ESPN3 on the internet.
To me, this isn't a big deal. It's no easier for me to watch a game on the ESPN app than it was on YouTube.
WatchESPN works on a Roku while YouTube on a Roku doesn't support live events (at least it didn't last season) ... That's the only difference I can see.
I seriously got hooked on cricket and Australian Rules Football from watching them on ESPN3. I'm surprised the MISL didn't already put games on ESPN3. It apparently isn't expensive (heck, the ABA can afford it) and it gets the "ESPN" brand associated with your league.
On a desktop or laptop, it depends on your ISP and only the TV network feeds (and web-exclusive SEC events) are dependent on having a TV subscription with a participating provider. If you want to use a Roku, Chromecast, or XBOX, then you have to have a TV subscription qo watch even ESPN3.
Not only the brand name, but now any crazy goal or play will make the top 10 list on sportscenter. Tons of different sub-prime leagues have made national TV because of ESPN3 showing the game and something crazy happening during the game and the highlights sure enough make the top 10, or God forbid, the not top 10.
it will be very doubtful if this current league will make any splash on espn's highlights...very doubtful. You would need a Tatu Bike or something unreal to even scratch the fall highlights between all the ongoing leagues. You said crazy, it needs to be VERY crazy
No doubt, and more reason the 3 line rule is dumb. A goalie throwing a ball the length of the floor for a goal vs the 6th attacker is 1 of those crazy plays the general sports fan would stop and say "oh wow that's cool, the goalie scored". More so, I think if, and as you said a big IF, they ever do make a highlight package on the network it most likely will come from a shootout.
I'm sure the crazy scoring set-up will confuse 1st time fans. They'll probably figure the changes from game to game are due to the phases of the moon or the day of the week when in fact it is the time zone where the games are played. Imagine Dallas vs San Diego with SPS one week followed by a Baltimore, Harrisburg, Syracuse or Rochester home game with MPS.
More likely there will never be a Game of the Week played in a MPS city ... that would be more logical. Feature Baltimore but have it be played in San Diego or Milwaukee, etc
Oddly enough, I had a similar situation in 1997. Was kicked the length of the floor, not thrown (the same goalie had actually thrown the ball the length of the floor against the sixth attacker in the season opener that year), but the "goalie scores goal" meme did resonate with the local media. There wasn't an internet to speak of then, and things didn't go viral in 1997, but it got us some freakshow interest. Didn't really pay off in ticket sales, though, which, at the end of the day, is the only thing that matters. Yeah, it's cool to get non-hardcore fans to know that there's a team and a league and a sport and it was a big(gish) deal for 24 hours or so, but if it doesn't pay off in actual ticket sales down the road, it's just wanking. I guarantee you that if Rochester's goalie scores a goal and that gets on Sportscenter somehow, it will be lost in the myriad of "oh, wow, that's cool" moments that we are all inundated with on a daily basis (did you see the cat closing the litter box door?) and won't sell a ticket in Tulsa. But given the amount of times it has actually happened in indoor history (someone throwing the ball the length of the floor vs. the sixth attacker - which could still be done, it would just have to bounce prior to the far line, correct?), worrying about it being legislated out of existence would be about 1,000th on the list of problems indoor soccer has. The main one, of course, being that very few people give a shit about it.
The issue with all hybrid sports (with the possible exception of box lacrosse - a long story I don't have the time to get into right now) is that most fans view it as a show and care more about exciting games than their favorite team (if they have one) winning. The diehards, like us, are few in number and some get run off by the casual fans' constant berating (a response to a request for a mother to control her kids so they weren't blocking the view of those of us watching a Force game amounted to [paraphrasing] "that's what these [indoor] games are about [kids using the upper deck as a jungle gym], if you want to watch soccer, go watch the European stuff on TV"). Needless to say, these sports do not have much in the way of the dedicated base needed to build a long-term fanbase on. Seriously, is there another forum on the internet other than this one where fans can actually talk about indoor soccer as a sport?
Don't know of one. The old Let's Play Soccer forum was great fun, though overrun by trolls quite a bit.