The 2018 MLS TV Thread

Discussion in 'MLS: News & Analysis' started by KCbus, Mar 6, 2017.

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  1. eddygee

    eddygee Member+

    DC United
    May 12, 2007
    Moco, Maryland
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #726 eddygee, Aug 3, 2018
    Last edited: Aug 3, 2018
    He is a obvious MLS hater he should have his soccer journalist credentials revoked for being a obvious troll instead of a journalist. I think he is besties with Charlie Stillitano.
     
  2. jaykoz3

    jaykoz3 Member+

    Dec 25, 2010
    Conshohocken, PA
    Club:
    Philadelphia Union
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Soccer has almost always been behind a pay wall in the US. Outside of Univision and Telemundo what over the air network has carried soccer consistently?

    Fox Soccer, ESPN, GOLTV, BeIN Sports, and FS1 have always been behind a pay wall (Pay Cable TV, and Sports Packages). ESPN has gotten out ahead of its competitors in the streaming service platform. They have a ton of content (games and original programming), and have found a way to monetize it. They'll make a killing off of ESPN+ once they move their NCAA Conference Content to it, which is coming very soon. Not to mention for $5/month you get ALL of their content, unlike NBC Sports which is a la carte.
     
  3. crookeddy

    crookeddy Member+

    Apr 27, 2004
    Welcome to the future, it's much like the past.
     
  4. Paul Berry

    Paul Berry Member+

    Notts County and NYCFC
    United States
    Apr 18, 2015
    Nr Kingston NY
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    English soccer became really popular after they took down a paywall, the Setanta TV $20 per match, which you also had to pay if you had to watch a game at a bar.

    I can't see NBC making too much money from putting games on NBC Gold because most of the games are between the teams they don't watch anyway.

    And plastics are complaining about the $50 a year NBC want to charge for access to hundreds of games, whereas many of us have been paying more than that to watch MLS.
     
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  5. Paul Berry

    Paul Berry Member+

    Notts County and NYCFC
    United States
    Apr 18, 2015
    Nr Kingston NY
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #730 Paul Berry, Aug 3, 2018
    Last edited: Aug 3, 2018
    Not strictly about TV but it may influence decisions for 2019

    Attendance 2017

    Attendance 2018

    Above 60,000

    Man Utd 1-4 Liverpool 101,254 Michigan

    Manchester City 4-1 Real Madrid 93,098 Los Angeles
    Barcelona 1-0 Manchester United 80,162 Landover (Fedex)

    Manchester United Utd 2-0 Manchester City 67,401 Houston
    Barcelona 2-2 Tottenham 66,805 Pasadena
    Real Madrid 2-3 Barcelona 66,014 Miami
    Real Madrid 1-1 Manchester United 65,109 Santa Clara

    Between 40,000 and 60,000

    Liverpool 1-3 Dortmund 55,447 Charlotte
    Barcelona 2-4 Roma 54,726 Arlington
    Man City 1-2 Liverpool 52,623 East Rutherford

    PSG 2-3 Juventus 44,444 Miami

    Below 40,000

    Man City 0-1 Dortmund 34,629 Chicago
    PSG 2-4 Tottenham 33,322 Orlando
    Roma 1-1 Juventus 33,039 Foxborough

    Juventus 2-0 Bayern 32,105 Philadelphia
    Tottenham 1-0 AC Milan 31,264 Minneapolis
    Bayern 2-3 Man City 29,195 Miami

    Tottenham 2-3 Roma 26,192 Harrison
    Benfica 1-1 Juventus 24,194 Harrison
    Milan 1-1 Man Utd 21,742 Carson
    Roma 1-4 Tottenham 18,861 San Diego
    Dortmund 2-2 Benfica 16,171 Pittsburgh
     
  6. mbar

    mbar Member+

    Apr 30, 1999
    Los Angeles, CA
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    If international club soccer goes back to being harder to find on television I wonder if that might create more opportunity for mls to grab eurosnob eyeballs.
     
  7. crookeddy

    crookeddy Member+

    Apr 27, 2004
    No because MLS will follow suit.
     
  8. crookeddy

    crookeddy Member+

    Apr 27, 2004
  9. mbar

    mbar Member+

    Apr 30, 1999
    Los Angeles, CA
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I mean, I doubt that because mls already has most games behind the ESPN + paywall. Without it you get the local team’s games (depending on your team) and the national ESPN and Fox games and that’s it. They still are looking for exposure so I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

    I was just thinking that many mls fans arrive there via the international club game. As much as I like to mock eurosnobs many go on to support mls. I was one too (although that was before mls and I jumped on board mls in season 1)
     
  10. crookeddy

    crookeddy Member+

    Apr 27, 2004
    I was the opposite. I supported the Galaxy as the local team, and then decided to explore "higher quality" teams and was a Man U "fan" for a while, and then gave up on it. Now I just watch Galaxy games again.
     
  11. Paul Berry

    Paul Berry Member+

    Notts County and NYCFC
    United States
    Apr 18, 2015
    Nr Kingston NY
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
  12. Paul Berry

    Paul Berry Member+

    Notts County and NYCFC
    United States
    Apr 18, 2015
    Nr Kingston NY
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    ESPN may want to invest more in showing MLS games than European pre-season friendlies.

    upload_2018-8-4_15-52-2.png
     
  13. eddygee

    eddygee Member+

    DC United
    May 12, 2007
    Moco, Maryland
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Finally got the rating for one of the 3 missing games it was actually a Nielsen glitch I'm told the below game was listed as the first Cali Classico game which was listed as having a incorrect TV viewing number of 127k on UDN but I spotted the discrepancy as the game was on Unimas.

    LAG vs San Jose UDN(107K)UniMas??? Fri 5/25/18 1055pm**
    (No Unimas Number Reported for last double header game. Game appeared on Unimas I watched it yet no number was released)
    ****Correct Viewing number released******
    LAG vs San Jose UniMas 328k Fri 5/25/18 1055pm


    WST MLS.JPG
     
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  14. Stan Collins

    Stan Collins Member+

    Feb 26, 1999
    Silver Spring, MD
    Yeah, the decision whether or not to paywall is current revenue vs growth opportunity. I suspect NBCSN knew what they were doing from the jump with regard to their paywall. They put every game out there for as long as they were still establishing what the audience level was, and then once they found it, they started the paywalling. They figure (probably correctly), if you're the type of person who really needs to see every game from your favorite team(s), you're also the kind they can charge for the privilege. For Turner's UCL coverage, I think a lot of the problem is that it's on in the middle of the afternoon on work days. This is going to create the kind of small, but stable and loyal, audiences you can monetize by paywalling them.

    MLS is still aiming to grow the size of its TV audience, so I don't think they're likely to paywall more than they already do. In fact, the switch from MLS Live to ESPN+ is going a bit in the other direction, to a cheaper package in exchange for one that likely more people will watch.
     
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  15. Paul Berry

    Paul Berry Member+

    Notts County and NYCFC
    United States
    Apr 18, 2015
    Nr Kingston NY
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    There are 3 to 4 nationally broadcast MLS games a week. The rest are on MLS Live/ESPN+,or local channels.

    NBC/NBCSN/CNBC will be showing more than 5 Premier League matches at weekends, at least one of which will be on a free-to-air channel, plus midweek games. Most matches will feature the only 6 teams that US fans care about.
     
  16. eddygee

    eddygee Member+

    DC United
    May 12, 2007
    Moco, Maryland
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #741 eddygee, Aug 8, 2018
    Last edited: Aug 8, 2018
    Actually the reason stated why NBC put EPL behind a paywall as quoted by lead NBC Exec Rick Cordella in this article was they (NBC) make little if any money off the EPL. It's not some grand scheme they just overpaid for the renewal and realized they needed to recover or "remunerate" their $$ back.

    That said NBC is a solid partner and have stepped up their presentation of EPL by going live to stadiums this year. They realized US EPL fans were unhappy with the move to Gold and are trying to give something back through better presentation.

    http://awfulannouncing.com/nbc/nbcs...ription-service-going-get-unpopular-week.html
    We have conviction that this is the right business model around the Premier League, and the other sports we’ve added to NBC Sports Gold,” Cordella said. “The media world is continuing to shift, and TV ratings aren’t what they used to be, and certainly subscriber levels haven’t been as high as they’ve been in the past. So [we’re] trying to figure out, how do we remunerate the rights we paid for? Direct-to-consumer [subscription video] with NBC Sports Gold is going to be an important part of that.”

    You might have noticed Cordella’s use of the word “remunerate.” It wasn’t accidental. In 2015, NBC paid the Premier League approximately $1 billion for a six-year rights deal, after an initial three-year deal worth around $250 million. The network then saw Premier League TV ratings drop by an average of nearly 100,000 viewers per gamefrom the 2015-16 season to 2016-17.

    Cordella said NBC “made no money to very little money” from streaming non-televised games on the free-with-authentication platform. So they tried something different. And they boosted the offering with nearly 1,000 hours of shoulder programming produced by the Premier League’s vast in-house production arm, as well as a Premier-League produced live studio show that airs in various forms across almost all 24 hours of the day.
     
  17. crookeddy

    crookeddy Member+

    Apr 27, 2004
    One of the issues with streaming paywalls is that few if any bars carry the events behind them. Even Setanta in the dark days was a TV channels. Bar owners understand TV channels (even ones they need to pay extra for). Setting up streaming is probably a lot more complex.
     
  18. jaykoz3

    jaykoz3 Member+

    Dec 25, 2010
    Conshohocken, PA
    Club:
    Philadelphia Union
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    There are plenty of bars who use ESPN+ currently to show sporting events. With Roku sticks and other inexpensive streaming devices it's not all that difficult.
     
  19. Stan Collins

    Stan Collins Member+

    Feb 26, 1999
    Silver Spring, MD
    That explanation is a sunk cost fallacy. The money spent on the contract is already spent. And if, in a revenue sense, paywalling is the right choice at a rights fee of $100 Billion, it's also the right choice at $1.

    The reason why you would see that kind of explanation in a public interview is likely because more than a couple of fans were pissed off about the change, and it's always better to come with an argument that would boil down to 'we did this because we have to' rather than one that boils down to 'we did this because we can.'
     
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  20. crookeddy

    crookeddy Member+

    Apr 27, 2004
    I doubt it's easy to hook up a mega sports bar's (200+ TVs) system to a Roku stick. I am sure it's possible, but you really need to understand how your media center works.
     
  21. jaykoz3

    jaykoz3 Member+

    Dec 25, 2010
    Conshohocken, PA
    Club:
    Philadelphia Union
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    You do realize that many smart TV's today already have Google Chrome or Roku built into them right?

    This isn't nearly as difficult as you believe it to be. I've been to "mega" sports bars in Philadelphia that have shown games on the big screens streaming from ESPN+.
     
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  22. eddygee

    eddygee Member+

    DC United
    May 12, 2007
    Moco, Maryland
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #747 eddygee, Aug 9, 2018
    Last edited: Aug 9, 2018
    Good points

    I will also note they it's not the first time I have heard those in the media say NBC doesn't make money off the Premier League most notably I heard it today on Sirius XM from Jason Davis so maybe the truth is somewhere in between. Somewhere between they didn't make as much money as they thought they were and decide to paywall to hit their expected target.
     
  23. JasonMa

    JasonMa Member+

    Mar 20, 2000
    Arvada, CO
    Club:
    Colorado Rapids
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Hell, the whole business plan of my new company is essentially "put streamed content on TVs". (Menus software for cafeterias, essentially its send a smart TV to a website or plug in a Chromebox to a TV and send it to a website)
     
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  24. crookeddy

    crookeddy Member+

    Apr 27, 2004
    Anxiously awaiting Barneys Beanery or Yardhouse to integrate with your company.
     
  25. JasonMa

    JasonMa Member+

    Mar 20, 2000
    Arvada, CO
    Club:
    Colorado Rapids
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Our focus is on companies where food isn't their primary business. Our main market is K-12 schools but also things like hospitals, universities, corporate cafeterias, etc.
     

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