I think this is a great description of the trend in sports entertainment consumption. The younger the the person, the more likely it will match your description. The revenue potential between regional "high profile" vs international "high profile" is where much of the difference between my view and what Triplet has framed in this thread. My view is that while the transformation to digital media is likely to stress many industry players in sports entertainment market as Triplet suggest and the benefit to the global winners will indeed be massive, I feel there is a heck of a lot of money to made in this region and MLS is just starting to make traction. Currently coverage of MLS varies quite a bit across the country. In places like Atlanta, Portland, Orlando, Seattle MLS is covered like a major sport while in most other places it is not. You are are not going to get casual sports fans in places like Los Angeles if the only coverage it gets for the last month is an AP article following the game. But even LA;s coverage has changed dramatically. With the addition of LAFC, the soccer writer actually covers the local teams and soccer stories are written by feature writers from other sports. During the season, team stories appeared every week and at teams even daily. Depending on how you define "less important" I might agree or disagree with this statement. There are a lot of different variable that factor into popularity. But there is a reason NBA and Madden show up high on US based list sales but are nowhere to be found on European lists. In contrast FIFA and UFC (outside of the helicopter parent, bubble world of suburban US - what boy hasn't tussled with another one) show up on both. Participation drives initial interest then game play related issues steer focus. A major part of the reason for FIFA's success in the US market versus other sports despite comparatively insignificant media coverage is participation in the sport. As such I feel the negligence and incompetence of US soccer to be a bigger deal than many others. As noted, previously I completely agree with the national media part. But when media executives see what has gone happened in Toronto, Seattle, and now Atlanta, many are going to raise the level of questioning about whether their lack of soccer coverage is exacerbating their struggles. When an extremely successful entrepreneur and NFL owner says there is no reason others can't succeed like he has, the pressure on other underachievers in the ecosystem is going to ratchet up. In regard to "story lines," the sooner it gets out of US soccer coverage the better. MLS is the only soccer league coverage I watch where you 10 second close-up of coaches while the ball is in play. In every other league you see the ball while its in play. During Fox's coverage (they are the absolute worst about this) you see 10 second close-ups on Tata, crowd, Martinez, Valarie, Savarese while the announcer explains the "story line." You would have thought by now the best way for MLS to sell the game is just to show the damn game.
Eh, no. I agree that when the ball is in play, show the action. But you can't dismiss the value of story lines to draw in the neutrals and keep them interested.
I guess I should be more clear. I have no problem with talking about them. It is just the close-ups while the ball is in play (show all the close-ups you want when the ball kid is retrieving the ball or the keeper is doing all the things keepers do when they get the opportunity to make everyone pay attention them).
Not sure if the numbers have been made available before, and this may just be a guess. https://www.fmfstateofmind.com/2018...evision-rights-united-states-mexico-worldwide
That is pretty far. But we do love our cars and driving. I do wonder what is the percentage of EU citizens that live with in 30 minutes of public transit of an European first division club. And what the percentage would drop to if the EU only had 20 teams in the 20 largest cities.
I do believe the FANG stocks have taken a hit recently. Amazon is now worth "only" 803 Billion. https://ycharts.com/companies/AMZN/market_cap
I guess 60-70% would be not far fetched, maybe even higher in the Netherlands. Guess that would drop to about 10%.
I was hedging because of traffic in some cities. Picked a driving time that would put most of Greater Los Angeles in range of a MLS stadium.
I was trying to think about this number. I've worked in almost all EU nations. But how much of Poland, Hungary, Romania, Greece, CR, Malta, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria are mass transit connected, esp outside the capitals ( and inside the capitals it can be a bit hit an miss at times. Huge stretches of Athens are uncovered. But beyond that, consider the EU report on access to mass transit: "The share of population with (very) high access in this selection of larger urban centres varies from 38% in Dublin to 84% in Brussels, while this level varies from 12% in Eindhoven to 77% in Malmö in the selected medium-sized urban centres. Very high access tends to be quite rare in medium-sized cities, because most of them do not have a metro system and the rail network consists usually of only one or two stations in the urban centre." I think the 60 percent idea is quite high. Maybe more like 25 percent (which still might be high)? Still, there is no doubt that the percent is much higher than in the US.
If you consider only rails as public transport, you're missing the point. Buses are public transport too and efficient and effective.There's no city in Europe with no bus stop close by. The question was what %% of European people are within 30 minutes of public transport from a pro soccer club. Given the high %% of people in Europe living in an urban environment with at least bus connections, and from that high %% a minor part will take more than 30 minutes to get to the stadium, I come to that %%. 35% is an idiotic low number in my opinion. 12% for Eindhoven is ridiculous. Buse from all neighbouring villages are within half to an hour of the PSV stadium.
OKay, but a city/town with only buses is not usually considerd to have a mass transit system. FTR, pretty much every place of any size in the US also has buses. I've been in US towns of 50,000 that had bus transit. I'd imagine every MLS club is accessbile by bus. I'm not sure that makes CMP in KC, kansas, mass transit accessbile. It's a crappy bus ride. As for the numbers which seem to have upset you, that's a quote from the EU's report. I was suggesting your number is high because there is a lot of the EU that isn't well-connected as well as your area.
If they only considered rail connections as public transport they should redo the report, as that's nonsense. Taking that approach the whole Greyhound network in the States would be ignored.
I take it you've never travelled long distance by Greyhound in the states? It most certainly should be ignored. I have failed to ignore it a couple times, and i regret that.
Being a 30 minute train ride away from a stadium means it takes longer to get there if trains come every 30 minutes or less often. Let's say I wanted to go to a hypothetical 7:00 P.M. soccer game tonight near Penn Station and I wanted to arrive by 6:30 P.M. The latest train on my branch that arrives by then arrives at 5:53 P.M.
Do the others arrive after 700 pm? Yes public transit takes longer time than driving and is not as convenient, one of the many reasons we love our cars and out highways. The few times I have made the journey to the Fire stadium from my house, it took me around 2 hours, 130-145 if I cheat and use lift the last segment of the journey. By car, 45 minutes to 1 hour.
The Greyhound bus network is much more similar to air travel than to inter-city rail. It's definitely not public transport. And city buses: yes, they exist, but they don't get very far in 30 minutes. I'd estimate less than 10% of Los Angeles is within half an hour of either of the MLS stadiums by bus. Back in 2002-03, when I lived in Pasadena and the LA Galaxy played at the Rose Bowl (in Pasadena), I used public transportation to get to most of the games, and it took 30 minutes. This is within the same suburb as the stadium. The same is true in Houston, and even in Washington, DC, which has relatively good public transportation for a US city, maybe a quarter of the city (and almost none of the suburbs) is within 30 minutes of the stadium.
The next one arrives at 6:51 P.M. That's not good if a game is going to start at 7:00 P.M. (actually near 7:08 P.M.). I said "tonight" in my previous post, and I have to clarify that that is for weekdays, which is more applicable to the Knicks (although they start at 7:30 P.M.) and Rangers. On weekends, I would have to be on a train from 5:20 P.M. to 6:07 P.M. or 5:44 P.M. to 6:36 P.M. That's for a hypothetical MLS game in midtown. If I had to arrive in time to take a New Jersey Transit train to Red Bull Arena, I might have to leave home 2.5 hours or more before the game starts.
This is about a half year old, but I don't recall seeing it before. MLS ‘WILL IMMINENTLY JOIN’ WORLD’S TOP 10 LEAGUES BY REVENUE Data obtained by Sportcal and detailed in ‘The Business of MLS’ (cover below, right), published on 12 June 2018, indicates the league has moved into profitability.MLS. Team revenues now average around $32m and rising. Crucially this includes a share of the annual surplus from the central funds of the now-profitable MLS – with substantial increases in the pipeline. The list RankTop tier in…League competitionAve Revenue $m1EnglandPremier League3312GermanyBundesliga1943SpainLa Liga1794ItalySerie A1305FranceLigue 11036BrazilSerie A737ChinaSuper League698RussiaPremier League559TurkeySüper Lig5110JapanJ League3311USA & CanadaMLS3212The NetherlandsEredivisie3112MexicoLiga MX 31 This goes back to 2017 so it says "MLS is already the No6 most successful league in the world both in terms of average attendance per match and combined team revenue from shirt sponsorship deals. MLS also has significant revenue hikes upcoming, not least a league kit supply deal from Adidas about to jump from $25m a year to $117m a year, increasing income per club from that contract alone from around $1m per club per year closer to $5m per club per year. MLS TV contracts, domestically and internationally are also expected to climb significantly as the come up for renewal. MLS is not obliged to make any financial data public and has never done so. However the Sportcal report reveals that the organisation’s gross central revenue for 2017 – the last completed season – was around $364m and its clubs are now earning shares of annual profits, as well as shares of growing ‘expansion fees’. The findings strengthen MLS’s status as one of the hottest properties in world soccer and justifies the appetite of investors that pay growing fees to join the competition and expand it to new territories." Interestingly "the report proposes eights scenarios for the future of MLS" so I guess there are a lot of scenarios we haven't discussed.
I am fascinated by the idea that MLS is now bringing in more money than Mexico. This also gets at one of the areas in which MLS could soon see a rapid increase in the level of play. If you look at how successful clubs are run, they tend to spend about 40 to 45 percent of revenue on players. This is supposed to be a sustainable number, allows for both the highest level of play and keeping the club running, stadia in shape, staff paid, etc. Using the MLS average number (which forbes tells us isn't accurate, as there are differences, but it's easier this way), and using Sporting KC because i did and I thought they'd be top half, but far from top ($9.8m for 2018 according to the MLSPA ( https://mlsplayers.org/resources/salary-guide ) , they'd be at 31 percent of their revenue going towards player salaries. If we use Forbes number for SKC revenue ($42m) the club is spending just under 24 percent. I think there's been a working assumption that MLS clubs are establishing academies, building new stadia, in short creating things, and that has meant they haven't been spending as much on players as they might. But going forward, even without increasing revenue, MLS clubs should be able to compete with Liga MX clubs. In fact, given that MLS revenue relies on broadcast revenue a bit, but less than the new shirt deal, they would be able to ramp up spending to meet the level of top Mexican clubs pretty quickly. they could do it now.
So the real issue would be competing with the top clubs, who make substantially more than the average, I take it? Do they make substantially more than the Gals reported $63m? Serious question. I have no idea.
Well this is from 2013 "revenues", not sure how accurate this is, specially I have no clue with the brand and player value. They say revenues, but it reads to me like they are doing value. https://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Global/Issues/2014/02/26/Finance/Liga-MX.aspx
Even as value, that's a big difference. The top 10 in MLS from the Forbes chart on club value, revenue and operating income (in millions): 1. AUT 330, 47, -2. 2. LAG 320, 63, 6. 3. SSSC 310, 52, 6. 4. LAFC 305 (NA on other stuff). 5. TFC 290, 49, -10. 6. PT 280, 48, 3. 7. NYFC 278, 42, -15. 8. OCS 275, 44, 1. 9. SKC 270, 41, 2. 10. DCU 265, 26, -6. So, no, in no way is anyone challenging Chivas or America in financial terms. However, the third richest club on that list is LAG, with about the wealth in 2013 that Forbes figured it had in 2018. Between Chivas and what that report has as the third wealthiest Liga MX side, Santos Laguna, right now reside the entirety of MLS. MLS is a clump. The difference between the Atlanta and DCU in 10th is a bunch but it isn't what you'd find in other leagues around the world. An SKC at $41m in revenue can compete with an Atlanta at $47m Even more interesting is that if you go to the bottom of the financial table, Colorado has a worth of $155m, with revenue of $18m, so a value matching Laguna five years back, at least. In a single entity league, that's a surprising difference, and goes to the reality of single entity as well as the importance of the clubs themselves in determining their own futures. As an aside, it's it kind of weird that a club from Denver is the underperformer in MLS? Denver right now certainly has the population, approaching 3m I think, is quite wealthy, quite healthy, quite international and always has been sports crazy. During the dead days of soccer in the US, the Foxes at least were around. They have a stadium. It looks decent enough. I realize the team hasn't been, well, uhm... much fun, but given the increase in value of a franchise, they seem to have simply ridden the rising tide of MLS, and done little on their own. Getting back to the digital disruption argument, clubs that aren't more aggressive than this will be in huge trouble when the revolution comes.
Of the 20 American MLS clubs in 2018, Denver ranked 15th in market size using Fall 2017 TV market populations. The smaller markets were Orlando, Portland, Salt Lake City, Kansas City, and Columbus. I counted New York and Los Angeles twice because they have two clubs, and all or almost all suburban teams have stadiums in the markets. Foxborough is closer to Providence than to Boston, but nobody thinks of the Patriots or Revolution as being a Rhode Island or Providence team. NFL games on cable must be on broadcast in each team's market, and a few years ago people complained when there was a plan to have the Patriots on broadcast in Boston but not Providence.
Incompetent ownership combined with the fact that Denver is the smallest market to have a team in all 5 major pro sports. To sell out all 5 team's regular season home games in the 4 stadiums/arenas in town it would require pretty much every person in the metro area to go to 1 game a year.