Yep. Took the NFL and NBA 40+ years to finally resemble anything close to what they are today. Right now, the upper age range of a life-long fan who grew up with MLS from childhood to adulthood is probably late 20s/early 30s since the league is only two decades old. MLS won't have the same size of support as the other leagues until that first generation of life-long fans has kids and grandkids to develop into life-long fans. Plus, there's the ongoing challenge of winning over more people who are already soccer fans, but not fans of MLS--which is being addressed partly through expansion/widening the league's geographic footprint.
Again, it will come in time, both via increased opportunity to consume the games and increased acceptance by the casual fans. European leagues have unique time slots that aid their appeal here and LMX is, well, LMX. But I've full confidence that a generation from now MLS will have likely doubled its share of support among footie fans in the US, if not more, simply by having more folks grow accustomed to its presence. Especially if the US hosts a World Cup next decade.
At least this specific conversation started back in 2013. As for the rest of your post... MLS is clearly doing great compared to where they were not to long ago. But MLS still has a way to go to catch even the NHL. This is the purpose of this thread to track how MLS and the other big leagues are doing. Even in the history of just this thread alone MLS has gone up from 17.9K average attendance to 21.7K and there were 19 teams and now there will be 22 in 2017, eventhough they lost a team in 2014. This thread is not meant to show how bad MLS is, it is meant to show how far they have come and where they need to get to. It is meant to show a realistic picture of were MLS stands in the sporting world compared to the other sports leagues in the US market.
Realistically, MLS isnt doing that bad when compared to the NHL. Yes $600M vs $90M doesnt look that good. When you factor that $400M comes from Canada alone, its not as bad as it seems. We also have to realize that the NHL is in 30 cities while MLS is just now in 22. Hopefully MLS expands to the right markets between now and 2022. That should also help boost tv ratings. Hopefully we can see a significant rise over our current TV contract.
So NHL gets $200 million for US TV rights compared to $90 million for MLS. We should use like for like.
MLS is NOT anywhere near the level of NHL yet. I was looking at ticket prices for the Blue Jackets' last game against the Penguins. The cheapest way in the door on gameday went for $96. I went to the USMNT/Mexico game for less than that.
30 teams does not equal 30 cities. For the NHL, New York City has the Islanders and Rangers. If you group the Devils with those two teams and group Los Angeles and Anaheim together, you get 27 cities. MLS has 21 cities if you group the Red Bulls and NYCFC together.
2nd time in a year that ESPN is making big cuts... suggesting they are losing $1billion a year. http://www.businessinsider.com/espn-layoffs-coming-for-some-top-talent-report-says-2017-3 Most of the new contracts are good until 2021 or 2022, it will be interesting to see how the industry is doing by that time. Are we seeing the Apple Cart about to fall over?
Much of the losses seem to be from overbidding on the NBA and NFL, as both have had slight declines in viewership, while total household availability declined. ESPN alone pays $1.9B of the NFL's $4.9B in TV money, when it is only one partner alongside Fox, CBS, NBC, and NFLN. It's twice what NBC pays, comes with only one annual playoff game, and doesn't come with rights to switch late season games for ones which will draw more viewers, as NBC's contract does. The previous contract was for $1.2B, and brought higher ratings. For the NBA, they pay $1.5B, which isn't a lot more than the $1.2B from TNT, but also comes with the Finals. That doubled the previous contract, again without increased viewership. Combined, that's $1.4B in increased rights fees from their two most expensive properties, without seeing anything more in return. The contracts were both made before the current cord-cutting trend really picked up, but the signs were there even when the contracts were signed. Now they have to cut costs elsewhere. At the moment, I think MLS is safer than most ESPN partners, because its ratings (while small) are actually increasing, contrary to other rights packages, but if I had a property with stagnant ratings coming up for negotiation, I'd be worried, and if the ratings were declining, I'd be quietly working on a business model that could work with decreased income.
Isn't it the studio programming that's also losing appeal, as well? In the age of modern media, Twitter, etc. there's little need to tune in to stuff like Around the Horn or to overpay for hyped op-ed personalities. Live games, at least, still harbor fan appeal. Or so I've been thinking.
Yeah. Studio sports shows in general are getting killed on viewership; it's not just a SportsCenter problem. There are a few theories about why: Game highlights for the competitions you specifically care about are easy to find online, so there's no need to sit through coverage of events you find irrelevant. Studio hosts and analysts are boring, not insightful, or off topic. Too much coverage of off-field matters. It's honestly difficult to point to a single one, I think. Each of these concerns have some validity.
Here are average salaries according to Forbes SportsMoney on Fox Sports 1: NBA: $6,200,000 MLB: $4,400,000 NHL: $2,900,000 NFL: $2,100,000 MLS: $309,000
The huge NFL rosters really bring that number down; their total player salaries are at the top, even though the mean is a third of the NBA.
I really just hope it passes the NFL. I'd be fine if it were #4 behind the other three sports for a while after that...
the american public needs to get wowed, the mls academies for all their good...do not produce magic...hence the mls has some attendence problems with many teams..everyone knows this. When Maradona deduted at 15 years of age..the coach's instructions were...nutmeg the first opponent that comes at you and enjoy yourself..the rest is history.. tactics can be learned so on and so forth later at around 16,17. But children should be encouraged to be ball hogs,the ones that have any talent will developed the rest can play recreational soccer. We all know bigger is not better in soccer... Who's tearing it up in the mls currently...the short,skinny kids from Argentina,Paraguay,etc..with an Argentine coach no less...that should be the model in developing magic,,,then and only then should it be paired with German engineered soccer. oh try getting grass fields in the middle of cities...
MLS at this point trails the NHL by a $3 billion in the revenue section, and while that would not be impossible to overcome if it was $20 billion to $17 billion, when you can get their revenue by increasing MLS revenue 11 times, it's clear the gap is meaningful. The NHL can make horrible mistakes and remain a bigger league than MLS for a decade. The focus can't be on other leagues losing popularity, because they all have in the past, and they've all found ways to rebound. Granted, it can be as simple as a Jordan or a Gretzsky, but these are strong sporting leagues, working hard to maintain and expand their markets. MLS needs to be looking at doing exactly what it has been doing, slow steady growth. The quality is improving leaps and bounds. I watch way too much MLS these days, most games are worthwhile. I really only intentionally avoid games at NE, though I don't mind the team ( they need a better venue). So, on thread topic, 2030 would be optimistic. But, I would add, it doesn't matter much. MLS is improving, a lot, despite being fifth.
The biggest factor is the TV deal and salary cap. Unfortunately TV is in flux with all the cord cutters and new streaming options popping up. The next MLS TV deal ends in 2022 and that will be extremely important to the health of the league and its growth in the future. We are at $90M right now. Divide that up by 22 teams and thats just over $4M. That is basically the salary cap we have today. If we were to magically get $200M in the next TV deal with 28 teams, that put each team just over $7M. That would be a decent salary cap. $200M divided by 30 teams is $6.6M and 32 teams is $6.25M.
The current $90 million deal includes the USSF cut and some money for the other SUM owners outside MLS. The amount per MLS team is much lower than $4 million.
Do we know how much of a cut SUM gets? $90M / 22 = $4.09M and this years salary cap is $3.845M. Obviously these are just rough numbers but the math doesnt seem to far off to me.
Well, SUM gets it all. They are the ones that negotiate with the networks. They then distribute the money to the USSF and the SUM shareholders. I believe that the MLS owners sold 25% of SUM to Providence Equity Partners in 2011. They were negotiating to buy that back in late 2016 but I don't know if the deal went through. The USSF shows about $18 million a year coming from the deal. $90 million minus $18 million is $72 million. Providence may get as much as $18 million which would leave $54 million for the MLS teams or about $2.5 million per team. But that might not be how SUM divides up the money. They may send a bigger share to the MLS expense/salary pot and then pay dividends on "profits" to the shareholders including Providence. And if the SUM money is primarily for paying player salaries then none of it really gets sent to the teams since the league pays the salary budget for the teams and that number varies quite a bit for each team because of all the allocation money in the different categories. Of course SUM also makes money for its owners from other things like the rights to the Mexican national team and other deals. The fact that the base salary budget is close to $90 million divided by 22 may be a coincidence more than anything.
It has to surpass the football culture first, doubtful that will ever happen, as long as football is being played. American football is just to important at the high school/college level. Even the USA winning the world cup wont change all that. The most likely sport is the NHL, but since they lost a season to lockout, they have been pretty good about drawing fan attention, increasing fan culture etc...just look at Nashville. MLS likely will never be a top 4 league, and it doesnt have to be. It can be its own thing and be profitable and keep the culture of soccer alive. That might be good enough