Here's the question: Would you rather MLS be #1 league in the US, but #5 best soccer league in the world? Or #5 league in the U.S., but #1 soccer league in the world? Because it seems most fans don't seem to really care about quality of play in the league improving, etc. They just want these other leagues they're not fans of to be subordinate to MLS.
That's so unrealistic a hypothetical. Improving to the fifth best soccer league wouldn't be enough to make it the most popular league in the USA, and being the fifth most popular league in the USA would never get MLS enough revenue to pay players enough to be the best soccer league. If MLS was among the top five soccer leagues, it would have TV revenue from many countries and not be as reliant on Americans and Canadians.
Footsatt I have taken your chart above and if I am correct determined how many games each league plays and how much they get per game. I am from Australia an am unfamiliar with your sports broadcast deals as so I hope its not too far out. But its seems on pay per game you do reasonable well. However on an amount per game basic and given new teams should add to the number of games and coming off a low base its looks feasible MLS could arguably move to the middle in amount per game. Those season games in their thousands are amazing numbers. LEAGUE ==Games per season ==Amount per game NFL ======== 256 ============== 19,132,022 MLB ======== 2,432 =============== 637,363 NBA ======== 1,286 =============== 2,076,538 NHL ======== 1,188 ================= 505,116 MLS ========= 376 ================= 239,639
No as I have no idea how your broadcast deals work. I simply took Footsatt chart on page 29 and I think worked out how many games are played and then divided the media deal by the number of games, I don't even know how many games of each league are broadcast. But on raw numbers on amounts paid per game the MLS could maybe pass NHL & MLB
The American leagues do make some money outside North America. The NFL has one game at a time on TV in England. Furthermore, a league can have contracts that are a different amount per game. MLB's contracts with ESPN and with Fox and Fox Sports 1 combined may not be the same amount per game.
In their thousands because baseball teams play almost every day throughout the season, and basketball and ice hockey teams play every 2-3 days. The MLB regular season is 162 games long, the NBA and NHL regular seasons are 82 games long. I notice that's different in Australia, where the baseball league plays 40 games in a 3-month season (one game every 2-3 days) and the basketball and ice hockey leagues play 28 games in a 5-month season (only slightly more frequent than soccer).
That underestimates the local TV deals from MLB, the great majority of games are on local TV, and that is a ton of games for a ton of money. That is why it is very hard to make comparisons, but it is still fun to try.
Hey, mls has overseas contracts, as well. They're a summer staple on german eurosport. Game times suck, though
I wasn't thinking about that. The game times from the USA will be bad for Europe except for the NFL and MLB day games. MLS, NBA, and NHL play mostly at night even on weekends.
Capitals winning the Stanley Cup led to a lot of press that ignored DC United/MLS as a major sport. This thread is mostly about the numbers I know, but just in terms of mindshare it often seems like MLS barely registers.
I also noticed that. I kind of chalked that up not just to the MLS not being a big 4 sport, but that its increase in popularity really started after the necessity of television for a sport to be taken seriously. The irony being that the lack of television coverage is absolutely why non soccer fans don't consider it. I've never followed basketball, but it's too ingrained in popular culture to ignore completely. MLS doesn't have anything like that, which is at least partially due to its age, as well the fact that it's only been financially stable for about a decade.
I think that the lack of coverage can be overrated. The internet drives fandom these days especially for a younger skewing sport like soccer. Also it seems there is a variance in league following by market. The Cascadia Teams and ATL have noticable media mindshare. There is reason to believe in Cincy and Nashville, which similar to SLC or KCMO arent saturated sports wise The Canadian teams seem like they get decent coverage from the big sports networks up north. DC, Orlando and Philly COULD be better if their teams actually did anything worth cheering for. Megacities like NYC LA Chicago and soon to be Miami are always going to be tough.
In DC, I think it really will matter how things go when the new stadium opens. As an MLS fan (not a DCU fan) I'm rooting for Rooney to be exciting and score a lot, etc. a great atmosphere and a star turn or two will matter in local perception.
okay, so I did the maths. MLS has a growth rate of .11 billion a year since 2012 while the NHL has a growth rate of .08 billion this means the gap is closing at a rate or .03 billion per year which would mean about a 95 year time frame for MLS to catch up. Bottom line is I think this is a dumb question, (true) football and the MLS can't compare itself to the top 4, it's just not healthy, at least until the gap closes to a reasonable one.
Are you talking about the national TV deals? I'll admit that expressing things in terms of a fraction of billions makes me unsure of what you talking about. If it is TV revenue the thing many people ignore on the TV deals is that the NHL teams make very large amounts of money from their local TV deals. There are several NHL teams making over $30 million US per team per year just from their local TV deal. Local TV is where most people watch most of the NHL. The national TV deal in the U.S. is mostly for the playoffs. Canada is a little different since there are many fewer teams so a lot of their regular season games wind up on national tv up there. MLS teams make almost nothing on average. I almost never see that in the comparisons on here.
I was just comparing league wide revenue, which is, admittedly, an oversimplification. My main point is that, even with the growth rate adjusted for the fact that things are far from constant, we're looking at a very long time before the gap is closed. The NHL had 3.7 billion in revenue in 2017 while the MLS had 0.85. That large a gap is going to take decades to close at minimum... I'm 100% sure that the MLS is not even thinking in terms of entering the top 4 right now, it's just way too far off. (True) football in the US needs to be focused on building the sport and worrying ourselves about becoming as lucrative as the top 4 is futile and frankly a bit depressing (seeing the dollars that the barbaric NFL pulls in).