Apple TV

Your memory is short. This will bring back the glory days of Fox Sports World which was priced so you went to bars to watch games.

 

i've not heard anything about Spanish broadcast rights. I could go on listening to this guy.

 

$99 is the price of (maybe) two seats to one match - not including parking. Really, $99 is a bar to a years long subscription? Of all the things to find fault with, this? I pay half that amount every month to take a shit in the City of Alexandria. Folks really have to get over bitching about subscription TV. Or, we could go back to commercial interruptions during play or the infamous picture in picture. This is a golden age for those of us who want to watch soccer matches. I remember when it was "Soccer Made in Germany" and abridged English matches. Good grief.

 

loved dat show

 

Holy crap, I remember watching that and Italian games rebroadcast from RAI on some really obscure public access channel in the mid 80s when I first got into soccer. Those German games with the spine of the West Germany 86 & 90 finalists. Klaus Augenthaler, Andreas Brehme who scored the winner in the 1990 final, Pierre Littbarski, Olaf Thon, and the always uncomfortable to say his name as 14 year old Karl-Heinz Rummenigge were always a good watch and well done in the context of the German table. Toni Schumacher, my role model for bossing the penalty area as high school freshman, starting for the JV. Yes, I know, bad choice after that 82 semi, but dude was just so out there running shit every game, he was the first sports personality I can remember standing out beyond just playing. And besides, who else was there to emulate when those Italian games were shown from one camera angle on top of the stadium? The dilemma over Adidas Beckenbauer or Patrick Platini cleats. Oh man, the best of times.

Thanks @shawn12011 you've brought back one of my earliest soccer memories and all because my mom wouldn't sign the permission slip to play football.

 

I just don't know how they're going to actually get people who aren't already fans interested in watching games with all the games beyond a paywall and no mainstream coverage. While I am sure the money was great, I have to think that in the long run, this is not going to help grow the game.

 

The games have been on free tv (or cable which most people had) for 25 years and literally NO ONE watches (and the league thus basically got no money and/or paid for the broadcasting time).

There is no mythical group of "people who aren't already fans" who are going to somehow magically start watching games on ESPN even though they have chosen not to for the last 25 years.

If you're above 35, maybe 45, you either like and watch soccer or you watch the World Cup every four years and make fun of soccer the rest of the time.

Now, with the younger generations - the people who maybe aren't fans now but could start watching, a streaming service is exactly how they consume entertainment. You are going to be meeting them where they're at - and remember, roughy half of the games will be in front of the paywall on Apple TV.

I'm not saying it's a great solution - far from it - and there definitely are dangers for MLS disappearing from broadcast/cable TV, but this idea that if the games were "more accessible" than MLS would attract all sorts of new fans has been proven wrong.

 

See, I have heard plenty of people say they started watching MLS by seeing random games on ESPN or (more recently) FS1 - which most everyone gets.

Even if they're on whatever supposed free piece of apple tv there is, you still have to open the app and go hunting for that specifically, afaik there is no random way to bump into things in TV apps. But I only have a very few; espn+, hulu, an unused disney+, so others may be easier.

 

As the apple money comes in salary budgets are going to grow - more and more recognizable players will come and folks will want to watch them.

There was a HUGE bump up with Mr. Posh Spice (well huge for MLS, unnoticeable by any other measure), there were bumps with Chicharito, Zlotan, there will be an enormous bump when/if Lionel actually gets here and with others in the post US/MEX/CAN WC. And dont limit your thinking to the US - remember there will be non-US subscriptions as more SA, African and Asian players arrive (remember how many butts-in-seats DC lost with RDA back in the day?).

For example, F1TV subscriptions from the US have increased dramatically in the past few years due to Drive to Survive and the overall increase in fans of the racing series.

Build and they will follow. Apple isn't stupid, it's why they are paying $250 million a year for the next 10 years. They are not going to lose money on this.

 

Two crap teams and they still drew almost 9 million viewers. Online!

 

Not a failure for the concept, just two teams full of absolute suck playing on a Thursday night. Had that game been in the Sunday rotation, it would have been the D+ list announcers doing that game and it would have been on air in Chicago and DC only.