The 2023 MLS TV thread

Discussion in 'MLS: News & Analysis' started by NFLPatriot, Jan 6, 2023.

  1. Beerking

    Beerking Member+

    Nov 14, 2000
    Humboldt County
    This whole Apple shit-show is a huge middle finger to the fans.
     
  2. PTFC in KCMO

    PTFC in KCMO Member+

    Aug 12, 2012
    Club:
    Portland Timbers
    I watched the SKC Drone video and it was fantastic. Can’t wait to find some time to watch the rest of them.
     
  3. jaykoz3

    jaykoz3 Member+

    Dec 25, 2010
    Conshohocken, PA
    Club:
    Philadelphia Union
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    How so?

    You either have to pay $80+/month to your cable provider for sports, or to some other OTT service.
     
  4. crookeddy

    crookeddy Member+

    Apr 27, 2004
    Nobody pays for cable only because of MLS. Nobody wants to cancel their cable to pay for MLS elsewhere.
     
    NorthBank and Beerking repped this.
  5. JayRockers!

    JayRockers! Member+

    Aug 4, 2001
    Why no daily/MWF show focused on MLS?

    ESPNFC usually winds up shitting on the league whenever they can.

    Thx,

    Jay!
     
  6. jaykoz3

    jaykoz3 Member+

    Dec 25, 2010
    Conshohocken, PA
    Club:
    Philadelphia Union
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I'm no one will miss having to pay a regional sports network fee, or a Sports Tier add on monthly fee either...

    Oh, and you can share MLS Season pass with up to 5 other individual's using Apple's Family Sharing feature.
     
  7. Beerking

    Beerking Member+

    Nov 14, 2000
    Humboldt County
    Why should i have to pay at all? I got all the games i wanted for free last year. This is just a screw-job by MLS.
     
  8. jaykoz3

    jaykoz3 Member+

    Dec 25, 2010
    Conshohocken, PA
    Club:
    Philadelphia Union
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    In that case why should anyone have to pay for tickets to watch a game live in person?
     
  9. morrissey

    morrissey Moderator
    Staff Member

    Feb 18, 2000
    West Los Angeles, Calif
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    ?
     
  10. NorthBank

    NorthBank Member+

    Arsenal; NYRB
    United States
    Mar 29, 2006
    Connecticut
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I'm new to this thread. Sorry if this post is at all redundant but I just went back 5 pages of posts to see if I could find my answers... not quite... so here goes... (TIA!)

    I've been watching pretty much every NYRB game live or time-shifted by a few hours for years on MSG channel. I know my experience won't be as good as my DVR can do (that's another story), but l'm wondering if/how I can do something roughly similar on AppleTV, and at what cost.

    I am NOT a current AppleTV+ subscriber, only bought it for 1 month to watch Ted Lasso then promptly cancelled. From my googling, it seems that the minimum I can expect to pay is $99/yr for MLS Season Pass.

    Q: I can do that without having to be a more general AppleTV+ subscriber first, right? And if so, that $99 only gets me MLS-related games/content, but not the broader shows/movies on AppleTV+ (like Ted Lasso), right?

    Q: There's no way of getting a better deal... streaming access to all my NYRB games for less than $99/yr, right?

    I'm not sure if Apple's sports player GUI is live and known yet, but...

    Q: How flexible is it for watching games time-shifted? E.g. Let's say you miss the first 30mins and want to start from the beginning, will it let you? Or do they force you to start watching at 30'? Or wait until after match is finished so as to start from 1'?

    Q: And if they do let you watch from 1', while match is in progress, can you easily do this WITHOUT SPOILERS of the score at 30'? And that same question would apply to if you want to watch the match several hours after it's over... can you easily avoid spoilers hours later too?
     
    Beerking repped this.
  11. NorthBank

    NorthBank Member+

    Arsenal; NYRB
    United States
    Mar 29, 2006
    Connecticut
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Oh that answers one of my questions! Can I please share your account? I'll pay you $20 ;)
     
    Beerking repped this.
  12. Westside Cosmo

    Westside Cosmo Member+

    Oct 4, 2007
    H-Town
    Club:
    Houston Dynamo
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    From the Athletic article today:

    “As one seasoned industry professional estimated to The Athletic not long ago, the league might be sinking as much as $80 million to $100 million into production costs in 2023 alone.”

    And

    “In each case, the MLS Season Pass crew from both the English- and Spanish-language will broadcast on-site – never remotely. The league, sources familiar with the Apple pact said earlier this week, has only committed to doing this in 2023. Whether they continue to travel talent to every match in 2024 and beyond is still up in the air. “
     
  13. eddygee

    eddygee Member+

    DC United
    May 12, 2007
    Moco, Maryland
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    This refutes??? They are rehashing old Intel from not long ago as in back Oct-Nov time frame. That same report had multiple info in it and multiple price ranges. Rannging from lower to higher that one guy quoted a higher price. I remember the article well. One person among other people quoting possible cost ranges such as $40-60m One person literally one insider quote doesn't make them right. They used it as a reference for the high end. So you quoting this as something new is kinda ok.... your point doesn't change the point. Just another of your attempts to reilitigate something you were proven wrong on. The proverbial well I'm still sort right you see take.
    Just take the L you were wrong back then. Quit trying to move the goalposts.


    But since you're bringing up old info.You know what else has happened since that previous reporting Pablo Mauer reported the average team was spening $1.5-2m on local broadcasts and that at 28 teams that would help cover some of the production cost. Either way the deal was for $250m yr with escalators not lucky to have $150m yr territory you got on her and was gleefully shamelessly gloating about happening. As if our top division league possibly running into financials problems in that scenario would beva good thing.

    Some are wolves in sheep's clothing.
     
  14. jaykoz3

    jaykoz3 Member+

    Dec 25, 2010
    Conshohocken, PA
    Club:
    Philadelphia Union
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    One would have to assume that this seasoned industry professional was/is aware that MLS teams were already footing and/or sharing the production cost bills for their local broadcasts. Additionally the local broadcast talent were paid and employed by the individual teams. IOW....the league was already paying 10's of millions of dollars per year on TV broadcasts/production.

    I'm sure some teams are scrambling to get up to snuff.
     
    asoc, JasonMa and eddygee repped this.
  15. STR1

    STR1 Member+

    Atlanta United
    United States
    May 29, 2010
    Club:
    Real Madrid
    Aren't at least 40% of the games going to be in front of the Apple TV paywall? Let's be serious, who would watch every single MLS game with ESPN+ subscription? Also, didn't everyone want more story telling and content? Well, here you go.
     
    JasonMa repped this.
  16. ThreeApples

    ThreeApples Member+

    Jul 28, 1999
    Smurf Village
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Don't know if it's different for other platforms, but on Roku, the process for loading up a full archived game is very non-intuitive. I click on the game, and it brings up a screen with just a button that says "play recap" which gives a 4-minute highlight package. I finally figured out that I needed to scroll down (there was no indication that there was anything below the first button) and find a black MLS Season Pass logo which has fine print beneath it "press and hold for two versions". I press and hold my remote and finally get a menu that gives me the option between the recap and the full replay.
     
    asoc and NorthBank repped this.
  17. ThreeApples

    ThreeApples Member+

    Jul 28, 1999
    Smurf Village
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The MLS Soccer dot com schedule now shows which games are free for the first few weeks, as they either say "Apple TV -- Free" or "Apple TV -- MLS Season Pass". After a few weeks, everything says MLS Season Pass, presumably because they will decide which ones are free on an ongoing basis.
     
    pr0ner, sitruc, jaykoz3 and 1 other person repped this.
  18. TheRealBilbo

    TheRealBilbo Member+

    Apr 5, 2016
    TBH, no one will know for sure until Feb 25…

    Upthread (or maybe on Twitter) I thought someone said you can start the game at the beginning if you join late. They also said that the match should be available soon after it ended. How soon, I don’t know, but the impression I got was more or less immediately.

    On the apple+ app, you can hide scores in settings… general setting for the device. I think that was discussed upthread or on the Twitter.

    Anyhow, if pay your $99 you get all the games. If you don’t, you get some games.

    From what people are saying, it looks pretty good. Of course, Feb 25 will tell. I also expect a few changes after that, because nothing is perfect day one.
     
    AlbertCamus and NorthBank repped this.
  19. Beerking

    Beerking Member+

    Nov 14, 2000
    Humboldt County
    Some of us don't live close to a stadium, i'm 4 hours away from paypal.
     
  20. eddygee

    eddygee Member+

    DC United
    May 12, 2007
    Moco, Maryland
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Those are likely the teams that were A. Either cheating out on the production cost providing terrible broadcast quality and paying the broadcasts team cheaply. B. The teams like ATL/Sea/LAFC/LAG/NYCFC's of the world that go from never really having to fork out much on production because they had top market traditional deals were they received rights fees and the RSNs provided GameDay coverage cost covered cost like they do in other leagues like NBA/MLB/NHL. It's no coincidence those teams were said to have complained the most about the Apple Deal as thet were making out just fine. But the other 20+ teams largely didn't have that luxury.
     
  21. Westside Cosmo

    Westside Cosmo Member+

    Oct 4, 2007
    H-Town
    Club:
    Houston Dynamo
    Nat'l Team:
    United States

    So your math of:
    $250 Million Apple Worldwide rights
    less: $80 million production costs
    plus: $42 million avoided production costs
    less: $10 million local rights (estimate)
    Equals $202 million net Worldwide rights - is somehow equivalent to getting $250 million for US only TV rights?

    do I have that right?
     
  22. JasonMa

    JasonMa Member+

    Mar 20, 2000
    Arvada, CO
    Club:
    Colorado Rapids
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I get why individuals in markets who had better deals are feeling upset about this. But as discussed up thread, the reality is there’s a good chance a year or so from now a quarter or so of the league would be left holding the bag when their local deal collapsed. If people can’t see why this deal is, on average across the league, an improvement they’re just being myopic.
     
    pr0ner, Mike03, KCbus and 4 others repped this.
  23. crookeddy

    crookeddy Member+

    Apr 27, 2004
    Financially it's probably the big win that takes MLS undesputedly past Liga MX. But in terms of publicity I still see it as a potential massive disaster. What happens if like... 50k people sign up worldwide? Will Apple keep promoting it for 10 years?

    Btw does anyone know what the Liga MX deals are like in the us??
     
  24. crookeddy

    crookeddy Member+

    Apr 27, 2004
    Ok, this is still confusing. On the Apple TV page the games listed as "free" on MLS soccer.com are listed as Apple TV+. So are they free or are they on plus. It's not at all the same thing!
     
  25. crookeddy

    crookeddy Member+

    Apr 27, 2004
    For some preseason action:
     
    sitruc and JasonMa repped this.

Share This Page