The 2020 MLS TV thread

How many games is he going to be there for? He's only going to do games during the EPL offseason and he will be doing broadcasts for soccer games during the Olympics (assuming they happen).

 

Chicago-Seattle had 311k for in-home viewing and 103k for OOH for total English language audience of 404k. That’s solid.

 

Nashville-Atlanta has 80,820 for OOH adding that to the revised FOX in-home number makes the total English audience at 836,820.
Portland-Minnesota drew 229k for in-home metric, and 69,650 for OOH for total audience of 298,650.

 

Average audience including OOH (excluding HOU-LAG) is 541,118. This number does not include Spanish language simulcasts for broadcasts on ESPN/FS1/FOX.

Waiting on HOUSTON-LAG from Univision. OOH numbers increased the viewership of MLS games in week one by an average of 24.7%.

 

If we assume Spanish language simulcasts draw an average of ~40k (which is a good approximation) then total audience from all sources would make the average for week one (excluding HOU-LAG) at 581,000.

 

We'll have to wait for WST to put that out in prior years they were pretty good getting the combined simulcast audiences for Univision like TUDN+UniMas but last year they were inconsistent and would only report 1 number for a network when the game was on two or three different channels. Hope they put the effort into it this year as I seen they have with La Liga and EPL where they pull the combined simulcast numbers regularly. It sucks that Univision doesn't report to Nielsen we just have to wait for sourcing. If it doesn't come I'll add a asterisk to such games. That really through a wrench in last years numbers reporting.

 

If you are on Twitter, I suggest you follow at Tunity Analytics. They have been releasing MLS OOH numbers since at least the playoffs last year. Please like and retweet their MLS tweets. A lot of us MLS fans begged them to release those numbers and so far they have been kind to share them with us. So, be kind back, follow, like, and retweet them.

 

Network vs pay breakdown? The numbers dropped from week 2 to week 3, but the week 3 network numbers were in line with week 2.

 

1234925697472385024 is not a valid tweet id

 

Nashville vs. Atlanta — 756,000 viewers on FOX network (FOX Deportes number not available at press time)
• Houston vs. LA Galaxy — 558,000 viewers on Univision and TUDN combined
• LAFC vs. Inter Miami — 463,000 viewers on ESPN (ESPN Deportes number not available at press time)
• Seattle vs. Chicago — 311,000 viewers on ESPN (ESPN Deportes number not available at press time)
• Portland vs. Minnesota — 229,000 viewers on FS1 (FOX Deportes number not available at press time)

 

Ratings up on Fs1, ESPN and Univision year over year.

 

He had an error in the last tweet (so it was deleted), but here's his update:

MLS Saturday TV ratings:

756,000 viewers for ATL/NSH on FOX, up 3% compared to FOX's average MLS broadcast last season.

558,000 Total Viewers 2+ for HOU/LAG on Univision (simulcast on TUDN). That's a new Univision MLS record for season opening for metric, & up +57% YoY.

— Ian Thomas (@byIanThomas) March 3, 2020

 

Ok. We have no OOH numbers for HOU-LAG but 558,000 is still excellent. Assuming zero OOH numbers for that game, the average total audience (including OOH, but excluding Spanish language simulcasts) for week 1 is 544,494. Assuming 40,000 on Spanish simulcasts the average would be 576,494. However, if you assume HOU-LAG matched the lowest OOH numbers we do have (69,650) along with an assumption 40,000 for Spanish language simulcasts for games on ESPN/FS1/Fox, then the total average audience would rise to 590,424.

That certainly sounds better than 241,000 or whatever. Of course, it is week 1, but this is probably the best approximation of how many people actually watched MLS games this week (excluding stadium attendance).

 

I posted the following over in the Crew forum, and since there's been discussion in here about national TV appearances, though it made sense to re-post it here (my apologies for the Crew-iness of the tone):

Again, apologies for the Columbus-centric vocabulary choice.

In any event, I thought of this, again, watching Martinez go down with a knee injury this weekend. Seventeen more national TV appearances for Atlanta United. I mean, they're still a good team, but their biggest draw and best player is out, and the league and its broadcast partners have put a helluva lot of eggs in the ATL UTD basket. I live in one of the have-not markets, so I'm prone to whining about this more than fans in some other cities. Still, I got to the point last year (pretty early on) when yet another game featuring an LA/ATL/SEA/NY club had lost its appeal. The Martinez injury certainly ups the odds that I'll have that reaction again in 2020.

 

I'm back! Lets track these ratings!

MLS TV 2020 TV Ratings

ESPN Networks FOX Networks Univision Networks

Week 1

HOU v LA Galaxy 558K UNI Feb 29 330pm
Nash v ATL 756K FOX Feb 29 Sat 8pm
SEA v CHI 311K ESPN March 1 Sun 3pm
LAFC v Inter Miami 463K Mar 1 Sun 530pm
POR v MIN 229K FS1 Mar 1 Sun 730pm


Total Network Average 479.2k
Average ESPN Networks 387k
Average Fox Networks 492.5.6k
Average Univision Networks 558k

All ratings are sourced from the below sites
http://www.showbuzzdaily.com (Search MLS or Major League Soccer)
http://www.sportsmediawatch.com/?s=MLS
http://worldsoccertalk.com/category/tv-ratings/
https://programminginsider.com/category/ratings/

 

Upcoming TV games

Sat, Mar 7 330 PM DC United vs Inter Miami CF Audi Field Washington DC
Univision

Sun, Mar 8 7 PM Portland Timbers vs. Nashville SC Portland, OR Providence Park ESPN, ESPN Deportes

Sun Mar 8 10:30 PM Los Angeles FC vs Philadelphia Union Banc of California Stadium, Los Angeles, CA FS1

 

The following numbers are based in part of reasonable assumptions and should NOT be seen as official:


Also, average OOH audience for MLS this season has been 108,085.
The average I got for the five games was 463.4k. total audience. If we assume HOU-LAG had the league average in OOH viewership, then week 1 games had an average was 571.5k. If we assume 40k for Spanish language simulcasts for games broadcast on ESPN/Fox/FS1, then the complete average audience for week 1 is at 603.5k.

 

You're tracking average viewership per game, I track that too but I've always tracked average cable viewership. Which is how its tracked and reported by the media. They take the average cable viewership for each network that's the official standard.

 

I figured something like that accounted for the discrepancy. But my larger point was how OOH is giving us a better look at the size of MLS’ audience, not really that discrepancy. So, I didn’t mean to sound like I was disputing your figures.

So, my point is exactly this: when including OOH numbers and likely Spanish language simulcast numbers Week 1 was watched by AT LEAST an average of 600k+ when all media viewership sources are accounted for.

 

No slight taken. Yes I agree with OOH it will be cool later in the fall or next season depending on what month they start we'll get to see the OOH figures counted in to judge the scope. I also believe the scope has always artificially lower of the true following of MLS because of the lack of OTA games on the traditional Big 4 Networks and lack of Local/National Sports coverage because of that perceived lack of National importance by not being broadcast Nationally.

So this year will be a turning point in either direction. This start of the season was solid and can be the start of a league changing Media Rights deal.

 

ESPN lights up the MLS viewership tote board:

LAFC-Inter Miami drew 463,000 viewers in English on ESPN (which we knew) and 189,000 viewers in Spanish on ESPN Deportes.

The ESPN Deportes number is the channel's largest ever audience for a regular season MLS game.

— Jonathan Tannenwald (@thegoalkeeper) March 4, 2020

 

Streaming?

 

So better than hockey in south Florida, but worse than the worst drawing franchise in MLB.

 

You mean worse than the most watched game of the worst drawing franchise in MLB.