This might be the last season of baseball ever. The league is dying. They just gave MLB.tv away for free again through t-mobile, mid-season. They are desperate and obviously failing.
.... "I won't even watch it for free because it's too expensive." -some guy that doesn't even watch MLB but just likes to complain
If you are trying to sell MLS Season Pass by touting MLS Next Pro games as a selling point, you've got mental problems. I'd be shocked if more than 100 people watch some of those games
In the US I suspect the amount of paying subscribers is a very low number for this year relative to total subscribers (STH + tMobile freebies).
That’s the crux IMO. If footy refs had the balls to hand out yellows for swearing at or crowding the ref, the problem would be practically wiped out.
If you don't understand how content availability works, you've got mental problems. And clearly, you'd be surprised by how many folks have been asking about MLSNP content/games.
Kind of reminds me of something I've seen before. "We offer 70 movie channels, 17 24 hour news networks, and so much more" of which, less than 100 people actually watch any of those channels.
The picture quality isn’t great. But Golazo is a completely free network. The content on Golazo is great even if it’s not of great production value. Watching coverage of USOC and the live studio programming with interviews of players and going into the various storylines is the kind of coverage MLS and USOC fans can’t find anywhere that isn’t produced by MLS. I can overlook mediocre production quality to see content like this. It’s like a dream come true as a fan of domestic soccer in the US. Edit: I see some people complaining about buffering, etc…I’ve got to say that I haven’t had such problems here. But they should definitely work on those issues.
I've had no problems with Golazo, and it's actually an improvement in production quality for some of the content that ends up there.
https://www.stltoday.com/sports/soc...cle_999291fe-faa4-11ed-9395-f31964f7b620.html But on Saturday, City SC entertained Sporting Kansas City and won 4-0 in a game that also was shown on FS1 — a cable channel familiar to many sports fans. But only 1.35% of the market watched the match there, according to viewership-tracking company Nielsen. By contrast, the XFL’s St. Louis Battlehawks’ worst rating this season was 2.0, and their average was 3.6. All those games appeared on a conventional channel that is rated.
Going back to my complaints about announcers not doing basic research, Adrian Healy spent a good part of last night calling Anthony Markanich Nick. Nick is his twin brother who played for Cinci last season and now plays for Charleston. He also undersold how many Rapids were out (there were 10 players out, not 8 or 9).
But 1.35 is pretty damned good given that it’s non-exclusive. That likely means over 2.0 for total viewership. The USFL team will play only 10 games. St Louis City will play 34 games. So, St Louis City will have a much bigger impact on TV ratings when all is said and done.
Plus, St. Louis has a hangup about gridiron football peculiar to their city and their experience with the Rams. They were the only XFL franchise getting decent attendance in their home city -- the other seven clubs had attendance that would embarrass the worst MLS 3.0 team. So if the Battle Hawks got decent St. Louis TV ratings and decent attendance in STL, there's nothing for the rest of us to take from it other than that Battle Hawk fans are more into sticking it to The Man than supporting good football.
Irrespective of the overall viewership numbers, I think St. Louis area fans in both Missouri and Illinois show that they love football and soccer, thus showing there's plenty of room for both sports to thrive there. Of course, St. Louis City is the new kid on the block and is doing rather well in its inaugural MLS season. Once the team goes through a down period of so-so or less than stellar years, what will fan attendance/enthusiasm look like? Aside from not knowing what Apple's viewer ratings/raw numbers are as it pertains to weekly MLS content, does it really matter? Apple is a global brand, and it's hard to say how many fans may be watching live broadcasts in Latin America or Asia, which have a more viewer-friendly time window to catch games live than say, Europe or Africa.