I was just thinking - when you watch a pre-match show what do you want out of it? Talking heads yacking, or do you want to try to get some of the stadium atmosphere? Like this morning I was watching the FA Cup and they just had the announcers yack over the pre-match music. Does anyone actually care what they have to say at that moment? We'll be listening to them for the next 90+ minutes! Let us see and hear what the stadium sees and hears for a bit... So I was wondering what the UK is showing... BBC had a hype video instead of stadium festivities. Only ITV bothered showing abide with me before the walkouts, which I appreciated. Or am I the only one that feels that way?
What I have heard us that MLS would allow him to compete at a higher level. My thought is that Copa America is in the US next year. He might be going for one more title. That would be legendary.
Imagine how much it would be worth to MLS for Messi to be called an inter Miami player while playing in a tournament watched worldwide... Apple would probably sell more packages in Argentina than they have in the USA lol Actually forget probably, for sure.
Every other sports league with high viewership/ratings trumpets the news along with its broadcast partner. Even now with the figures not even truly comparable (since figures from 22-23 include projected out-of-home viewing which wasn't included in prior years, and they aren't going back and adjusting historical figures), the leagues and networks are screaming about them when they are good. And MLS has a vested interest in terms of possible enhanced rights fees if certain subscription numbers are hit. They fact they either a) cant or b) are unwilling to concoct some metric to convince folks it has been successful - other than a vague "met our internal expectations" statement - has to be somewhat alarming. They could create some total minutes viewed nonsense that we could never actually audit or compare to prior years to spin things and they have yet to do so.
Making something "free" isn't much work BTW. I wonder how those who paid for a full season only to see things "free" on a regular basis must feel. It's getting to be like the Bed Bath & Beyond coupons, always one in the mailbox each month. Have to be aware of conditioning folks that it will be free for more than half the season. Picture quality is top notch agreed, but only on the more recent Apple TV 4K boxes in our house. older ones can't show the top resolution and its a bit choppy. But would 95% agree with you. I think comparing prices to MLB and San Diego specifically is not a great exercise. MLS has removed blackouts which is good, but you can get a full year of MLBtv for $129 or so and see every game but your home market team. And you get daily baseball for about 6 months.
Seriously, what do you want MLS and Apple to do? To come out and say it was a mistake and say they are failing? Would that make everyone happy? Detractors say MLS shouldn't have taken the Apple deal but they can never say which other deal was on the table for MLS that they should have taken. It's like that people that want to see MLS fail don't even follow the league in the first place.
It would give them credibility to put some quantifiable statements out vs. qualitative statements. I recognize there is no requirement for them to do so. In that vacuum, there will be more negative speculation than positive speculation. MLS had other deals on the table, less then they wanted. So they pivoted to the Apple deal. No one is disputing that. More guaranteed cash on the table. But they did it knowing they are limiting their audience, reach, and visibility all the while claiming they aren't doing so. Not even going to get into the production cost aspect of the deal which significantly reduces the actual value of the contract with MLS absorbing those costs.
Why would they? Doesn't really matter one way of the other. Only the haters want to know and they're never right about anything over the years. 1.) The league will fold. 2.) The league will never expand since it contacted. 3.) They play in football stadiums with lines 4.) They won't get paid for a TV contract. 5.) They will never build stadiums 6.) They will never build academies 7.) They will never sign young South American players 8.) They will never sell players 9.) They will never get a media deal without the USMNT 10.) The league is only for extra days stadium rent for NFL owners 11.) They will never win an Continental tournament 12.) On an on an on an on an on....
This. There's a large segment "demanding" numbers, but there's absolutely no benefit for Apple/MLS to give them. A good portion of that segment will either not believe them, or move on to something else to criticize the league over. Those people that need numbers (Apple, MLS, advertisers) are getting them directly from the source.
Has Apple released any numbers for their MLB broadcasts? A quick search didn't yield anything for me, but their was a lot of noise in the searches.
Why does Paramount+ crop their on-demand matches to the shortest possible length? It seems to be a manual process too, so it takes a long time for matches to move from live to on-demand. Is disk space so important to them? They crop out a bunch of ads by doing so too... do their advertisers not pay them for repeat viewings? Looks like they are doing a bunch of work for no benefit. (I am talking about the fact that their matches start RIGHT at first kick and end RIGHT at the final whistle with halftime taken out)
I don't know about the advertisers - the Marchand and Ourand podcast mentioned as of early May they had not gotten anything. I know, they are only the most respected reporters in sports media so they are probably just making it up to make MLS look bad. Same thing with Pac-12, they have it in for that league even though they don't have a media deal after indicating for months a deal was imminent.
No they have not. Andrew Marchand on one of his podcasts (within last 60 days, forget which one) offhanded mentioned that the numbers were not good, started to say them, then stopped and just said they were very very small. Those games come with Apple TV+, don't require additional subscription. That is part of the Apple TV+ hurdle, its the least popular and least widely subscribed to of the major streaming services.
They as in Marchand and Ourand hadn't gotten anything or the advertisers? An did they mean the current advertisers or the advertisers that were considering buying spots? Regardless, is it really a shock that the advertisers weren't yet getting formal numbers after what, 8 weeks of a 34+ week season? I'd be surprised now that we've hit the midpoint if they hadn't gotten any though.
From whom is Apple and MLS seeking credibility from that it is so important they do it? Do they need credibility from paying subscribers? I'm a paying subscriber and my decision to continue with MLS doesn't depend on MLS/Apple proving to me that they have sufficient subscribers. I'm sure I am not the only one that thinks this way either for MLS or any other sports subscription. The only ones I can think of that do care how MLS/Apple is doing are those that aren't even watching the league in the first place but want to create headlines about MLS failing. If MLS were doing good they'll just move the goalpost and find something else to critize. As for the deal, no one can mention what was the other deal MLS had. If MLS would've continued with the same deal they had before the agenda now would be that MLS could never get a better deal because "it proves no one watches or cares about MLS".
Lost in all this is that in the last CBA the players negotiated a cut from the media money deal. Of course it's complicated on where the money kicks in but for all those who believe they should have taken less so that they might get more local exposure, I'm sure the players would disagree. In the next few years for the majority of players who will play their whole career in MLS, I'm sure they rather get paid now instead of hoping the game and league grow for future players.
This is a good point. Could any of us predicted what the televised sports landscape would look like now, compared to 2013? What will it look like near the end of this current deal with AppleTV in 2032? For that matter, what will MLS look like? Will it continue to grow? Will the same lineup of teams now be recognizable to those of us on BS that are still around? I look forward to seeing how the league and its television partners evolve over the next few years. Having a 30-team lineup by 2025 wasn't on many people's radars 10-15-20 years ago.
The TV landscape is going to look different to some of us for sure. I'd be shocked if ESPN didn't bundle or offer their flagship stations as a standalone streaming subscription or add ons to ESPN+. Once ESPN offers their flagship content outside of the cable bundles.....Cable TV will change significantly. Xfinity is going to be offering a scaled down streaming bundle of traditional cable channels soon too.
I didn't finish my thought as well as I had intended too before hitting post. I meant to say I'd be surprised if ESPN didn't do that by 2025, or possibly sooner.
Both, May 17th podcast, 30:50 thru 34:00 mark. Sounds like they aren't releasing data to anyone, which admittedly they say Apple is different but also if it was good data, it would be out there.
different discussion, but no one probably figured the league would rely on a stream of expansion cash landing about every other year in the current owner's pockets. When the NHL Vegas owner thought buying Bournemouth was a better deal than the MLS expansion fee for Las Vegas, that's an interesting observation
226k for USA vs Ecuador at the U20 World Cup on Telemundo 285k for Sporting vs Portland (seems Apple is really eating away at the Fox numbers... or MLS viewership is collapsing. Hopefully the former!) Liga MX playoffs beating the NHL this season.
Got some other stuff. Slovakia - USA on FS2 68k Nashville - Columbus 125k on FS1 (is Fox even going to come back as a partner?) Barcelona - Mallorca on ESPND 94k Tottenham - Leeds on CNBC 110k (with EPL games on all NBC stations at once such as...) West Ham - Leicester 95k on Syfy Women's Liga MX Monterey - Pachuca 60k on FoxD