Apple TV buys all MLS broadcast rights for 10 years

Civic pride is the only way. Takes hard work and time. Garber & Company are lazy and stupid. Latest example, the rape of Vancouver.

 

So "MEX" also don't understand english?

 

I don't know about other teams but I read that the Earthquakes are getting a total of $6.6 million dollars a year from this Apple TV Deal.

I am not sure of sponsorship dollars or other revenues that they may be receiving but this is what they are getting for their share of the cash split.

If this is the total sum that they are getting, that doesn't even equal the price of a defender from abroad and I don't see the overall lure of this deal.

 

All I know is that every few months my wife goes through what streaming apps we are paying for. And we have the same conversation.
Wife: “Why do we need Paramount “?
Me: “It has a lot of soccer on it that I watch”.
Wife: “Why do we need Peacock”?
Me: “That has the Premier League”?
Wife: “What about AppleTV”?
Me: “That’s where I watch the Quakes when they are on the road. And it’s free during the MLS season”.

 

I wouldn’t say Garber et al are lazy and stupid. They are just trying to shortcut England's 100 year development process of its fan base. But the fact that we are Not top 3 in major leagues just means MLS will never get there.

I thought the concussion crisis would dampen NFL following, but no. I thought the slowness of baseball would eventually give way to soccer, but no. The only spot we might surpass is hockey (if we haven’t already?), but then maybe F1 will beat both of us.

 

It takes a very very long time to get to "never".

 

All of those other sports you mention have been around in the US for far longer than MLS. Who knows where MLS will be after a similar amount of time?

 

Moving teams does not shortcut (or expedite) fan base development. Instead, it short-circuits development.

Even in Miami, despite being grifted a championship, fans are getting wise to the fact that their "club" does not give a shit about them. There's no "development" of a fan base there.

 

The first 10 years of the league were mostly dealing with survival but the progress MLS has made from 2006 until now is pretty incredible.

The relocation of our Quakes team sucked but I don't think there has been any other sports league in history who has made the strides MLS has in this short period of amount time.

There is still a long way to go but if the next decade is any indication of what the last 10-15 years brought, there is no telling where the league can go.

 

MLS is 30. The NBA (formed in 1946) was much further along at age 30 (in 1976).



NBA at age 29. (Garage man cave).

 

The Earthquakes in 1976 also seemed light years ahead of where the current team is now.

 

NASL was a different league.

But it is further to my point, that relocating the MLS Quakes in 2005 set the league back in this market. A Wooden Spoon expansion franchise was substituted for a dynasty. They lost fans and have had a hard time getting them back with John Fisher's mickey mouse approach to running a franchise.

The fact that we think of our Club as going back to 1974 -- and Vancouver fans now do, too -- is entirely the work of the fans, and not the brainchild of Garber & Co. Indeed, the league opposed the name Sounders for Seattle.

The league suits don't get it and never have.

 

Wow, the game was slow back then. Is that 3/4 speed?

 

There was no VAR , few yellow and red cards, a lot of hacks , no running box to box so players didn't have to run around like chickens with their heads cut off.

 

The game was just slower - it's not because of VAR or cards. Happens in every sport. Watch an NBA game from 50 years ago, or NFL. Just a lot slower. Baseball - the pitches are a lot faster now, etc. Faster doesn't mean better, but it does mean faster.

 

I remember having the same conversation 40 years ago when comparing MLB hitters and pitchers from the 1940's to the 1980's.....

 

Been a lot of advances in training and nutrition over the years. Ken Stabler and George Best methods are frowned upon these days.

 

My guess is that the reason sports get "faster" is that it's kind of low hanging fruit. Faster, at the same level of skill, is generally gonna be better, and with a population that's about triple what it was in 1950, the selection pool is much larger. So the players who are biologically faster, again, with similar skill level, tend to rise to the top. With 3x the population, there will be more biologically faster players in the pool. Plus, improved training and diet.

Thinking about someone like Shea Salinas. Average skill level, high speed level (even by his own assessment!). If he had average speed he probably wouldn't have been a successful MLS player. And his skill level is probably no better or possibly worse than the average NASL player. Just guessing...

 

Back to this Apple TV Deal, I think the owners are starting to regret it.

I mean getting $6.6 million cash split a year can't be all that enticing.

 

They're cutting the deal 3.5 years short (end in June 2029 instead of Dec 2032) so it's probably safe to say it hasn't been a slam dunk for anyone. MLS did get out ahead when it comes to worldwide distribution as well as the problem of how to dump the RSNs and manage their rights through the decline of linear TV more generally, but they'll want to field more ambitious bids from Disney, Netflix, Amazon et al. leading into 2029.

 

Meanwhile, they cannot make deal with any deals with other networks and are stuck until 2029.

 

Why would MLS, Apple, or any new streamers want to enter negotiations before seeing the post-World Cup viewership / attendance numbers? Probably going to start during / after the 1H2027 sprint half-season.

 

Yeah, we shouldn't assume that MLS leaves Apple in 2029. Depends on how things go between now and then, and if there's enough mutual interest to come up with a new deal.

 

My point is, even if MLS would love to leave the deal prior to 2029, they cannot because they are legally locked with Apple until then.

 

If it was not mutually beneficial or didn't have the potential to be, seems to me that they could have negotiated a sooner end to the deal? My guess is that this was a hedging of bets. Hey, let's not get stuck in too long if it's not working, but let's give it another 4-5 years and then see how it's going.