How will the Don be remembered after he retires?

Yes. That's why people watch the EPL, because Arsenal, Liverpool. Manchester United, Manchester City and Chelsea are community run clubs that put entertainment before revenue*

I think there is a proportion of the US soccer community that doesn't believe that MLS doesn't operate in the best interests of soccer in the USA and some of those have significant YouTube and X channels.

*Anyone who believes that Football League and Premier League owners have ever operated in anything other than self-interest needs to do some reading.

 

I'm just not sure that MLS owners would be able to get access to the the Ivory Towers of sport in the US.
MLS in the US is still viewed very much as a niche league, for a niche sport. Granted, it's a bigger niche than it used to be. But I'm not sure the Ivory towers would allow them in (except in cases of dual MLS and NFL or NBA, NHL or MLB ownership, in which case they already have the tower keys).
The US soccer community that believes that also believes that a national team is actually a team, that promotion and relegation is all about promotion, except when it punishes bad owners (good teams don't go down, and are not ruined, by relegation) and that every European league, from the English Prem to the Greek Superliga and Belgian whatever is vastly superior to the play in MLS.
The US soccer community that despises MLS is actually working against the future of the sport in the US.

 

I think that the narrative is that it is a bit of a ponzi scheme with owners cashing in on these ridiculously high expansion franchise fees and of course that Apple TV contract (even if there is nobody watching the product).

 

Okay, but that is quite silly. Clearly, MLS exists, so when people pay the obscenely high entrance fees, they know what they are getting and they get it. And, to be fair, the market has kind of set the price at obscene, as more than enough folks are willing and able to pay. It's nothing like a ponzi scheme.
If we consider the point of a TV contract to be to generate money for the clubs, this Apple deal is doing exactly that.
Most previous MLS TV deals were loss-leaders, somehow selling below an already very low value in order to grow the game.
They didn't work.
The Apple deal seems to acknowledge that it's a niche product in the US.
I'd understand the disappointment more from the perspective of Apple, though moving the deal to regular Apple subscription would seem to solve that problem, at bit perhaps. Still, it hasn't worked out for them.
MLS clubs meanwhile have brought in a least $1 million to perhaps $2 million more each season from TV revenue. These are crap numbers for a lot of leagues, but MLS has never had decent TV revenue.
Yes, it would have been better for MLS to get a broadcast and major streaming deal for twice the amount they got etc, but that was not on the table.

 

The TV revenue per club isn't great but if you look at total revenue per team, it's the 6th highest of any soccer league that isn't run by the Saudi government.

 

The previous MLS TV deals also included the broadcast rights for the US National Teams. This last TV deal was the first since the early aughts that was just MLS. Apple was the only broadcaster that offered more then the previous TV deal, and quite significantly more. MLS wanted the seperate Season Pass Package. That hasn't worked out how the league had hoped. Apple wants to be in the sports broadcasting business. Having MLS on Apple TV (not Season pass) makes sense for everyone.

MLS' biggest problem is that the traditional broadcasters don't see enough value in MLS as a TV/streaming product. That's not going change anytime soon either. ESPN bid LESS then they were paying for MLS in the last go round of TV rights bidding. Fox wasn't all that interested either. Paramount and NBC said no thanks, we're not interested enough to even put in a bid.

MLS does an extremely crappy job of promoting itself, and always has since it launched. That's it in a nutshell. Instead of taking responsibility for itself, and taking advantage of the massive platform and opportunity that Apple is providing them some league execs choose to blame Apple instead. Apple has given the league the freedom to choose it's own game broadcast windows..... the games are broadcast in 1080i HD..... they gave MLS it's own channel within Apple TV..... that the leagues teams have contributed minimal content for.... Apple advertisers MLS in its' retail stores, and throughout all of their platforms (News+, their sports app, Apple TV, etc... ESPN and Fox NEVER offered the league that.

The EPL is not taking NBC's money to advertise their product. The EPL provides NBC Sports with shouldering programming, broadcast feeds, commentators, etc.. In order to grow it's product the NFL launched is' own TV Network in the early aughts because its' broadcast partners weren't doing a good enough job in their eyes of promoting the NFL and telling its' stories.

Garber's legacy is largely positive. The lack of a breakthrough media presence is one of the few negatives of his time as steward of the league. At the end of the day there's only so much Garber can do though. He's the public face and spokesperson for the leagues owners (investor/operators). If the owners aren't willing or simply can't gain consensus on a path forward Garber's hands are tied.

 

@jaykoz3 are you sure the last pre Apple deal included national teams? I thought that ended one or two TV contracts ago. But I stopped closely following league business news a while back when I became confident the league wasn’t dying.

 

U.S. Soccer, MLS-owned Soccer United Marketing parting ways after nearly 20 years

https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_...united-marketing-parting-ways-nearly-20-years

MLS, U.S. Soccer sign landmark TV and media rights partnerships with ESPN, FOX & Univision Deportes


https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/mls-...-media-rights-partnerships-espn-fox-univision