The last holdover from MLS Extra Time has been laid off. I used to love the days of Wiebe, Gass, Doyle and Bobby, all the way back to Simon Borg. I know they were limited in how critical they could be on the League but they still did a great job of providing and inside view of the league and its teams. I miss those guys. I don't get what MLS is doing as a replacement.
I believe what they are doing is getting away from stories about MLS and journalism as the league website switches to AI and just reporting on games AP style. What's happening is the days of corporate media is slowly coming to an end and a switch to independent journalism/podcast coverage on the internet is slowly becoming the new media. You can watch a podcast for almost every team that's more critical than what you would get from extra time.
It is and keeps growing each year. What else are you looking for? Soccerwise is now former MLS media and current doing a podcast.
MLS is a professional sports league. It shouldn’t be pretending to do sports journalism. Bogert now writes for The Athletic, which is a lot more independent, legitimate sports journalism than what he was able to do with MLS, which was more marketing pretending to be journalism.
I agree. The problem was in the past media ignored soccer and MLS and the league needed to create it to market the league. I'm speculating they believe they don't need to fill that gap anymore.
If anyone is interested. Doyle has created a subscription website where you can see his work. https://bsky.app/profile/mattdoyle.bsky.social/post/3mewyuaqkoc2e
My hot take on Major League Soccer Media. It’s basically all the same people hyping each other up and it’s always the same voices who get platformed year over year. Basically leads to a group think on opinions and basically not much original thought and a lot of basic analysis— Eric Friedlander (@Efried97) February 17, 2026 If MLS isn't willing to pay people to cover itself, why should anyone? These thoughts and more as I go scorched earth on Matt Doyle leaving MLS Soccer:https://t.co/rM5TByUX20 pic.twitter.com/BxKbllVEJN— Matt Pollard (@LWOSMattPollard) February 16, 2026
As a follow up to the above post. I still enjoy reading articles. I'm fortunate that the Philadelphia Union have great "Supporter Reporters" covering them. As well as a few legit reporters as well. This is most definitely not the case elsewhere around the league. Times change. I grew up waiting for the weekly/monthly magazines (Sports Illustrated, EW, EGM, GamePro, etc.). I also looked forward to reading the newspaper everyday (well at least the comics and the sports sections, lol). I grew from reading physical media, to reading the same information from websites. That eventually turned into reading the articles in an app on my tablet/phone. Now instead of reading articles, I mainly listen to short news videos or podcasts to get the same information. A few years ago Fox Sports moved away from print written articles on their website. They were merely getting out ahead of the curve. They saw the changing landscape. The younger generations simply consume their information differently then we did growing up. I imagine this isn't too dissimilar to when things went from the radio, to a handful of television channels, and then eventually to a PAY TV model. Now today it's a different PAY TV model (streaming). The changing media consumer landscape isn't the problem. The fact that MLS and it's "leaders" have been saying for the past 6 odd years that they need to figure out how to capitalize on the Copa America, Club World Cup and the World Cup being in America to propel MLS forward and still have not laid out a plan is the biggest unsolved problem. The hack and slash cuts to the media and website is just part of the problem without a solution in sight. This sadly happens all too often at organizations these days. They use metrics to drive their decisions, instead of using them what they are actually for. The metrics are the report card of the business world. They let you know what you're good at, and where you need to improve. The one area over 3 decades that MLS has ALWAYS looked awful..... TV ratings/relevance...... Cutting back on your broadcast quality (talent, content creators, cameras, on site broadcasts, etc..) is not how you improve this metric..... The harsh reality is that overall the owners are penny pinching cheapskates looking for short term gains over long term growth and profits. Which, to be fair, given the age bracket of the average MLS owner part of me understands that view. Then again, if the league truly wants a better TV product they need to actually invest in it, and treat it like a startup. ESPN and Fox weren't willing to pay more then they previously had for the TV rights. Paramount and NBC didn't bother to show up to the bid meeting. MLS' TV partner has no issue putting F1's content on their outlet. Why? Oh that's right, F1 already produces high quality content. Most of MLS' content is of such low quality that Apple won't allow it on their platform outside of the gameday content. Not sure if Doyle was interested in it, but you mean to tell me that MLS couldn't turn his content into a weekly 10-15 minute video series? Or folded it into a weekly MLS show highlighting the best stories for the week? This league is so frustrating to follow at times.
I find this very disappointing as I always made a point to read Doyle's articles (the only other one on MLS's website I would read for very different reasons is Sam Jones). Doyle did more than just the standard fluff pieces that most of the others, especially the former players, seem to do.
As has been noted, Doyle is still out there: He posted his 2026 season predictions on the Soccerwise podcast a day ago: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/soccerwise/id1752138229 Also available on his Tactics Free Zone website: https://tacticsfreezone.ghost.io/2026-predictions-mvp-defender-of-the-year-and-more/ And his first Power Rankings a few days ago: https://tacticsfreezone.ghost.io/my-first-power-rankings-vote-of-the-2026-mls-season/ This year seems to really mark the flip away from a one-stop-shop league-generated and controlled content landscape to one where numerous independent channels (websites, newsletters, podcasts) exist that fans will need to seek out and, in many cases, subscribe to and pay for. I'm somewhat hopeful that, for fans wanting real analysis and deep discussion. it'll be a welcomed change. It'll also be less convenient and may require a modest outlay of $$ to actually access much of that material.
So, they took away ExtraTime Radio. They took away MLS Season Pass. They took away MLS Wrap Up. They took away Matt Doyle. They took away MLS Fantasy (sorry, but that replacement on Kickbase looks terrible). What will they take away next??? Who do I send my strongly worded letter to? Signed, Not Happy
They didn't take away season pass, they just moved it out of the separate paywall. It's now just MLS on Apple TV. Matt Doyle is now free from the MLS HQ shackles too! https://www.youtube.com/live/mdwMnh6vy_c?si=6Hisg00sARl675-O
Because leagues in mature markets don't pay for their own media. So the grammar of the tweet is insanely dumb.
Since when? The 4 other men's leagues in the US all have their own media that they pay for... As does the Premier League...
I'm kind of wondering what this guy does for the champions of the biggest league (financially) in the world then. https://www.seahawks.com/team/front-office-roster/kenton-olson Kenton Olson Vice President of Digital & Emerging Media