Hm. That's an interesting point, I hadn't thought of it, but it makes sense. If you're a broadcaster looking at MLS as a property, one of the things you'd price into that equation is the odds that the broadcasts will 'click' and rise significantly during your contract. It's an off-chance, but it's kind of like betting a couple bucks on the longshot at the horse race, a small bet for a small probability of a big payout. If that's so, the longer the contract on offer, the more you make the broadcaster think about that. A 3 or 4 year deal, and you know MLS is re-shopping the rights as soon as you're starting to make real money. I also like the idea of MLS on Friday night. That way, the league's not competing with itself--in an average Saturday night game, half the people you'd like to have can't watch the game because they're going to a game.
Yeah, we have talked about this a lot here as one of the common variables that the league has to guage during negotiations. The NHL grabbed a fantastc contract, but it came with an enormous ten year window. It is be coming clearer that the networks are willing to overpay in the early years, for cost certainty down the road. The EPL bucks this trend because they like to sign short term deals in the 3 year range.
That is because the EPL is signing these deals in countries where there growth potential is enormous because of Soccer's incredible popularity. And the US is not a soccer frenzied nation but its on a large growth trend as well. Just starting from such a low point. The NHL wouldn't get anywhere near 200 million per year for 5 years or 3 years. And say they take a 5 year deal worth 550 million or something in hopes of cashing in later on. The risk of technology screwing the current system is to great versus risking that the last couple years of the 10 year deal they are under paid. Hockey is enjoying unsustainable growth because in 1966 there were SIX teams and only four of them were American. Chicago, NYR, Boston, and Detroit. Which are all cold Northern cities that are close to Canada and huge population centers. Baseball had 16 teams since 1903 and were over 20 by the early to mid 1950s. Football was a huge college sport a century ago. By 1946 Pro Football had two 10 team leagues. By 1966 the modern NFL formed with 24 teams. Basketball had around 9-10 teams in the 1940s-60s. Then went to 14. And another pro league formed with 9. The NHL in 1967 expanded to 12 teams(10 American teams). We have to remember many of those markets had no hockey footprint. In 1970 they added Vancouver and Buffalo which does nothing for hockey growth in the United States. In 1972 they added the New York Islanders and Atlanta Flames. New York was already a popular hockey market, call it a wash. In 1974 KC and Washington came to the NHL. In 1980 Quebec, Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Hartford came into the league. Again almost no help to grow hockey in America. In 1981 Atlanta goes to Calgary so the 21 team NHL consists of only 14 US franchises. Then in 1991 the NHL finally made a decent move to try and grow in the United States. With San Jose, Tampa bay, Anaheim, and Miami getting teams. Today there is still only 23 US teams. Half of them are barely two decades old. Another set is about 50 years old now. So it's certainly a golden age for hockey growth. The NHL projects a 71.2 milli0n cap next year and around 90 million in 2020. They are going with the safe route where they get top billing and if the tv rights thing is still a big money maker in 2021 or so. They might have advanced to get 350-550 million. But with only 23 teams in 20 markets. They can't grow as fast as the other sports did. However as we saw Canada makes up for a large part of that. If I were MLS I would take a 10 year 500 million dollar deal from NBSCN for exclusive rights ASAP if they offered it. It's guaranteed stability in spite of MLS having zero leverage. I bet NBC asks for all playoff game and the cup.
For me it's a practical issue. In a large country like the U.S., it makes a huge difference whether a game is at 1pm or 7pm. If it's at 1pm, I might need to fly in a day early, but I can probably get a flight out that night. Likewise a 7pm game allows me to fly in day of game, but I need to get a room that night. Flex scheduling forces me to either book early, but add a hotel room and (in most markets) a extra day's car rental - or wait until late and hope the airfares don't become unreasonable. A minor concern, I'll admit, but flex scheduling definitely affects traveling support and media.
This is something that most soccer fans don't get. Until the recent expansion boom in MLS, The entire player costs of MLS was less than that of any single NHL team. While MLS has made great strides creating its own niche, and solidifying it's future, the gap between the "big four" and MLS is still huge. Even with expansion and an increasing number of DPs, the entire wage load of MLS would be swallowed by two (at most three) NHL teams. Another way of looking at it. If you take a look at the top 23 paid Czech soccer players in the world. The top paid 23 Czechs in the National Hockey League blow them away in annual wages. That's why MLS has a chance to become one of the elite leagues in the world. The amount of money spent on the sport in the United States (and Canada) really does blow away the rest of the planet. A European super league will eventually happen - but the final impetus won't be internal pressures within UEFA, but the eventual threat to European club hegemony from Major League Soccer when it grows up. Now, we're almost certainly not talking 2022 (per MLS marketing), but the long term potential is there.
A question and one nit: Didn't the NHL level off there for a while (maybe the early 200's?) after their big expansion push, only to start growing again after the strike? I guess I could look this up but I am feeling lazy and perhaps you might just know. The nit: the AL expanded by 2 in 1961 and the NY by 2 in 1962 to reach 20. The leagues each expanded by 2 in 1969 to go to 24 total teams, and they also introduced divisional play at this time. Since the leagues were quite independent in those days, this ended the de facto "single table" in baseball. The single table crowd in baseball is not nearly as large or vocal as it is among American (US-ian) soccer fans, but it does exist. Because of tradition and all that.
And hasn't the gap been widening? MLS is growing at a higher % rate, but the "big four" are growing by more dollars/year. Eventually the gap should stop widening as MLS's total revenue gets higher, but it shows how far ahead the other leagues are in terms of revenue.
Nope. The only change since 2000(Columbus, Minnesota) was Atlanta relocating to Winnipeg 2 years back.
I think he was referring to Salary Caps. In which case he's right. But the main difference is that in 05-06 not only was there now a Salary Cap, there was also a Salary Floor. The net result was that within a couple seasons, aggregate salary spending in the NHL had eclipsed that of the last pre-lockout (03-04) season.
I was thinking NHL revenue had flattened out in the 2000's. There was a lot of expansion in the 90's, then you saw some of those teams having some trouble. Then a couple lockouts. I think revenue is up pretty healthily since the 2012 lockout, but wasn't sure what had happened earlier in the decade. I was thinking of the statement of "unsustainable growth" juxtaposed with a reference to the expansion from 6 teams, which took place a while ago (the late 60's).
The unsustainable growth was the driving force behind the lockouts. Half of the NHL is on par locally with a baseball or basketball team. The other half is closer to MLS teams. And I don't mean that as a knock on MLS. It just creates a massive revenue gap in hockey that while raising league revenue was killing the growth of the game in the have nots. It was so bad Winnipeg and Quebec succumb(also thanks to a weak currency in Canada then). NHL revenue went from somewhere around 500 million before the 1994 lockout to 1.8 billion in 2004. The NHL since 2005 has been increasing yearly revenue by almost 200 million+ per year. The 05-06 cap was 39.5 mil or so based on a 1.8 billion revenue. This year it's 4.0 billion. The tv deals are partly responsible. But mostly the NHL caters to fans with lots of $$$$$$$$$$$$ to burn. $250 Authentic Jerseys? lol yeah. If you can pay for your kid to play youth hockey you can pay 4K for season tix and jerseys every year. It's the nature of the beast since ice hockey requires so much money to even get to where the game can be played. NHL revenue is stupidly high vs actual popularity. The NHL is now hosting many outdoor games. Each game is said to bring anywhere from 30-50 million in revenue. So they won't be able to grow popularity as fast as they are finding ways to keep making boatloads of cash every year. For Ice hockey 500 million to 4.0 billion in twenty years is crazy. By 2020 they expect it to be around 6 billion. Which is why the players wouldn't budge. They have studies that I am sure told them the current explosion from 2005-12 will immediately kill any damage a lockout caused. last year tv ratings reached record highs. This year they are breaking them. Maybe hockey will catch on in the South. I doubt it. So once the brunt of growth is set on the shoulders of Dallas, Florida, Socal, Carolina, Tennessee and so on there should be a start leveling off. We will see. Hockey is big enough that cities like Dallas, Raleigh and Tampa get "cup fever". And for short periods like a Cup final they can pull huge tv ratings and be the toast of the town. So maybe there is a chance but compared to the original Northern markets or the 1960s/70s expansion markets it's not even close. In St. Louis our two highest rated games ever were in 1991 and 1996 vs Detroit. 1st round in 1991 pulled a 21.5 or so. In 1996 it was a game 7 semi-final pulled a 26.0. This was 25-30 years into the franchise. Only last year and this year have we broken our regular season tv ratings records(granted the old records were on broadcast not cable.) The Southern markets for those level of playoff games typically can't break 5.o for similar sized markets. So hockey may be working there but most of the fans are at the games and that is about it. If St. Louis made the cup final this year every game would be over a 40.0 local rating. But if it was Nashville it would be a half that at best if that. San Jose has barely reached 5.0 for Conference final games. It was that 25-30 year mark when hockey exploded in popularity in most of the 50 year old franchises now. MLS turns 20 in 2015. If they can get a strong 7-10 year tv deal that is worth the long term risk(like 50-60 million per year for English rights only) then I think they need to do it. When the deal is up MLS will likely be a 24-26 team league(22-23 American teams. Any potential lost tv money at the end of the deal is nothing vs having MLS on a go to destination for all national media rights like NBCSN. Hockey fans bitched so hard about Versus. Now the league has a stable national home where they are well promoted and taken care of. A home that has the freedom to grow with them vs being a 2 hour block of filler on ESPN. NBCSN can give MLS that home. But they won't until MLS gives them 100 percent exclusive rights.
friday night would be the thing to try. i think enough people have picked up on that at this point. but the thing still is, if you're going to lose in the ratings against minor league poker reruns, the slot is somewhat moot.
I don't see any chance of $50-$60 million for English alone. Even the most bullish guy in the media is predicting $45-$50 million for both English and Spanish together.
In the end though, it may not matter much to MLS, even if that is true. If I understand the mechanism correctly, MLS does not keep the entire rights fee. SUM represents both MLS and US Soccer in the negotiations and they likely will know the exact proportions of the fee that will go to US Soccer vs going to MLS.
NHL did a great job with last tv deal. Basically used ESPN to get NBCSN to get a bigger deal. Glad NHL stayed with NBCSN. They respected hockey more than ESPN. http://m.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2011/04/25/Media/NHL-media-rights.aspx? Love to see MLS do the same thing.
Have there been any BPL ratings posted lately? I sense there's been less enthusiasm over the last few weeks...
I believe it will pick up over the next few weeks with the top of the table being so congested, and we could see ridiculous numbers come march if it stays close like this.
I stopped compiling them here as some people complained about them not belonging in this thread. They are still posted in other forums though if you are interested. Here is the latest batch https://www.bigsoccer.com/community/...cup-etc-part-iii.1991211/page-9#post-29255140
Here is a question for you guys to consider and comment on. For this question, lets stipulate that the US Nats will have an affect on the next round of negotiations even beyond just raising their portion of the contract, in that they may have an affect on the MLS portion as well. You are representing SUM. You have the choice of completing negotiations before the WC starts or after it finishes. Which do you choose when gauging the possibility of a qf appearance by US or a 3 loss and out WC by US and anything in between. Which do you choose?
I'd love this as long as NBCSN supplement the number of games we lose on ESPN. Especially if some of those games end up on NBC ... maybe 1 game per month.
it doesn't need to be at the top of the sports heap in the US to be at the top of the global soccer heap though. as far as the economic climate of the NASL vs MLS, you have to account for factors like inflation, the increased cost of necessities like heating, food, gasoline in comparison to more stagnant income and the concentration of wealth. we've seen a significant transfer of wealth from a large swath of the middle class, to the top tier of wealthy americans through this last economic down turn. less americans have much discretionary income, and those that do are faced with the fact that it purchases far less. its a much more complex comparison then comparing high level economic indicators through the two time periods.