I'm sorry to come up with this but since we are reviving old topics, we might as well throw this one in the package. If I remember correctly Univision was the MLS official spanish network the very first years of MLS. I remember watching my first Metro game there. Then Telemundo took over for a year or two? It wasn't that much, it was one game on saturday or sunday but we had something; when I say "we", I mean the ones who want to see more coverage in national tv because honestly no matter what language it is, if they do a good job, we'll watch it! and this is national non-cable coverage, do you know how important that is for the league growth? Why hasn't MLS done something to bring these games back to any of these venues. It's not the lack of space, we all know Univision Networks owns Telefutura and Galavision and the three are plagued with games from the Mexican league. (Telemundo might be a problem since they're owned by NBC and MLS and ABC are partners). But this is where the problem is: Ignoring MLS is not enough but they take every chance to discredit this league as well and we see it every sunday or soccer event they come out with. This would not happen if a contract existed such as the one they have(Uni Networks and Telemundo) with the Mexican league. It's true they interviewed Donovan and Mastro three weeks ago but how long could they ignore the 2-0? Garber, do something!!!
MLS dropped the broadcasts because no one liked games in the middle of the Sat or Sunday afternoon constantly. In most cities the games were poorly attended, the games had horrendous game time temperatures, and the quality of the games suffered as a result. The SLN's (Spanish Language Networks) did not care about those issues...they wanted cheap filler for a dead time. MLS no longer wanted to appease them, so they parted company. Good riddance. Most of the commentary was mildly insulting, a little of it outright biased against the League. And this fact will never change.
But a KC-TB game at Arrowhead Stadium with 90 degrees on the field and 4 K fans was no their best effort.
As undersand it, the ONLY timeslot offered to MLS by Univision and Telemundo was Sunday afternoon (lke 1:00pm ET). MLS said thanks, but no thanks.
No offense intended! Just saying they could be more diverse in their games being that they have so much space and power.
But why not run Sat games on tape delay on Sunday? I agree that MLS made the right decision. But that's only if we assume that the games must be live. It's very common for all the Spanish-language nets in the US to show tape-delayed games - same day, next day, sometimes even several days' delay. And the results of many of these tape-delay games are widely reported on Spanish-language sports radio before the tv broadcast. The Sunday 1 pm ET broadcast could just be one of the Sabado de Futbol games from the previous night. The nets are accustomed to doing this and their viewers are accustomed to seeing it. Actually, only the broadcasts done by Andres and Norberto had a negative tone [I'm not trying to re-open a Norberto negativity v legit criticism debate - we can probably all accept that there's a widespread perception, right or wrong, among many fans about his attitude]. The broadcasts that Jorge Ramos and Ricardo Mayorga did were, if anything, very enthusiastic about MLS. If MLS went on the Univision nets (Univision, TeleFutura, Galavision), then Mayorga may well be the analyst again and I think most MLS fans would be very happy with that. Of course, we'd also probably have to take Pablo Ramirez as the pbp, but his issues have nothing to do with MLS or American soccer.
You know, if the rumored MLS/FSW deal comes through, I suppose it could mean that MLS games will be on FSW and FSW Espanol. Obviously, FSWE doesn't have the reach of Univision, for example, but it will real a lot of Spanish-speaking soccer fans.
Univision and Telemundo should think about an SAP in English. A lot of non-Spanish speaking fans might be more encouraged to watch. It could only increase their viewership.
In past years that would've run afoul of Disney's English language broadcast rights. Since the "exlucivity" clause was pulled from the current contract, that's an interesting idea.
I understand Univision and Telemundo not wanting to give MLS a good time slot on the weekends considering that they have many of their own programs that they'd like to show, But what about Telefutura and Galavision? These two channels show a lot of MFL on the weekends but I'm sure that it wouldn't kill them to show an MLS game in the evening. Usually they don't show anything good on at night on the weekends, therefore it would be a good oppurtunity to show some games.
MLS v. Cine de las Estrellas You can browse Univision, TeleFutura, and Galavision weekend programming here: http://www.univision.com/content/content.jhtml?cid=69389 I'm not so sure that MLS could beat out "Beetlejuice," "Daniel el Travieso," or the like in prime time. I'm not even sure that MLS could do better than "Willy Wonka y su Fábrica de Chocolates." But I'll bet MLS could hold its own against "Qué pasa USA?"
Having MLS on the spanish networks would definetly benefit MLS . If MLS and one of this networks could find a way that would be a compromise to both and make it work. Someone suggested tape delayed broadcasts and SAP, that sounds pretty good of an arangement to me. Delayed broadcast might even allow the network to pick the game it wants to show.