Yes, it would have been worth it. Be real, Pete -- season ticket holders have ALWAYS paid extra to watch their team's road games, except for what limited time a team's games were on over-the-air TV. Cable wasn't free. And some cable systems made you upgrade to a higher tier to have Fox Sports or Bally's or FanDuel starting next week (or whatever the hell it was). Now, for a lot of people, it might not have FELT like they were paying extra, if they already subscribed to a cable package and they had access to those channels anyway. That's the real difference here. But those games were behind some form of paywall for the overwhelming majority of the time. It's just a standalone now -- you either buy it or you don't. What they probably should have done, as suggested above, is to give it to STHs at a discounted price rather than for free. I mean, getting that package for free is one hell of a perk, given how much content is available for an MLS fan. So if they start charging them for it now, it's going to ruffle some feathers. But I think the benefit would outweigh the drawbacks. There are going to be more STHs who are big enough fans of not only their team but the league overall who will purchase Season Pass than will cancel their season ticket for their favorite club because a $99 benefit doesn't exist anymore.
There are always going to be price hikes. Either giving the Season Pass away for free is a good business decision or it's not. This would be unfortunate timing, but it is what it is. My solution? STH should pay half price. You're only using it to watch half of your team's games (apart from watching bonus content and re-watches), so give them a discount. And then, if the individual teams want to absorb all or part of the cost of their subscription as a perk, they get to. For example, if a Crew season ticket holder wants to have Season Pass (and if it's going to cost them now, it should be optional, not mandatory), MLS should charge them $50 for it. The Crew could charge them the $50, but then make up for some of it by throwing in a $25 food and beverage voucher or just straight discounting their tickets by $25.
True. But they also get a plethora of other things for that same subscription fee. If people pay $130/mo or whatever for a TV subscription just for Crew games, fine. That's on them...but do they not realize that same cost includes sports on ESPN, movies on TNT, news on a plethora of channels, etc? A TV might be on 45 hours per week. At most, 6/45 hours might be Crew games...what is that, about 15% of the time it's on? It's a lot harder to justify an additional fee for MLS Season Pass when a season ticket holder is at approximately half their team's games and may have minimal interest in the other games due to: 1) The vast majority of games starting at 7:30pm local time. 2) The playoff system meaning very little when two teams from the opposite conference play each other. A 50% discount might work. What might be better? Games all day. Games on Sundays. Games throughout the week. Let me watch Philly @ KC before I head to a home game. Let me come home from a game that might not be at 7:30 and here's the tail end of DC @ Dallas. Are people really watching games not involving their team's conference, especially early in the season?
I wonder if the STH's who get it for free count as subscribers for revenue sharing purposes? How close is MLS to hitting those thresholds?
Have we considered that he's discussing the long-term viability after Messi leaves and their current bump in sales and attendance.....aw, who am I kidding, Don would never think more than six months ahead.
Some of the numbers have been released. https://9to5mac.com/2024/12/06/inside-details-on-apple-mls-deal-viewership-revealed-in-new-report/
So that’s about 35,000 fans per teams on average. *doing math in background* Yeah, I really doubt Apple is making money from this deal. They might be getting lucky and breaking even, but that’s a really really really big might be. The value for Apple is that they get to figure out how to handle a full league sports package for a small fee (compared to something like MLB or NBA). 94% of viewers saying Apple is better than the previous deals. My only question is what are those other 6% of fans smoking that they think it’s worse? Besides start times needing to be staggered, Apple has been phenomenal.
I think what they meant to say was: "To make matters worse for MLS, the 2024 TV number was down almost 50% compared to last year when the Columbus Crew hosted the final."
I thought I responded to this, but I guess not. There *are* a number of casual fans who would tune in if the games were on "regular TV." OSU gets the same types of complaints when football games end up on Peacock. (I had to tell my tailgate group to sign up for Peacock's Black Friday promotion on the sole basis of the exclusive games...it's well worth it just for that alone.) There's also people who don't want another "plus app" or "another fee" or "thing to remember to cancel" or whatnot. Maybe it's just me, but the "thing to remember to cancel" irks me. Yeah, it's supposedly harder to cancel than it is to sign up, but I don't have that experience. Whenever I get a promotion, I immediately put the end date in my calendar app. If it's something I can cancel right away like Paramount+ or Peacock, I do so. I also still write down the end date. There was just one "surprise increase" I've faced and the company admitted it was on their end. But yeah, the 6% has a legit gripe...but that's on them. They could fix the start times, especially in colder months. Some teams would definitely see more people for a 3pm game in April vs a 7:30 one.
I've watched both Bundesliga matches on regular tv this year. I got to see some of ESPN+ at my brother's over Thanksgiving. Was disappointed to realize that the Soccer Made in Germany they have is only 10 episodes. They must have hundreds in their archives, but they haven't put those up. Takes away a lot of the desire to get ESPN+.
When it comes to Apple subscriptions, what I do is sign up for the free trial or whatever and then immediately go and cancel it. You still get the initial trial period. I am sure that would work on all subscriptions not just trial ones
The drive to survive produced MLS series launches on February 21. Off the pitch and on the record. An access-all-areas look at MLS. 🎬Onside: Major League Soccer premieres Feb 21 on Apple TV+ 🍿 pic.twitter.com/OstUXvToHV— Major League Soccer (@MLS) January 9, 2025 It is also MLS media day in Florida. Nancy and Berhalter are there. Not sure about the players in attendance.