The 2020 MLS TV thread

Who would have thunk 20 years ago or even just 10 years ago that I could turn on the television and watch San Marino vs Gibraltar (ESPN3) or Malta vs Andora (TUDN cable) live?

Soccer has come a long way towards mainstream in this country!

The population of those four added together is less than 750 k

 

Would you also have thought that the biggest games would be behind a paywall over streaming? Soccer has moved further away from the mainstream and further into the niche in the last 5 years.

 

Most soccer games are and have always been behind paywalls. There are more games today over the air as well.
TUDN is behind the cable paywall. ESPN3 is behind a cable paywall.

 

Other than OTA networks, everything is behind some type of paywall.

 

From a MLS standpoint it's not great that ESPN+ alone shows well over 100 games per week.

 

WorldSoccerTalk soccer ratings will now only be a part of the podcast and I am not going to be sitting there and listening to those idiots, so I guess I am now limited to whatever I come across on Twitter.

 

What a fucking waste of an electricity bill

— Depressed Buffs Fan (@DaddyDoBronx) November 24, 2020

Philly care about the Union now?

 

Why blue?

 

Heh didn't mean to highlight the 1 negative tweet lol

 

Some TV Ratings from the TVA Sports - the French sports channel in Quebec

MTL vs New England : 81 000

But the other games didn't do so great

Samedi Sportif à la TV.

Moyenne à la minute d'audience:

TVA Sports
Reprise #IMFC : 8 700
Avant-match #MLS : 600
Orlando-NYCFC: 5 900
Columbus-NYRB: 800

Au même moment sur RDS
Passion autos: 13 600
Dek hockey: 15 900
UFC: 16 400
Escalade: 4 700

— Nilton Jorge (@NiltonJorge) November 25, 2020

 

Mls taking to existing broadcasters and maybeTurner.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradadgate/2020/11/11/expect-tv-rights-fees-for-sports-to-soar/

My opinion:

Having a broadcaster that wasn't focused on other sports or leagues would be great. Ratings may not increase initially but knowing that there will be a have at a particular time and day every week would be a huge step forward.

 

Everyone hated Turner doing CL I thought.

 

TFC playoff game drew strong numbers

#TV ratings for #CanPL @ForgeFCHamilton team against Tauro FC brought in Av. Minute Audience of 6,200 (TSN3 only). Game against Arcahaia had AMA of 37,400 (TSN2). #TFC's last #MLS play-off game vs. Nashville: 157,700 (last 2 are overnight data). #CanPl #Concacaf #MLS #Soccer 🇨🇦

— Koen@KR United Media (@KRunitedMedia) December 4, 2020

Regarding the next TV Contract here in Canada

There are rumors that MediaPro Canada will make a serious move to bid for the rights for MLS in Canada. Right now they have a streaming service only but are planning to launch a TV channel, I'm guessing MLS would be key for that happening.

MediaPro holds all the rights to all National teams excluding WCQ and World Cup, Gold Cup and Nations League, all CPL and L1O rights, Liga MX, Belgian League and some of Ligue 1.

 

SKC vs MNUFC on Fox averaged 872K viewers and got a 0.2 tv rating

 

That's because they treated it as an afterthought in a way not seen in the US since the 90s...

 

That's like... all star game level ratings... Why so high?

 

It was on Fox. Anything OTA in Prime Time is going to get high ratings.

 

It replaced Thursday Night Football which averages about 10 million.

 

Two questions:

1) Should we expect decent ratings for a potential Seattle vs Columbus MLS Cup match?
2) Is there no English language coverage of the USA vs El Salvador match?

 

1. <= 1 million
2. ESPNnews and presumably ESPN+

 

I would love to see > 1 million but that is wishful thinking. If Minnesota win and face Columbus we could be looking at < 500k

 

Last year of was 823k English and 447k Spanish.

Minnesota and Columbus might wake up and realize they are both historic soccer cities. I think a lot of people would be happy not to see Seattle in the final, but Porter vs Schmetzer final might motivate Cascadia to turn on their TVs.

 

Having teams from two US markets should do better than an MLS Cup involving one Team from a US market...

 

Not necessarily. TFC are very watchable. I imagine ratings in Canada will suffer a bit but % wise they'll get numbers that SUM can only dream of in the US.

 

While it's true that TFC was a very watchable team, MLS is very market driven with regards to TV ratings and having a Canadian market in the MLS Cup had a fairly significant impact in the US ratings for the MLS Cups they were in. Obviously there was a significant increase in the Canadian viewership and, I believe, it more than made up for the reduction in the US ratings, but that increase in Canadian ratings doesn't matter to the US broadcasters.

If the MLS Cup ends up being Columbus and Seattle, I'd expect the US ratings for the MLS Cup to be higher than the US ratings for the Seattle/TFC MLS Cups simply because you'll have fans for Columbus and Seattle watching the games. I also wouldn't be too surprised if the US ratings for a Columbus/Minnesota MLS Cup to be higher than the Seattle/TFC MLS Cups, but I definitely don't expect there to be a significant drop to below 500k that Centennial predicted.