Paul you're getting authentic sporting competition with that #33/month!!! The highs and lows, drama of Promotion and relegation battles!!!! It's not that plastic MLS experience on Apple for $99 for a season!!! In all seriousness though, Notts is your club. You grew up supporting them. Difficult to put a price on that.
And there's very little season left! Though your not jumping at paying $33 to watch their final month does tell me something about your commitment.
Looks like afternoon Sunday games on Fox are getting some audience tuning in even with Apple season pass also showing the same games. Según @paulsen_smw, el Portland/LAFC de MLS obtuvo 196.000 viewers en FOX el sábado. Mis datos dicen que es la cifra #MLS más baja de la historia en FOX.Audiencia #mlstv esta semana:- 340.000 St Louis/Austin FOX+D- 316.000 Atlanta/Philly FOX+D- 235.000 Portland/LAFC FOX+D— Jaime Ojeda (@jaimeor96) April 16, 2024
The 2.4 million people who watched last night's WNBA draft on ESPN is the largest WNBA audience for ANYTHING since 2000 (A Liberty/Comets game that averaged 2.74 million). The previous record for the draft was 601,000 in 2004. Absolutely incredible.— Claire Watkins (@ScoutRipley) April 16, 2024
That last one is really really low for the main Fox channel. Of course they also spend very little on the games so they might be ok with it.
It's a comparison. Just putting into context just how small viewership is for MLS even when it is on network TV.
Yup but his debut wasn't on Fox. It did do surprisingly poor on Univision, but brought in over a million paid subscriptions.
At 36 I would say no but definitely a huge impact for pushing a league that was on the rise already possibly even higher. For me Beckham was bigger because MLS was more minor league infrastructure wise, compared to today when almost every team has state of the art facilities with stadium, academy and training center. Years later you might say Beckham has been involved in the two biggest moments in the league's history.
I think Messi is bigger. Beckham was a star but he was never a top 10 global player. I also don't think the American public was as aware of what players meant to the game in 2007. But Beckham was the right player at the right time. And of course he brought about the Beckham rule. Messi is a phenomenon that transgresses sports. He's a Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods. And the American public is a lot but knowledgeable. You only have to look at the attendances and how much people are willing to pay. Beckham's first game in KC attracted 26,211.
I guess that if they decided to have Clark's first WNBA game at Lucas Oil it would sell out at $200+ each. Americans like basketball stars (women included) more than soccer stars.
You're making my point in a way. Beckham opened the door for MLS and made it more mainstream. Messi has taken advantage of that open door that Beckham opened for him..... Literally by bringing him to Miami.
The difference between the boosts provided by Clark and Messi is that nobody thinks of watching Messi as doing a good deed or eating their vegetables. Lots of people consider women's sports a good thing and are happy to participate in a shared spectacle that supports that good idea, but relatively few of them are actually interested in spending money to watch a mundane midseason game on some random Tuesday night. They aren't really fans of basketball (or soccer, or gymnastics, or whatever) so much as fans of an ideal that can be celebrated on a high profile stage every so often.
That's part of it but there is also the curiosity factor of how good is she and eventually some people will watch a mid-season game because they became fans. Same with Messi and Beckham, but my point, Beckham like Clark are starting from a point that isn't as mainstream, they are building a fan base that grows the sport/league for the future. 26K was mentioned for Beckham compared to 72K but back then it was a 12 team league with about 15,500 average attendance much like the WNBA is now. You might say it's a good deed but I'm old enough to remember being ridiculed for liking soccer. I don't think the average fan thinks it's a good deed but is she really that good just like any player in any sport. Messi is thought of as one of the greatest of all time, quite different when he comes to a more seasoned league to play at the end of his career.
Posting this from another thread. @AeroNaught first posted it Apple close to finalizing deal with FIFA over TV rights for new tournament, NYT reports https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-close-finalizing-deal-fifa-161501032.html
They don't explicitly say (perhaps due to the writer not being familiar with soccer), but context clues like new tournament/starting next year/held in the US seem to point to the Club World Cup.