Thursday 27 Feb 2020

Sources: Atlanta United nears deal for Mexican winger Jurgen Damm
https://www.espn.com/soccer/atlanta...close-to-deal-for-mexicos-jurgen-damm-sources

"The rich get richer, the poor get the picture."

 

What MLS can learn from the NBA
https://worldsoccertalk.com/2020/02/27/what-mls-can-learn-from-the-nba/

Not a bad article TBH.

 

Really, jeezus. C'mon Quakes!

 

I've seen much worse, but the very last sentence completely ruins his point. MLB makes something like $3 billion in revenue more than the NBA.

 

ESPN and TNT rarely pick any of these teams for TV broadcasts, and pictures of their empty arenas are fodder for Twitter accounts like @emptyseatspics. Orlando was the only one of the five to make the playoffs last season yet only around 8,000 people on average tuned in to their local regular season broadcasts.

MLS will have 30 teams by 2022, as many as MLB and the NBA. No league has come this far this fast. But many feel that MLS is building a pyramid scheme, not a viable league. Writer Corey Leff, speaking on Glen Crooks’ On Frame podcast, explained that “…it is a little bit Ponzi scheme-ish in the sense that it’s waiting for the next guy to buy in so we can get a pay day, because most of the teams don’t make money on a year-to-year basis…If the TV media rights deal is only generating 3 million [per team] the question becomes is there anybody that’s willing to buy a $600 million asset that generates $30 million in revenue – that does not sound like a great investment.” Adds writer Chris Smith in Forbes, “[p]ut simply, Major League Soccer’s surging expansion fees and sales prices are not being driven by financial performance.”

MLS clubs are free to ignore DJ Quik’s golden rule – “if it don’t make dollars then it don’t make sense,” because of its deal with Soccer United Marketing. No matter how much or how little MLS clubs make on their own they still get a healthy cut from SUM, which owns the lucrative broadcast rights to the USMNT, the USWNT, and the many Mexican national team matches played on U.S. soil.

This creates a weird situation where it’s not necessarily a big deal if MLS broadcast rights don’t bring in big money. And if the big money is coming from expansion fees and SUM’s national team deals, then why should MLS even care about earning better TV ratings for a more lucrative broadcast deal?

The American audience for soccer is growing, but the audience for MLS soccer isn’t. MLS’ average national audience last year was around 270,000 viewers, and that was with a schedule heavy on powerhouses like Atlanta and LAFC. The more teams MLS adds, the less it can offer marquee matchups.

Most of MLS’ newest teams are in smaller markets that may not inspire the average Joe 12-Pack to tune in. According to Nielsen’s list of America’s largest TV markets, Sacramento ranks 20th(goosed mightily by its San Francisco Bay Area), Charlotte 21st, St. Louis 23rd, Nashville 28th, Cincinnati 37th, and Austin 40th. Only the St. Louis Cardinals have a broad national following of all the existing pro teams in those cities. Teams like the Sacramento Kings, Charlotte Hornets, Carolina Panthers, Nashville Predators, Cincinnati Reds, Cincinnati Bengals, and the St. Louis Blues, despite their recent Stanley Cup win, rarely attract star free agents and are often ignored by national broadcasts.

MLS’s latest expansion clubs may end up doing very well at the box office and on local TV in their respective home markets. But these clubs will struggle to land household name players. And if they develop any promising American prospects then those kids will leave for Europe before they’re old enough to vape. Most of the NBA’s expansion teams haven’t helped raise the league’s profile. The same will likely hold true in MLS.

 

I dunno about his premise of MLS as a Ponzi Scheme. He sounds like an ill-informed Big Soccer poster to me!

And not that I'm a big NBA fan, but I have never, ever, evvvah heard of Isaiah Thomas referred to a "Zeke."

 

What is that supposed to mean? None of the Sacramento TV market is in the San Francisco Bay Area. Why did you cut-and-paste repost this garbage article?

 

"Zeke" is the nickname of Isiah Thomas, not of Isaiah Thomas.

 

A-Because the article in question was dropped in here on today's MLS news thread, which shockingly enough, is the specific place to discuss these news articles
B-Someone else mentioned on this thread that the writer of this article gets things talking on NBA, MLB and MLS approaching business plans and then said writer leaves out how MLB revenue is still more than NBA bigtime. My own MLS team, has our owners turning to NBA new hires in our FO that are going long on what they swear worked for their NBA teams and will work for an MLS team
C-The CBA that was just agreed upon by MLS players and their union with the owners speaks of revenue sharing on TV money and the importance of the new TV contract for the next decade
D-All of the above

 

Isn't eastern Solano County still considered part of the "Bay Area"?

Gotta duke it out with those Bay Area hippies for that sweet, sweet Fairfield-Suisun fanbase.

 

If you had comments and opinions on the article, then post your comments rather than cut-and-paste it. But any article that rehashes the "Ponzi scheme" trope isn't worth the electrons.

 

I bolded the parts that were worth discussion. If anyone had thoughts on this topic, that is what I wanted to discuss.
It is a practice we have been doing on these boards for years.
If you would like to discuss SUM and their think tank on TV ratings in local markets over relying on National Team games than please take the time to chime in. Wiser to take one's time to highlight what to talk about over what NOT to talk about.

 

I think they're pointing out that Sacramento TV market is half the size of San Francisco's (which includes San Jose).

My question is

Lucrative????

Ok the Centenario was lucrative but domestic MNT and WNT matches are part of the MLS deal aren't they?

 

You are certainly not an NBA fan. Anyone who is knows Zeke = Isiah Thomas.

The fact that you even think it is Iasiah Thomas just confirms it.

 

I used to love the NBA 30 years ago, now I can't stand it. I like my MLS the way it is so don't try to sell me on the idea that it needs to emulate an organization that has gone from a great league to just another reality tv show.

 

It's not fully clear, since "goosed mightily by its San Francisco Bay Area" is not a grammatically complete statement, but they seemed to be implying that the Bay Area somehow artificially boosts Sacramento's TV market ranking and thus the market is less significant than you might think a Top 20 market should be.

 

I haven't watched NBA basketball for probably two decades. Largely it's because it's so damn boring most of the time. Open 15 foot jumper from anyone? It's in. The crowd almost never seems to care. Not to mention the "dum, dum, duh.. (followed by higher pitched) dum, dum, duh" that most of the arenas play on the speakers during play (at least, last time I checked in). At least in college basketball there's variation and scrappiness.

 

Any article that uses the words Ponzi scheme is ill informed and isn't worth my time.

 

I disagree. Any piece that depicts current MLS owners waiting for the next expansion fee payday is beyond ridiculous.
Arthur Blank or LAFC's myriad of owners are not paying $70m-$110m plus invest $200m to $300m so years later a David Tepper type can pay $325m spread over a decade divided by the 29 other owners. Basically $1.1m/yr for 10 years and that's only if expansion fees are divided up equally (which I highly doubt). That's the worst Ponzi scheme in history.

 

In the sense that WST can put out far worse articles that get passed off as journalism, I could read this one without wanting to punch my monitor lol.

 

The way you can tell them apart is one went to a good school and the other went to Indiana.