The Changing Landscape of American Soccer Media: Good for MLS?
It’s almost cliché to point out the growth of television coverage of soccer in North America. The announcement this week that Fox would screen the UEFA Champions League final on Fox Sports, rather than as originally planned on subsidiary FX, made major waves. It’ll be broadcast in the afternoon on a Saturday, so strong ratings are expected, as the event continues its march as the world’s most popular annual sporting event on television.
Fox have done a tremendous job since winning the rights to the Champions League this year, with their multi-channel HD broadcasts on DirecTV an oustanding advance from ESPN’s previous, more limited coverage.
ESPN and ABC are not sitting on their hands, though. In June, ABC will show the United States play England, in what’s expected to be the most watched soccer broadcast of all-time in the United States. ESPN’s coverage of the World Cup is expected to be the most expensive production of a sporting event in their history. Hell, if you’re really a masochist, you can even listen to every game on ESPN radio this summer…lead commentator, one Tommy Smyth. ESPN will be showing 83 Premier League games next season, up from 48 this. One day soon, Fox Soccer Channel will appear in HD on our televisions (please, god!).
The media landscape is also changing for writers. Brooks Peck’s irreverent soccer blog Dirty Tackle was bought by Yahoo!, and Ives Galarcep this week announced he was moving his freelance work from ESPN Soccernet to join Fox. We side with Fake Sigi on the quality of Ives’ writing (and check out the brilliant fourth comment there), but hell, it’s good to see soccer writers being picked up at a tough time for the media as a whole.
The question as ever is whether all this is good for the domestic leagues. ESPN is adding more Premier League games to its broadcast schedule this year, and once again, bloggers like Jason Davis are asking if this is really good for Major League Soccer:
MLS will always remain a second class citizen in the United States as long as it’s taking a back seat to leagues from distant shores. While the lack of visibility and money constraints are the major reasons for that situation now, television will play a large part in the future. Though watching the English game (thanks to the time difference) doesn’t preclude people from watching MLS as well, the juxtaposition of the two does the American product no favors.
There’s certainly some truth to that. At the same time, it’s been pretty clear for some time that when MLS targets its marketing to people that already like soccer — and much of this “liking” comes from watching overseas broadcasts of it — it bears fruit. See the early days of DC United and Chicago, see Toronto, see Seattle. The combination of the massive youth participation in the sport by men and women now in their 20s who have also taken a serious interest in overseas football and the World Cups shown on television in the past decade is a demographic that MLS rightly recognises as prime for pumping in the coming years.
An interesting minor move was made this week reflecting that approach by Seattle, who picked up Arlo White from the BBC to be the main commentator for their games this year. Expansion team the Philadelphia Union has partnered with local network 6ABC with all games to be broadcast in HD featuring commentary by the solid ESPN-vet JP Dellacamera. The production of MLS games on television needs to match that of overseas broadcasts, and MLS appears to understand that.
This doesn’t, of course, address the issue of the quality of the play on the field in MLS, which Davis is implying will put-off fans of the Premier League from watching MLS. This subjective and age-old argument is very hard to prove based on anecdotal evidence, even though it’s clear there is a kernel of truth to it. The next year for MLS might prove it one way or the other, though: the explosion in coverage of overseas football will or will not lead to a bump in attendance and TV ratings as the league attempts to market itself to the growing audience for the sport.
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Even if one out of twenty becomes an mls fan, that would still be an improvement. More fans of the sport overall is good thing.
If people are waiting until the product approaches the standard set by their favorite overseas league(s), it’s going to be a long, tough sled. Partially because of the money necessary to achieve that, partially because of the time factor, and partially because those people will inevitably continue to move the lower level of the “acceptable” standard as MLS’ quality of play continues to improve.
In short, it’ll never be good enough for some people.
I should know better than to think my way through a post rather than reason it out first, lest Tom give me the ol’ PI treatment. Haha.
I suppose I should have done a better job of conveying my sense that MLS needs to do something different to separate themselves from the “superior” television product. It’s not necessarily “EPL is on TV so people won’t watch MLS”, it’s more “EPL’s profile is growing and MLS’ is not; why?”
I absolutely understand the argument that the more fans of the game there are in total here, the better it is for MLS, but I suppose I’ve been conditioned to assume that too many Americans who embrace the English game first will inevitably turn their noses up at MLS.
This is Matthew from The Shin Guardian here.
I’ve got to go the other way with this argument. EPL broadcasts are likely to improve viewing over the long term here in the States.
There are a multitude of reasons why this is the case, but first the data:
This year, for the most part, ratings for the EPL and for MLS were pretty much consistently “around” the same. Somewhere around a .2 and a .3 I believe. Please correct me if wrong.
As more soccer was introduced MLS generally stayed the same from its captive audience, having averaged around that .2 since 2007.
Faced with added supply, you might argue that either the soccer fan consumed more soccer or new fans emerged. Considering MLS fans likely watched more EPL (in my subjective opinion) I would assume that soccer fans consumed more soccer.
The rising tide lifts all ships theorem here is buoyed (no pun) when you look across other sports and entertainment, whether it be football (anyone remember the XFL or attempts now at other alternate leagues) or in television (CSI or more appropriately spinoffs (SVU) of Law and Order).
Part of the reason of this is that the product serves as marketing as well. Inevitably watching MLS is an advertisement to come watch some EPL or vice versa.
I do agree that product quality from both a broadcast and on-field level has to increase, the question there is affording the infrastruture. That Fox Soccer is making an HD bet is a very good step, that being said Fox HD is more of an announcement right now, less implemented in practice.
Good topic.
To be fair, I think it’s difficult for someone outside a MLS market to support an MLS team. I think MLS’ greatest asset to American soccer at the moment is the ability to go watch live soccer. I’d never be able to convince my friends who enjoy soccer but aren’t necessarily fanatics to go watch DC United on television; however, it’s much easier to convince soccer fans to go watch the match live, even if they don’t know three MLS players.
For instance, I desperately tried to follow MLS but could never find any reason to support any of the teams until I finally made it to a live soccer game in the USA in person. I think it comes down to the matchday experience and then ultimately marketing. Listening to the Barra Brava for 90 minutes and participating in organic, fan-started cheers is fun, for instance, but having a section to yourself at an empty Pizza Hut Park is only going to be attractive to the soccer fanatic.
Jason, I think MLS -is- starting to do something different to distinguish itself. MLS is starting to market the experience of going to a game, the idea that it’s possible to enjoy a “European” atmosphere in America. That’s why ESPN is televising more Sounders home games than any other team, followed by Chicago, LA, Philly, DC, and Toronto– supporters cities. Are these the best teams? No, but the Crew don’t have a single game on ESPN. It’s clear that while they can’t compete with EPL on the field, they can market the support in the stands as the face of MLS.
As Adrian Hanauer said, “I think the other thing you’ll see, I think the other owners, teams’ managers are seeing how successful we’ve been here with this type of crowd as the anchor to the sport. Soccer in this country has always been sold to youth soccer families. And although we obviously love it that families come to our games, and they’re a big part of the day, and I don’t want this to sound the wrong way, when the families are the core of the crowd, the cool kids really don’t want to be there. But when the cool kids are the core of the atmosphere, the families want to join that…. You’ll see a lot of teams focusing on the supporters groups more and more.”
I think the collapse of the NASL cast a long shadow over people’s expectations of what is possible with soccer in America in the 35+ demographic. But as you go younger from there, its impact diminishes to the point that 20-somethings are more optimistic in creating their own idea of professional soccer in America if they see that kind of excitement on TV, so that becomes the market.
Good points, Adam.
MLS & ESPN are making wise choices for broadcasting MLS matches. Show off the teams with good crowds and solid supporters sections. Why broadcast empty stadia? It will do nothing but personify MLS as a league no one cares about. I would be curious to see how the casual browser thinks when he stumbles upon a Sounders match on ESPN while channel surfing.
The important aspect to focus on is the country versus country issue which american sports rarely experience, except during the olympics. The US Men’s national team gives the US sports fan a national franchise. In every other country a sports fan has a domestic team shirt and a national team shirt, for example a Manchester United shirt and England shirt. Now a guy from New York can a giants shirt and a US team shirt
I’d like to point out that biggest competitor to MLS isn’t the UEFA champs league, the EPL, La Liga or any other European league. The biggest competitor is the Mexican League and the Mexican NT. Those two dwarf any other football in the states with their ratings, earnings and drawing ability.
The Mexican National Team sells more tickets and shrits in American territory than the US NT does. Chivas and Club American shirts are way more common than Man United or Real Madrid.
Not only that, Mexican League games compete directly with MLS games at times. They kickoff about the same time, except that the Mexican league games are on free over the air broadcast. Instead of niche channels like FSC or ESPN2 (not as much as a niche, but gl if you don’t have cable).
Big Mexican games are usually listed on Nielsen ratings as having some of the highest amount of male viewers in the 18-34 category, cities such as houston, chicago, LA and etc.
MLS isn’t completely ignorant of this and it explains events like superliga, interliga and SUM contract with the Mexican team. So MLS does profit indirectly. But if MLS ever wants to make the jump, its teams need to prove they’re are as good, if not better than those teams. Until then, Mexican-American fans won’t jump whole heartedly into supporting them as well as the teams of their fathers.
yes A ruiz you are right!! Even if one out of twenty becomes an mls fan, that would still be an improvement. More fans of the sport overall is good thing.
antalya homes
The quality of the play on the field in MLS, hopefully will not be a turn-off in the long run. Somehow, truth will prevail sooner or later.