Once upon a time in America, there was this plucky upstart called Major League Soccer (MLS). The kits were garish, the team names not exactly traditional but on the back of USA 94, all involved seemed bent on creating an enduring domestic soccer competition.
For nearly three decades, they toiled, providing a crucial platform for homegrown talent and cultivating fanbases. Glamorous characters were occasionally imported to attract casual shoppers. Some were more successful than others. You do what you can when vying for attention in this ultra-competitive corner of the sports market.
Two and a half years ago, a man toting an Apple logo promised the denizens of MLS all manner of wondrous bounty and $2.5 billion (€2.15 billion) over 10 years. All they had to do was bite, sign over every match to Apple TV, America’s seventh most-watched subscription streamer, and place their sport behind another $99-a-year paywall too.
In terms of visibility, it made absolutely no sense. But logic is often the first casualty once dollar signs hover into view. They chomped down on the tempting fruit and, like their predecessors in the Garden of Eden, have been banished from the country’s sporting consciousness ever since.
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Rumours abound that MLS still exists. From time to time, you hear about people claiming to have gone to games in person. Now and again, clips pop up on social media showing Lionel Messi doing Lionel Messi things in that ridiculous hot pink Inter Miami FC shirt. Nobody knows which matches these cameos come from. Worse yet, nobody cares.
In a highlight reel world, footage of the mesmeric Argentinian doesn’t require much context. We can appreciate art for art’s sake. In the same way, we can acknowledge the comedic value of footage showing Luis Suarez somehow getting paid $1.5 million to hobble on one leg alongside his old pal. The world’s most expensive emotional support striker.
After two years of media badgering, the league recently admitted games are now watched by an average television audience of 120,000, roughly a third of what they used to draw on ESPN and a quarter of what routine Premier League matches garner for NBC on weekends.
These parlous numbers mean Apple TV is paying $200 for every viewer who watches a broadcast of Seattle Sounders versus Los Angeles Galaxy. In comparison, networks that show the NFL and the NBA usually shell out around $1 per person. Obviously, Silicon Valley economics skew different from the rest of the world.
More than four decades have passed since professional boxing began its depressing transition from mainstream sport, darling of network television and staple of sepia back-page splashes to niche pay-per-view curiosity and complete cultural irrelevance. Some canny characters made enormous sums of money from that move but, as they lined their pockets, generations came of age who never saw fights.
Today, boxing exists on the outer rim of the sporting landscape and the first person most American kids cite when asked to name a fighter is Jake Paul. Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk are non-player characters in their universe.
It seems nobody in Major League Soccer ever heard the cautionary tale of boxing’s descent into insignificance. How else to explain a league still fighting for eyeballs ghettoising itself by placing matches behind a paywall on a subscription service? Games so good they charge you twice.
Netflix generates more viewers in a single day than Apple TV manages in a month because most Americans only ever watch the latter after they receive three free months of it for upgrading an iPhone. When the standard of play in MLS has never been better and ripe for enhanced exposure, those in charge effectively opted to hide their wares from public view.
Worse, this baffling decision was made as the television audience for soccer in the US was on the crest of a giant wave. NBC making every Premier League game available on network channels and the Peacock streamer grew its audience massively. CBS did likewise with their Champions League coverage, even if it also foisted the insufferable braying of Micah Richards and Jamie Carragher upon us. More Americans are watching more matches than ever. A rising tide that could lift all boats, except MLS decided to trouser money upfront at the expense of reaching new audiences.
“The media and the pundits just don’t get it yet,” said Don Garber, commissioner of MLS, the deluded executive behind this move. “I’m not sure if we are where we need to be. But I know we are going to have to get there soon. Other than the hassle of people complaining about it, we feel pretty good.”
In Garber’s bizarro world, he seriously thinks fans in Saudi Arabia, South America and south London are hanging on every minute of FC Cincinnati versus New England Revolution. Back in the real world, his actual target audience across the United States briefly wondered where Major League Soccer disappeared to two seasons back and then moved on to watching European fare on offer in more accessible outlets. He may never win those people back.
Arguably the slickest sporting operation of all, UFC, just announced a new seven-year $7.7 billion deal for all fights to be shown on Paramount+ streaming service, with some also broadcast on CBS. Abandoning the pay-per-view model completely, it wants more people to access bouts for cheaper and for free so the fanbase will grow. Imagine such a smart play. Major League Soccer couldn’t.
