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Major League Soccer on television
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Major League Soccer on television
Major League Soccer has been broadcast live in the United States nationally since the league's inception in 1996 and in Canada since 2007. As of the 2023 season, Apple Inc. is the primary global rights holder and streams every regular season and playoff match on MLS Season Pass – a service in the Apple TV app. Some matches are also broadcast on television via Fox Sports in the United States, and Bell Media (via TSN and RDS) in Canada.
Major League Soccer with ESPN and ABC Sports announced the league's first television rights deal on March 15, 1994, without any players, coaches, or teams in place. The three-year agreement covered English-language broadcasting for the 1996–1998 seasons, and committed 10 matches on ESPN, 25 on ESPN2, and the MLS Cup on ABC. The deal gave MLS no rights fees, but the advertising revenue was divided between the league and networks.
During the 1990s, Univision and Galavisión broadcast matches in Spanish. The original Univision deal ended in 1999. Telemundo picked up MLS in 2000, but disputes over time slots led to the network dropping MLS after the 2001 season. ABC and ESPN were left as the only MLS broadcasters in 2002.
In 2003, Fox Sports World (later Fox Soccer Channel) also became an English-language TV partner to MLS, while Fox Sports en Español became the Spanish-language partner in the same year.
In August 2006, MLS and ESPN announced an eight-year contract spanning 2007–2014 giving the league its first rights-fee agreement worth US$8 million annually. The deal gave the MLS a regular primetime slot on Thursdays, televised coverage of the first round of the MLS SuperDraft and an expanded presence on other ESPN properties, such as ESPN360 (now ESPN3) and Mobile ESPN. The agreement also placed each season's opening match, the MLS All-Star Game and the MLS Cup on ABC.
In September 2006, the media announced a deal between the Univision network and Soccer United Marketing (SUM) worth US$80 million. The network agreed to broadcast 25 MLS matches per season, ten U.S. men's national team matches and five international matches operated by SUM; although, ratings were volatile.
Disappointing ratings led to a 2008 push by ESPN to bolster its popularity through measures such as using JP Dellacamera, a veteran play-by-play soccer commentator, instead of baseball announcer Dave O'Brien, as well as an arrangement to simulcast MLS matches in Spanish on ESPN Deportes, with the intention of gaining additional Hispanic viewers with a Spanish style. ESPN programming executive Scott Guglielmino explained: "From my perspective, the only question in my mind when it comes to growth is how quickly over time MLS and its management group want to spend on players ... You’re in a worldwide market. The question is how quickly the ownership group wants to push that envelope."
After two years of low ratings, network executives decided to transfer all ABC matches to ESPN. The MLS Cup had been broadcast on ABC each year from 1996 to 2008, but with ratings declining from 1.4, in 1996 and 1997, to 0.6 in 2008, the MLS Cup was moved to ESPN at the start of 2009. The network also replaced the regular Thursday night telecast with a "game of the week" on either Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, or Saturday nights, to give MLS matches better lead-in programming and more flexibility to air better matchups.
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Major League Soccer on television
Major League Soccer has been broadcast live in the United States nationally since the league's inception in 1996 and in Canada since 2007. As of the 2023 season, Apple Inc. is the primary global rights holder and streams every regular season and playoff match on MLS Season Pass – a service in the Apple TV app. Some matches are also broadcast on television via Fox Sports in the United States, and Bell Media (via TSN and RDS) in Canada.
Major League Soccer with ESPN and ABC Sports announced the league's first television rights deal on March 15, 1994, without any players, coaches, or teams in place. The three-year agreement covered English-language broadcasting for the 1996–1998 seasons, and committed 10 matches on ESPN, 25 on ESPN2, and the MLS Cup on ABC. The deal gave MLS no rights fees, but the advertising revenue was divided between the league and networks.
During the 1990s, Univision and Galavisión broadcast matches in Spanish. The original Univision deal ended in 1999. Telemundo picked up MLS in 2000, but disputes over time slots led to the network dropping MLS after the 2001 season. ABC and ESPN were left as the only MLS broadcasters in 2002.
In 2003, Fox Sports World (later Fox Soccer Channel) also became an English-language TV partner to MLS, while Fox Sports en Español became the Spanish-language partner in the same year.
In August 2006, MLS and ESPN announced an eight-year contract spanning 2007–2014 giving the league its first rights-fee agreement worth US$8 million annually. The deal gave the MLS a regular primetime slot on Thursdays, televised coverage of the first round of the MLS SuperDraft and an expanded presence on other ESPN properties, such as ESPN360 (now ESPN3) and Mobile ESPN. The agreement also placed each season's opening match, the MLS All-Star Game and the MLS Cup on ABC.
In September 2006, the media announced a deal between the Univision network and Soccer United Marketing (SUM) worth US$80 million. The network agreed to broadcast 25 MLS matches per season, ten U.S. men's national team matches and five international matches operated by SUM; although, ratings were volatile.
Disappointing ratings led to a 2008 push by ESPN to bolster its popularity through measures such as using JP Dellacamera, a veteran play-by-play soccer commentator, instead of baseball announcer Dave O'Brien, as well as an arrangement to simulcast MLS matches in Spanish on ESPN Deportes, with the intention of gaining additional Hispanic viewers with a Spanish style. ESPN programming executive Scott Guglielmino explained: "From my perspective, the only question in my mind when it comes to growth is how quickly over time MLS and its management group want to spend on players ... You’re in a worldwide market. The question is how quickly the ownership group wants to push that envelope."
After two years of low ratings, network executives decided to transfer all ABC matches to ESPN. The MLS Cup had been broadcast on ABC each year from 1996 to 2008, but with ratings declining from 1.4, in 1996 and 1997, to 0.6 in 2008, the MLS Cup was moved to ESPN at the start of 2009. The network also replaced the regular Thursday night telecast with a "game of the week" on either Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, or Saturday nights, to give MLS matches better lead-in programming and more flexibility to air better matchups.