MLS announces a limited TV package to go with its big Apple streaming deal

Major League Soccer announced on Tuesday a set of four-year traditional TV deals that will complement its big Apple streaming package.

The deals might help a little bit with fans upset that a streaming platform is the new main home of MLS action. But if you held out hope that the league wouldn’t jump too far with streaming right from the start of the deal, you’ve now been pushed into the pool.

Fox Sports will be the only U.S. TV network with regular-season and playoff games, in English and Spanish. It will have “an average of 34 regular season” games per year. Fox’s main broadcast network will carry 15 regular-season games in English, and the rest will be on FS1. Fox Deportes will have them all in Spanish.

In the playoffs, Fox’s channels will have eight games each year, with the championship game on big Fox and Fox Deportes. It will be the first time Fox Deportes carries the final, which had aired on Univision channels since 2007. Univision is now out of airing MLS regular-season and playoff games, after doing so in every previous year of the league’s existence except 2000 and 2001.

» READ MORE: Univision out of MLS regular-season and playoff TV broadcasts amid new Apple deal

Univision’s sole offering in this deal will be from the new Leagues Cup tournament that pits MLS teams against opponents from Mexico’s Liga MX. Both leagues will stop their seasons in the late summer to play the event.

The network will spread 21 Leagues Cup games across its channels, broadcast Univision and cable UniMás (which is over the air in some cities) and sports channel TUDN. Twelve games will be in the group stage, eight will be in the knockout rounds, and the last will be the final - for which Univision will have exclusive TV rights.

Fox will also have a package of Leagues Cup games in English, all on FS1: 10 in the group stage, four in the round of 32 (the first knockout round), and two in the round of 16.

Apple’s streaming platform will have every regular-season and playoff game, every postseason game, and every Leagues Cup game, all in English and Spanish, plus French broadcasts for the league’s three Canadian teams. The platform will also have every game from the MLS Next Pro reserve league, where many teams play their up-and-coming academy prospects.

Some games will be available free of charge, some will be available on the main AppleTV+ platform, and all will be in a MLS-specific package priced at $14.99 per month or $99 per year. AppleTV+ subscribers will get a discount, $12.99 per month or $79 per year. Season-ticket holders of MLS teams will get the package free of charge.

» READ MORE: MLS and Apple announce the price of their new streaming package

Though the Apple deal was announced this past June, the roots of it were planted years ago. In 2017, MLS studied how many soccer fans were watching games at the time, and found that some 80% of respondents said they did. The league also observed how many leagues worldwide had uniform kickoff times every weekend, while MLS had a mishmash of times set for national TV, local TV, and local ticket sales.

The most obvious downside of not having local TV broadcasts anymore is a lack of local TV exposure. But an upside is that the league has indeed cleaned up the schedule. Almost every Saturday game will kick off at 7:30 p.m. local time, whether in Chester or Los Angeles.

“One of the important points of our strategy when we asked all of our clubs to have their [local] rights expire at the end of 2022 was to create a schedule that was better for the fans,” MLS deputy commissioner Gary Stevenson told The Inquirer. “We understood at that moment that it would be a schedule that could be very attractive to a streamer.”

The streamer that came along happened to be one of the world’s biggest technology companies -- and a marketing juggernaut. And when Apple offered a 10-year worldwide rights deal starting at $250 million per season, it was even easier for MLS to say yes. It’s an unprecendented amount of money for the 27-year-old league.

“We didn’t know exactly when this transition from watching on cable to streaming was going to happen, but we sensed even then that this was going to happen,” Stevenson said of that past research. “So when we had the opportunity to create a partnership with Apple ... to be our partner, to create a place where a fan could push one button across the globe and access our content with no geoblocks or anything else, that was a really important development for us.”

The 2023 season will start on the last weekend of February. The full schedule will be published later this month. Stevenson dropped a hint about what Fox’s set of games could look like when he said “the schedule that Fox was able to put forth fit really well with what we were doing with Apple.”

» READ MORE: Apple TV becomes the new home of Major League Soccer with a 10-year deal for every game

All three new TV deals run through 2026, which means they’ll end right after the U.S., Canada and Mexico host the men’s World Cup. That will give MLS an early shot at capitalizing on increased interest in soccer.

TV games will be produced “world feed” style, which means there will be one picture and each TV network will add its broadcasters and graphics. Notably, if you tune in to a game on Apple’s platform, you’ll get different broadcasters than you will on TV.

Stevenson said on-air hires will be announced in January and February.

While the big picture is a big money deal for MLS, there are some sizable holes in it. One is the lack of regular-season and playoff games on Spanish-language free-to-air TV. That was a staple of the league for many years, and is now gone.

The league hopes, understandably, to make up for that by having every game leaguewide available in Spanish for the first time.

“It dwarfs anything we have today,” Stevenson said.

The biggest change is the departure of ESPN, the only network to carry MLS games since the league’s first season. Coming on the heels of ESPN’s loss of U.S. national team English-language rights, it’s a milestone moment for domestic soccer in America. It’s also a gamble that the sport can keep growing without ESPN’s exposure.

“We have always admired and respected and had a great relationship with ESPN and Disney,” Stevenson said. “We are in conversations with them about continuing that relationship, it’s just in a different form or fashion.”

ESPN said in a statement: “After 28 years as Major League Soccer’s national media partner, we were not able to reach a new agreement. We are very happy with the outstanding lineup of soccer properties on our platforms, and we will continue to provide news and information coverage of the league through our industry-leading linear, digital, and social media platforms. We wish Major League Soccer continued success.”