And I can't watch a single game nationally.

Atlanta United and Houston were on Univision, but I don't have that in my package. Apparently, there wasn't a good online feed either.

There are several other games today, but they were all regional broadcasts I think.

There will be 3 nationally televised games tomorrow so that's good. MLS has come a long way, but they've still got work to do in order to really expose their product properly.

MLS could start the season on Sunday when ESPN and FS1 normally televise games.

Univision usually has an MLS game on Saturday afternoon. During the Liga MX offseason in the summer they often have an MLS game on Saturday evening.

Watching games on Univision makes you realize how irrelevant play-by-play commentary usually is -- it doesn't bother me a bit that I don't understand Spanish well enough to understand the commentary. (I think the Univision games also have an English language alternate audio feed, but I never bother with it.)

(03-03-2018 09:58 PM)Wedge Wrote:  MLS could start the season on Sunday when ESPN and FS1 normally televise games.

Univision usually has an MLS game on Saturday afternoon. During the Liga MX offseason in the summer they often have an MLS game on Saturday evening.

Watching games on Univision makes you realize how irrelevant play-by-play commentary usually is -- it doesn't bother me a bit that I don't understand Spanish well enough to understand the commentary. (I think the Univision games also have an English language alternate audio feed, but I never bother with it.)

I think the Univision games are smart actually. I'm just frustrated that I can't see them.

The more I think about it, the more I believe MLS should start their season immediately after the January transfer window...or at least the week following the Super Bowl. Saturdays and Sundays are perfect as long as football isn't in season.

With that said, until MLS becomes more popular, I think they need to be willing to take less money if necessary in order to blanket Saturdays and Sundays with national broadcasts. There are networks that need the content and there will still be plenty of games leftover for the regional channels. Getting their product in front of as many people as possible is really what they should be focusing on right now...as far as TV goes. The money will come later, but you need exposure first.

I think the deal with ESPN Plus will help with this to some degree, but the problem with focusing on regional broadcasting is there are fewer games available nationally in the first place. At that, there are still many, many markets that don't have a club so there's really not a regional option for many people.

Put your games on national TV so that people can consume your product. When the product is in higher demand then you can worry about creating scarcity.

Maybe ticket sales are part of it, maybe they want to sell as many tickets as possible this weekend.

I agree that it makes sense to be on Univision, because for the Univision audience, you're getting a built-in soccer audience who follows Liga MX and lives in the US, and there are a lot of potential ticket buyers to reach there.

I saw on ESPN this morning that LA gets a LAFC team.... does that mean they still have the Galaxy and these guys?

(03-04-2018 11:02 AM)PirateTreasureNC Wrote:  I saw on ESPN this morning that LA gets a LAFC team.... does that mean they still have the Galaxy and these guys?

Correct. LAFC will play home games in a new stadium that is next to the LA Coliseum. LA Galaxy is still in its longtime stadium in Carson (where the NFL Chargers are also playing home games).

I see Orlando City is continuing to underachieve.

Getting rid of Adrian Heath in the middle of the second year was dumb.

Zlatan plays less than 20 minutes and already makes the Galaxy look good for signing him...

(03-31-2018 05:20 PM)Wedge Wrote:  Zlatan plays less than 20 minutes and already makes the Galaxy look good for signing him...

I love that he's in MLS now.

"The lion is hungry."

I for one can't believe that the CONCACAF games are on BEING Sports via go90.com. That's incredibly frustrating when the MLS is having their best showing ever. Whether or not TFC or NYRB wins the damn thing is irrelevant to me. These games need to be on FS1, NBCSN, or ESPN. That alone will be a tremendous boost for all of the leagues that represent CONCACAF and help pull even more talent from South America. MLS has certainly closed the gap with LigaMX tremendously, but still has a long way to go.

As for the MLS, I think they should have a Monday Night game on one of the Big 3 err Big 4 national affiliates. What better way to showcase the game than on network television with little to no competition!

(04-05-2018 01:17 PM)ClairtonPanther Wrote:  I for one can't believe that the CONCACAF games are on BEING Sports via go90.com. That's incredibly frustrating when the MLS is having their best showing ever. Whether or not TFC or NYRB wins the damn thing is irrelevant to me. These games need to be on FS1, NBCSN, or ESPN. That alone will be a tremendous boost for all of the leagues that represent CONCACAF and help pull even more talent from South America. MLS has certainly closed the gap with LigaMX tremendously, but still has a long way to go.

As for the MLS, I think they should have a Monday Night game on one of the Big 3 err Big 4 national affiliates. What better way to showcase the game than on network television with little to no competition!

I think they typically have a Friday game on Univision, but a Monday night broadcast would be much better for TV ratings.

A lot of people don't have Univision or don't know that they have it. A Monday night game on CBS, NBC, ABC, or FOX would crush a Friday night game on Univision in the ratings.

Tonight Toronto takes on Chivas in LEG 1 of the Champions League final. I hope that GO90 doesn't crash.

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The match tonight is on Univision. Toronto should be ok as long as they draw tonight, with the second leg at home next week.

Check that -- TV schedule on my TV had it wrong. Toronto is at home tonight in the first leg, so they need to win tonight, and ideally to also keep a clean sheet.

Perhaps I'm overconfident here, but I think Toronto not only has a clean sheet, they'll win quite easily. A strong 2-0/3-0 final tally seems about right.

Well, never mind the clean sheet. It took Toronto only 63 seconds to lose that...

SMH. This is the defending MLS champs playing against a team that can't even make the 8-team playoff in Liga MX (currently in 16th place out of 18 teams, finished in 13th place last fall).

Illustration of all of the MLS "soccer specific" stadiums, from this feature in the LA Times on LAFC's new stadium.