Much has been made in recent days of the decline in viewership for the MLS Cup, which with fewer than 500,000 viewers across Fox Sports linear platforms averaged a quarter of the audience that it had two years ago, when FOX and Univision combined to average 2.2 million. Two years may not seem like much time, but for MLS it was a different era — the end of its traditional media rights deal with ESPN, Fox and Univision.
This past season was the second of a ten-year, $250 million/year deal between MLS and Apple in which all matches are streamed on the Apple TV+ service. Many of those matches are available exclusively on the MLS Season Pass service, which costs $15/month or $100/year. Some are available to watch for free via Apple TV. Still fewer are available to watch via the traditional linear platforms of Fox Sports, which simulcasts some matches (including the MLS Cup) as part of its four-year deal to serve as the exclusive linear home of MLS.
The linear aspect of the MLS deal has not gotten nearly as much attention as the groundbreaking — and risky — shift to Apple TV+, but it bears examination. For those without Apple TV+, exposure to MLS has dwindled. Fox Sports is still carrying the same 34 windows it aired in 2022, but that season also included an additional 34 on the ESPN networks, plus matches on Univision and local over-the-air affiliates. Combined, that is more than twice as many exposures across three different major media companies, all running ads and crosspromotions touting the product.
The convenience of being able to watch all MLS matches with one subscription is good for the ardent fan of MLS, of whom there are not nearly enough to keep the ratings afloat. As much as fans and writers complain about leagues being spread too thin across too many platforms to keep track, there is obvious benefit to being broadly accessible. For the WNBA, which MLS is now decidedly behind as a television property (forget competing with the NHL), there was almost always a game televised somewhere over the course of the summer — perhaps ABC or CBS, maybe ESPN or NBA TV, certainly ION every Friday night, and then in-market on local affiliates and RSNs. The league could stand to have better appointment viewing (other than ION, there was no real rhyme or reason to when and where games would air), but one was never too far away from stumbling across a game.
With so many platforms seeking content in the current media environment, one might wonder why MLS ended up with only one linear partner in its new deal. ESPN was understandably not interested in sharing inventory with Apple, and presumably Fox was not too thrilled either — one would be hard-pressed to find any evidence that Fox is particularly invested in MLS at this point — but “netlets” like CW and ION are seemingly open to any and all opportunities to add live sports.
The real reason, of course, is that the more linear partners MLS has — and the more matches available on over-the-air or basic cable — the less value this deal has for Apple. That is not at all rare in sports television; one need only look at the College Football Playoff (and BCS before it), which has probably cost itself a couple million viewers each year by airing exclusively on cable (ESPN) rather than broadcast (ABC). Yet ESPN is still at least generating a more-than-sufficient audience. There is no evidence yet that Apple TV is doing the same. MLS is in a situation right now that resembles the era when NHL games aired on OLN and Stanley Cup Final games were being outdrawn — not an exaggeration — by reruns of “Mama’s Family,” except the NHL really had no choice at the time.
People have to find your product
The discussion of sports ratings tends to focus on viewers as active consumers, whose decision whether to watch — or not watch — a program is predicated on their affirmative endorsement or rejection of the product. That is of course not how people watch TV. With the exception of major events, the decision to watch an event (if it even qualifies as a ‘decision’) is made idly in the course of channel surfing or simply leaving the TV on a certain channel after watching something else.
There is no better example of the above than the massive audiences smaller sports tend to generate — relative to the norm — when airing adjacent to an NFL singleheader. Taped coverage of the NWSL Skills Challenge averaged 60 percent more viewers in an NFL-adjacent Sunday afternoon window than the live NWSL Championship drew two nights earlier, both on the same network. That is not because the Skills Challenge was more compelling than an actual championship event, but because of people who fell asleep, left the room or were disinclined to hunt down the remote. The sports audience, across the board, includes more of these viewers than is comfortable to admit.
Especially for smaller leagues like MLS, it is crucial that viewers have to find the product. They must stumble across it, settle for it if they can’t find anything else, have it on in the background while they wait for something else to start, or sit through it if they are not in the mood to find the remote. Perhaps they will reject the product, but they must at least have the option to reject it. Perhaps they will enjoy something they never thought they would like.
Ratings or revenue?
The counter to the above argument is that the ratings do not matter so long as the checks still clear, and there is some truth to that.
What benefit is a larger television audience to a league like MLS if it consists largely of idle viewers who will not become fans? What benefit was there to the NWSL to have that seven-figure audience watch the league’s Skills Challenge? One could credibly argue that the 900,000 viewers who watched the NWSL Championship with no meaningful lead-in on a Friday night are far more impactful for the future of the NWSL than the 1.5 million who left the TV on after the NFL. Television ratings matter for the networks, not the leagues, especially in an era when simply having new, fresh content is more important than whether anyone is actually watching.
Would MLS be in a better position today if the MLS Cup audience was still 2.2 million, but the media rights revenue was still $90 million/year? Should the league be embarrassed that fewer people watched its championship than watched the NWSL — or even the USL — if it continues to generate more media rights revenue than those entities? One might suggest that as its popularity ebbs, MLS may yet suffer in its next media rights negotiation, but that is not for another eight years. Given the state of the industry, it is impossible to know the context in which MLS will be negotiating in advance of 2032.
It is indeed the case that MLS is failing if its goal is to broaden its audience, which one might assume is the goal of any and all sports leagues. There is of course great benefit to broadening one’s television audience, but there is no tangible financial benefit for the leagues in doing so. For the networks, perhaps.
Ideally, one would strike a media rights deal that brings in both significant financial benefit and increased media exposure — a la the coming NBA media rights deal — but if one has to choose, it is not necessarily obvious that MLS made the wrong choice. Nor is it necessarily obvious that MLS will suffer any material consequences for doing so.
