MLS in danger of losing casual fans as Apple influences scheduling

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/11/2023 (1029 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For those of us in need of a refresher — which, assuming we have actual lives with limited space for diversion, is basically everyone — the MLS Cup Playoffs is a post-season tournament that somehow, eventually, crowns a champion that then receives a trophy that looks a lot like the Premier League trophy.

No problem there, it’s a nice trophy. If anything, its familiarity should help remind the players competing for it that, yes, they’re still competing for it, even if they haven’t kicked a ball in three weeks.

That would be three actual weeks, all 21 days of them. Western Conference semi-final participants Sporting Kansas City and Los Angeles FC last played a match Nov. 5. In the East, FC Cincinnati’s most recent game was back on the Nov. 4, and Orlando City’s was on Nov. 7.

There are some other teams remaining in the playoffs as well — Columbus, Philadelphia, Houston and Seattle — and if they happen to be reading this, or any other preview content, they might appreciate the reminder that, yes, they do, for real, have a match this weekend. Let’s stop right there for a second.

There are eight teams still in this thing? EIGHT?! How is that even possible? What exactly was going on before the joint American-Canadian-but-mostly-American top flight dispersed for the international break?

We should probably pause here, too, and reflect on just how weird it is that a supposedly aspiring division, and one in which Lionel Messi happens to play, pauses what is ostensibly the most important portion of its calendar, only to restart it on American Thanksgiving weekend.

Granted, this latter variable is coincidence, but then again the year’s final international window is always mid-November, and Thanksgiving is when we know it always will be. These sorts of things are foreseeable, as is the fact the family likely won’t be gathering around their Apple TV-loaded devices to watch… which teams again?

Yes, the NFL takes a week between its Conference Championships and the Super Bowl to supposedly build momentum for the Big Game, which is also a bit much. MLS footballers, however, leave their clubs — and in many cases the continent — to literally play for someone else. It’s beyond ridiculous.

Now, the MLS bros and tech bros and various other bros will insist the audience the league is attracting is a different sort of audience, and their content distribution infrastructure represents the future of live sports broadcasting.

The first is a fair point; the second is both fair and disillusioning. But the first, first.

MLS does, indeed, attract a younger demographic than North America’s major professional leagues — by some estimates, significantly younger. As a result, it’s an intriguing proposition for sponsorship partners and advertisers. That’s when the product — the actual soccer — starts getting watered down in big, big ways.

As Graham Ruvthen wrote in The Guardian last week, it’s almost as though MLS piled on the matches via playoffs, the Leagues Cup and the Campeones Cup in order to maximize advertising “inventory” for Apple, which subsequently became its worldwide rightsholder.

Ah yes, the Campeones Cup — indistinguishable from the Leagues Cup in everything but the fact the Leagues Cup was created so Messi would have something to win. Which he did. And the Final, won on penalties against Nashville, might well end up being the signature MLS moment of 2023.

Regarding the second point — broadcasting — in clinching its exclusive deal with AppleTV, MLS bypassed the regional bidding process in favour of a single, centralized content distributor. It also, rightly, acknowledged the long-trending preference for streaming over linear television.

For $16.99, on top of an existing AppleTV+ subscription, naturally, fans can stream as much MLS as they want, when they want. Where formerly they were viewers, they are now “users,” matches are still matches but they’re also “content,” and it’s all accessible on a platform only a click away no matter where they are in the world.

It’s a setup we’re already used to, after all, as it mirrors the way we consume almost everything else; it aligns with our behaviour. And all of it directed by a single corporation with limitless resources that actively involves itself in everything from on-air personnel to player signings.

It might be the future, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck, and you’d think for all the assets dedicated to the product we’d at least get a playoff tournament that didn’t require deep dives and “explainer” articles to lay out the format.

Which, by the way, is a one-match elimination wild-card round, followed by a best-of-three Round One, interrupted by the international break, resumed in the one-match conference semifinals, followed by the one-match conference finals, followed by the one-match final. (And yes, to answer the obvious question, there were players who didn’t even know they were involved in a series inexplicably created as a best of three.)

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That’s 45 days of playoff unexcitement, spread over parts of three months. Put like that, however, and it’s no wonder it’s restricted behind a subscription wall, where only the most hardcore supporters will even request access.

And the casual fan? MLS doesn’t seem to care.

Well, MLS — neither do we.

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