Stop us if you haven’t heard this one before: The TV networks think the future is bright for soccer in the United States.
Richard Sandomir of the New York Times had this quote from ESPN president John Skipper in the wake of MLS’ new deals with his network and Fox Sports.
“It’s a futures deal,” John Skipper, the president of ESPN, said Monday at a news conference announcing the deals with representatives of the networks, M.L.S. and U.S. Soccer. “We’re buying pork bellies. We think they’ll become more valuable over time.”
Didn’t we hear that in 1979, 1999, 2009?
It seems like soccer has been a futures deal in the U.S. for an eternity. We’re still waiting.
However, the betting on the futures deal now is much higher, with ESPN and Fox Sports committing a whooping $720 million to the MLS. For that kind of cash, the ratings need to improve dramatically for them to reap any dividends.
From Sandomir:
M.L.S.’s viewership under the current contracts tells a mixed story. On ESPN and ESPN2, viewership fell from 311,000 in 2012 to 220,000 last season. NBCSN’s viewership fell from 122,000 in 2012 to 112,000 last season. But viewership has rebounded to 215,000 through seven games this season, thanks in part to English Premier League games acting as the lead-in to M.L.S. four times.
There is little question that soccer’s profile is much higher in the U.S.. NBC’s coverage of the Premier League has been a big success and the World Cup could be huge for ESPN. But it hasn’t translated over to the MLS.
From Sandomir:
Fox, ESPN and Univision executives believe that heavily promoting M.L.S. will bring more attention to the league and hopefully mint new viewers.
“We have a loyal and rabid fan base for M.L.S.,” Eric Shanks, the president of Fox Sports, said. “We intend to expand that reach.
Said Skipper: “We reach 115 million fans every week. It’s a question of where we turn on the promotional fire hose.”
Yes, we’ve heard that one before.
I used to go to Chicago Sting games at Soldier Field in the 1970’s Ed and you’re right. We’ve been hearing this about soccer for decades. The fact is it will NEVER be popular in this country and personally that doesn’t bother me one bit. LOL.
If you’re going to try to tell us that soccer and our domestic league aren’t more popular now than ever in America, I’m going to say you haven’t been paying attention.
If you say it’s probably not ever going to get a huge audience on TV, I’ll agree with that. But somebody’s watching. And it’s a good demographic.
Yeah, this is why I tend to throw out the opinion of anyone who can remember the 1970s.
Apparently somebody in that decade, before I was alive, declared that soccer was going to take over the entire sports marketplace or something, and this has been all the excuse needed to ignore the steady growth of the game for the last 20 years or so. Anyone who bet on the future of the game in 1989 (considering the price would be awful cheap on that futures option) would have won out in 1999. Anyone betting on soccer futures in 1999 comes out a winner in 2009. Barring an unforeseen crash, anyone betting on that option in 2009 is certainly coming out ahead so far as well.