Apple TV broadcast deal discussion

[ensco]

OK so I am going to try to continue this here.

The start times suck in winter, though I'm fine with an evening kick off in summer. Definitely agree there, also surprised they're doing it since it cuts off so much of the market that would sign up for Messi games, so I suspect it won't last.

But wrecking MLS product? Sorry, I have to disagree emphatically here. The Apple deal, for all it's flaws, is *by far* the best thing to happen the leagues health overall in a long time. MLS was a failed TV product watched by less people than the average poker rerun, they now have a streaming service with 2 million+ subscribed in year 2 of a 10 year initial deal. This deal is what may/should (if they're smart) allow them to release the shackles and press the standard of the league onwards. I'd change the start times, and basically nothing else, about this deal.

Put simply, with no Apple there's no Messi. Absolutely no chance whatsoever. And any changes to salary rules going forward will be the result of Apple putting money no TV provider in the world would have given to the league.

Re "wrecking" MLS, fine, I am guilty of hyperbole. But you tell me the word to use when (i) a third to half the games in the schedule are played in slots where the game conditions really hurt the caliber of games, and (ii) a significant number of fans league wide perpetually either cannot get to or cannot watch any game.

Can you get Apple to change start times? If Apple would do it, than the league and TFC are just derelict. Which could be I suppose. I don't think it works that way. Apple paid to dictate that, it seems to me. That is what makes sense. "Full control over the product." That is how these guys think.

I note that we have an interesting team off to a good start overall, and that, since 8.20pm Sunday (it's 6.15am Tuesday as I write this) there have been a grand total of 2 posts on this site - one of which was to ask for this discussion to be moved. Whatever the reason for that is... it sure doesn't seem to me that the Apple deal is generating much in the way of new interest. It can certainly be argued it is discouraging some old interest.

Re Messi, those dots don't connect for me. If Messi wanted Saudi cash he wouldn't have come. Miami might have offered less absent Apple but the argument with high certainty that it was a dealmaker... let's not kid ourselves, this is a retirement league, still, and a lot of Messi-type guys (Giroud this week) come here to retire. If he didn't want Saudi, and he wanted more of a lifestyle deal for his family, and all Miami could do was an Insigne deal.. then I think he would have taken that. He maybe would have gone somewhere in Europe instead I suppose… but it is impossible to say that “without Apple, no Messi”. Plus, as I said, the wildest part of that whole line of argument is: they have forced his games into a 1.30am slot over there, when they could easily be in the evening in Europe.