Apple’s 10-year broadcast deal with MLS has kicked off. From the very first weekend, we sat back and watched MLS Season Pass in all its glory. No blackouts. Exceptional image quality. Several excellent commentators. And an entertaining night of football. It was an enjoyable weekend reviewing the full coverage of the MLS Season Pass.
It was a small microcosm of what will be a long season in MLS. However, we got enough of a glimpse into opening weekend to see what the MLS Season Pass is like, what can be improved, and what we find frustrating.
A solid foundation has been laid
MLS Season Pass is a major upgrade over the league’s previous media offering. First, MLS Season Pass offers a single access point to bring you all the games. In the past, viewers had to navigate through an alphabet soup of different places where games might have been shown. Now, it’s simple. There is one location that has all the games.
Second, there are no blackouts. Getting rid of cumbersome restrictions due to regional sports networks was infuriating, so we’re glad to see an end to that. Third, the image quality is 1080p and excellent. The visuals are clean, with a simple Apple TV logo in the top right corner and a simple but elegant score bug near the top left.
Now, let’s get into the details.
Falling headlong into the MLS season pass
Tuning in for coverage on Saturday, I found myself trying to understand the viewer experience and the flow of shows. I immediately jumped into a broadcast of one of the specific games I was interested in watching, expecting to see a live pregame segment, but it took me straight to MLS Countdown, the pregame show featuring Liam McHugh, Kaylyn Kyle, Bradley Wright-Phillips and Sacha Kljestan.
No offense to the MLS Countdown team, but none of the stories they discussed interested me. So I went back to get live pre-game coverage straight from the stadium. None existed. The only piece available was a pre-recorded segment that didn’t hold my attention.
Throughout the evening, I found myself “channel surfing” to specific games, then returning to the MLS Countdown team that had morphed into the MLS 360 show. Personally, I would prefer a broadcast that had MLS Countdown, MLS 360, and MLS Wrap. -Up combined into one instead of clicking back and forth between different options.
Eventually, I found my rhythm relying more and more on MLS 360, then switching to live games during commercial breaks and back to MLS 360 a few minutes later.
The whip show needs a lot of work
There’s no question that MLS 360 is the centerpiece of MLS Season Pass. It is where most of the attention is concentrated on a game day. It also has the potential to be the ultimate outlet for showcasing the league and the benefits of signing up for MLS Season Pass.
However, it is not there yet.
It’s still early days, so some things may change, but MLS 360 doesn’t capture the excitement of the league. Simply put, the show is too talkative. We’re watching MLS 360 to see the action from across the league as it happens. We don’t tune in to listen to pundits incessantly talk as games unfold about who will win MLS Cup or related topics. For us viewers, that’s a distraction. It takes us away from the reason we are watching the show. And it creates a “brick wall” between the games and the spectators.
With the whip show, we want to see what’s best in MLS. We don’t want to listen to talking heads. If the league is as much fun as the MLS writers say, show us. Honestly, we don’t need to see the talent unless nothing is happening, or if it’s at halftime, before or after the game. Instead of being like the FA Cup show on ESPN+, which suffered from similar problems, MLS 360 should be more like Goal Rush and The Golazo Show.
With MLS 360, hosts and analysts need to get out of the way, both figuratively and literally. We want to hear the announcers announcing the goals instead of the pundits talking about them. Also, we don’t want to see their backs, as they occasionally look at the screen (see below).
MLS 360 could become the best MLS has ever created. It gives neutrals a chance to see how entertaining the league is. In fact, MLS 360 makes MLS more visible. Taken together, the highlights of all the games brought together in one show make for a more entertaining viewing experience. And it’s completely live and unpredictable, which adds to the excitement.
It was a lot of fun watching the exciting final games between Atlanta-San Jose, DC United-Toronto, and Austin-St Louis. It’s a taste of what MLS 360 can be. And the best part of this? Encourages spectators to watch even if their team isn’t playing. That’s been a big hurdle for MLS in the past to get people to care about seeing the league as a whole, and this solves it overnight.
MLS 360 has a problem with Taylor Twellman
What’s intriguing about MLS 360 is the huge difference Taylor Twellman made on Saturday night’s show. You could split the show into two halves. Before he got on set, and the difference he made once he showed up. Without a doubt, Twellman injected a lot more energy and quick conversation into the show.
Twellman only appeared on the show on Saturday night because the MLS game in Los Angeles was postponed due to weather. However, MLS execs need to find a way to either clone Taylor or have him appear on the show more often because without him, it just wasn’t as good.
If MLS improves the show, MLS 360 could become a Saturday night soccer fan go-to. Even better, viewers may be able to watch for more than two hours. For example, the show begins at 7:30 p.m. ET and continues through the night until after midnight ET. As long as the games are engaging, and I don’t mind commercial breaks, viewers can watch all night long with the start of the games at 7:30 pm local time from the Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific time zones. .
MLS Season Pass Coverage Review
Speaking of kickoff times, MLS is up to its old tricks again with games not starting at their scheduled times. In the past, we could have blamed the television networks. But now there is no excuse. Start the game at kick off time like any other football league does please.
It’s still early days for MLS Season Pass, so I’m sure a lot of the technical gremlins will be ironed out. But there were various problems with the audio throughout the night. Inter Miami, who we’ve criticized a lot lately, had most of the problems. Local radio announcers sounded like robots during parts of the game. Kieran Gibbs’ audio was barely audible before the game. Also, we heard a hot microphone several times during the night where private conversations could be misheard.
For a franchise that is actively trying to sign Lionel Messi, the organization’s lack of attention to detail is concerning.
Speaking of concerns, before the 2023 MLS season began, our main concern about the MLS Season Pass was the negative impact of FOX Sports. Unfortunately, that concern materialized on Saturday in an unprofessional manner.
For Saturday’s season opener, both FOX and MLS Season Pass televised the same game separately. MLS Season Pass pre-game coverage. The FOX coverage appeared to have been created in a college dorm room against a backdrop that resembled a crumpled shower curtain.
As I wrote last week,
MLS needs FOX more than FOX needs Major League Soccer. With FOX being the only broadcast partner, FOX is the only way to reach both mainstream and casual sports fans. While FOX wouldn’t like to see it portrayed this way, FOX does have the weight of promoting the league to help sell MLS Season Pass subscriptions. Therefore, FOX is indirectly a key element of whether MLS Season Pass is a success or not.
MLS just has to hope that the studio coverage isn’t as bad as FOX’s World Cup coverage, and that it doesn’t turn people away.
The irony is that not only did MLS’s own coverage of the game look better than FOX’s, but MLS’s own commentary duo, Keith Costigan and Maurice Edu, also work for FOX Sports. However, MLS does a better job showcasing FOX talent than FOX does with its own employees.
To be blunt, FOX is an embarrassment to the soccer broadcast industry in the United States. Since they started, they have televised almost every major soccer league and competition at one point or another. And surprisingly, they have somehow managed to screw every single one of them.
Unfortunately for MLS, FOX Sports was the only one to step up to be the league’s television partner. However, FOX’s coverage of MLS is so bad that it may end up encouraging more viewers to sign up for the MLS season pass. Sometimes unintended consequences pay off.
Elsewhere, the MLS Season app’s UI needs to improve, especially when it comes to making it easier to find games on demand. We also identified an issue that happens to Android users who are unable to avoid spoilers.
In short, Major League Soccer isn’t perfect, by any means, but at the end of the day, we can all agree that it’s soccer, and we as soccer fans can at least give it a chance. MLS Season Pass.
It’s not for everyone, but the MLS Season Pass has a lot to offer.
