DC Power FC jerseys, Africa Cup match may be off, and more: Friday Freedom Kicks
Happy Friday, everyone! I hope that most of you are preparing for a lovely, three-day weekend. We could all use more of those.
DC Power finally unveiled their 2024 jerseys in a media day video. I think I actually preferred the vertically-striped placeholders. What do you think?
Official Communication On Capital Cup (Asante Kotoko SC)
It seems like D.C. United’s planned match this weekend will not be happening due to visa issues for the Ghanaian players and staff.
What Happened with the Maryland Bobcats? Will NISA exist in 2025? League Commissioner John Prutch Answers (Beyond the 90)
NISA Commissioner John Prutch speaks about what caused the Maryland Bobcats to be disqualified from the playoffs this year. (SPOILER: He claims they haven’t paid league dues in two years.) He also says NISA will definitely continue to exist next year, which I find… overly optimistic, given what we’ve heard about league and team finances.
NWSL players honor and celebrate Om Arvind, champion of women’s soccer (NWSLPA)
In honor of Om Arvind, a women’s soccer journalist and creator of Managing Madrid who died earlier this year, the NWSLPA has created the Om Arvind Gift for funds donated to support player mental health.
Mauricio Pochettino, wine connoisseur and soccer alchemist, gets to work (Washington Post $)
An interview with Mauricio Pochettino in advance of his first USMNT game that reveals he chose his own first team to play for because they were in a good wine region. Respect.
Apple’s paywall is blunting Lionel Messi’s MLS impact in America (Awful Announcing)
I know people like only having to pay for one service to watch their favorite league, but as a more casual MLS fan, I agree that silo-ing it all on Apple TV prevents me from watching when I otherwise might
Finally, here’s your schedule of games for the weekend.
| Teams | When | Where | Watch |
|---|---|---|---|
| DC Power FC vs. Brooklyn FC | Fri., Oct. 11 at 7:30 p.m. ET | New York, NY | Peacock |
| Loudoun United vs. Rhode Island FC | Sun., Oct. 13 at 4 p.m. ET | Smithfield, RI | ESPN+ |
| Washington Spirit vs. Racing Louisville | Sun., Oct. 13 at 5 p.m. ET | Washington, DC | NWSL+ |
Have a good weekend!
This was always the argument against the Apple TV deal. Casual fans wouldn’t be able to stumble upon MLS matches. I’m not an expert nor do I know how you could quantify whether that actually brings fans in vs. the heavy marketing campaign that the Apple Cash allows. We are obviously not casual fans in this community so I guess it’s hard to say, but I MUCH prefer MLS’ TV setup over the NWSL’s that is an absolute mess, with all due respect.
In the end, ESPN low-balled MLS and the league bet on themselves, to a degree. Hard to blame the league for taking a better deal. I was lukewarm towards it at first, but I’ve gotten used to it now. There’s still some weird things (recap shows aren’t archived for some reason), but when does a league get things perfect?
I like the Apple TV set up generally. I enjoy being able to watch the games on my phone if I’m not able to block off time on a Saturday night (and as a parent of two young boys, I’m rarely able to block off two hours). I was expecting more in the way of supplemental content. They did a pretty good job of it in the first year, but haven’t really built on it in the second year, and a lot of the highlights from last year have been ethered as well. And I know they have a number of “free weekends,” but it does still feel like the broadcasts are something for the devoted fan, and it gets hard to make more of those. The best way is still the in-stadium experience. (I think. I haven’t been to a game in two years. Lousy kids.)
Yea I remember the league hyping up the “extra content” but this year it’s either hard to find or nonexistent.
Yeah, as a DC fan that has been on the far edge of their market for the last decade (Hampton Roads, sometimes Im in market, sometimes not at all), I’ve had to flip-flop on how I’ve been able to watch games that entire time. I went a few years just not really being able to watch games at all, followed by the ESPN+ years, and then finally being able to watch them on NBC Sports Washington (or dcunited.com). The Apple coverage has definitely had its pluses and minuses. In terms of quality and ease of finding the games, Apple is much better than ESPN+ was, and the picture quality is far superior to anything we’ve had in the past. However, paying the $15 per month for exclusively MLS coverage pales in comparison to paying (at the time) $5 per month for ESPN+ that came with a TON of extra stuff if I wanted it. I don’t know that I would really watch much of anything on AppleTV if it came with the MLS subscription, but the fact that the two are essentially exclusive services from each other with little financial incentive to have both at the same time has always seemed odd to me.
The games not being on cable for the most part I think also hurts MLS fans just as much as new fans discovering it. I know in the past, there would be plenty of times that I’d watch the Nascar race of the week on FS1, and the program after it would be some random MLS game. When that was the case, I’d leave it on and watch it, even if it was something random like San Jose vs Colorado. Now, unless I just finished watching a DC game and want to check on things happening out west, you dont really get that. That’s made even worse by all of the games essentially happening at the same time. Its absolutely great for knowing when your team is going to play, but bad for being a fan of the league itself and casually watching games that aren’t your primary team.
Agreed that the price is certainly on the edge of what I’m willing to pay just for MLS and not even Apple+ thrown in.
Yeah, it baffles me that MLS is $15, and I think AppleTV is like $10, but if you get them both, the MLS price drops to like $12. You’d think they would really incentivize getting them both
The NWSL deal is fantastic. Games are actually available on platforms most fans already have or can easily get. Perfect for a growing league in a growing sport. MLS gave up on growth when it switched to Apple.
Apple isn’t designed for expansion of the fanbase as much as a box to entice people interested in the attractions inside and keep them in the business model.
Couldn’t disagree more about the NWSL take you just made. Apple at least is a singular entity platform, and I for one find supporting at least one of those platforms (Amazon Prime) not something I’m willing to do. It was a good cash infusion for the league, but as a broadcasting model, it’s dog shit
Has DC United confirmed that the match is off this weekend? (I gave away my tickets to a brother-sister team that works at my golf club as a thank you….so I kind of need to let them know. I’d hate for them to travel for nothing).
I have heard nothing from DCU, nor is anything posted on their website.
I find it incredible that visa issues are in play. Maybe this a gambit by the Ghana club to get the stuff expedited by DOS?
Africa Cup match is still on. Seven Asante Kotoko players (those with visas) plus players from another Ghanese club plus Ghanese players from elsewhere in MLS.
Reading that Asante Kotoko press release, it sounded like they were pretty eager to remove any association from this event, and that they felt it wasn’t meeting their standard for professionalism. I think they also said their seven players would be coming home.
Obviously it’s their side of the story, but it certainly doesn’t seem too incongruous with how this thing might have been put together.
So I am super clear: DC UNited will be playing Saturday night?
(and thank you, David!)
Update from D.C. United this morning: https://www.dcunited.com/news/d-c-united-and-ghana-week-dc-announce-updates-to-the-capital-city-africa-cup
Thank you, Annie, and David. I was in a panic for my friends, they are stellar employees at my club. I think this is a fine solution. It’s a friendly, be friendly. It’s wild that there would be any visa processing issues over this.
The powers shirts seem to have a nice electric design (bolts).
As a fortunate STM for both DC United and Washington Spirit, I’m happy with MLS Apple streaming for DCU away matches (free for STM). For Spirit I’m dependent on potpourri of broadcast and cable channels as I have never been able to stream NWSL+ successfully.
That Awful Announcing article is what happens when an author has an idea but doesn’t bother to research or even ask themselves about why things happened as they did. They know none of the background with ESPN and Fox.
ESPN and Fox never gave MLS a consistent time slot. MLS asked for it over multiple contracts, even taking a lower fee in exchange for that Sunday night slot that ended up getting moved randomly once August hit just like in previous years. MLS felt betrayed.
The rise of ESPN+ combined with new management at ESPN HQ also changed things. First, new management didn’t value soccer like the previous management did. They were there to cut costs and consolidate around proven revenue streams. That meant backing off growth products like MLS in favor of putting more behind college football. The new management only saw soccer as something for ESPN+. MLS was already on ESPN+ so the new management saw no reason to pay more than ESPN+ money for it. Fox wasn’t willing to increase its portion of the deal and there were no other buyers as TV is an oligopsony where the few incumbent national networks look at what the others are doing rather than going first.
MLS needed to do something different to get more money and a consistent time slot. They needed a TV partner who was hungry and had cash.
Enter Apple, Inc. Apple was desperate to land a major league sports broadcast contract because all the other leagues were acting like monopsonies towards them; the few incumbent major leagues didn’t want to go first with a new network and a new delivery mechanism.
Apple and MLS kind of needed each other and really need the partnership to work. MLB signed with Apple because they were competent with MLS. Now others are too. MLS wanted more cash and it’s arguable that Messi doesn’t happen without Apple. WWE Raw live and exclusive on Netflix doesn’t happen. You’ll see more and more now that MLS has shown it can work.
MLS also needed to show the market that the broadcast rights are worth more than what ESPN and Fox were bidding. Sure they’d like to have the deal that the Big Ten got from Fox with the promotion but you need a major league production with a major league time slot and closer to major league TV revenues first. That just wasn’t going to happen during the last broadcast negotiations.
MLS took the best deal it could get at the time. No concern troll on Awful Announcing changes that.
Wonderful explanation, Cavan. Many thanks.
https://mobile.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/SportsArchive/Two-Asante-Kotoko-players-abscond-in-USA-upon-arrival-for-DC-United-game-1955037
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5836330/2024/10/12/mateusz-klich-interview-leeds-united?source=user-shared-article
The Apple deal is a disaster for anyone who is not a hardcore MLS fan. The only people I’ve ever seen defend it are people who live inside the bubble MLS and Apple have created. Maybe it made financial sense for the league, but only if the owners decided their goal was no longer to grow the league and just monetize their established, hardcore fans as much as they could.
The price is insane relative to other streaming services, locking out anyone who isn’t super committed to it. Why would anyone watch MLS when they can watch exponentially more sports and entertainment for less money on ESPN+, Paramount+, Peacock, etc?
Comments here have made a fair point that Messi probably wouldn’t have happened without the support from Apple, which the Awful Announcing article didn’t consider. But I’d rather have no Messi and a more widely watchable league than what we have now. Not to mention the US Open Cup disaster which I believe is linked to Apple.
While MLS is kind of hard to find on Apple TV, it was also hard to find on ESPN and Fox with the lack of a consistent time slot. MLS’s ratings growth was stagnating because of the lack of promotion and inconsistent TV slots. Combine that with ESPN’s new management not willing to budge on rights fees.
I don’t see what else MLS could have done. If they took the low ball deal, their broadcast would be lowballed down to $0 by the oligopsony that is the national TV market. It would have implied desperation rather than confidence and the TV networks would no longer value MLS at all.
It has been a an outcome with a lot of flaws but at least it raised the value of the rights. I acknowledge its flaws but I don’t see a deal out there in the 2022 time frame.