Major League Soccer begins its 21st season on Sunday, and Fox Sports 1’s second year of coverage kicks off with the Seattle Sounders hosting Sporting Kansas City at 7 p.m. eastern.
It was a year of overall transition for soccer on FS1 and the network as a whole. Alexi Lalas came over from ESPN and joined John Strong in the broadcast booth for MLS games, and the network also televised the Women’s World Cup, the Gold Cup and the German Bundesliga in 2015.
Following a year of change and adjustment, Strong and Lalas spoke to Awful Announcing this week about their first year as partners on Fox, and a preview of new features, changes and improvements for their MLS telecasts, including more games on the Fox broadcast network and micing up coaches— and possibly even referees.
Strong has covered MLS for several years now, beginning at the local level with the Portland Timbers and then nationally for NBCSN. He said that many of the same producers, directors and people in the truck came over to FS1 from NBC, and that familiarity helped him. The first immediate challenge was moving Lalas from the studio to the booth for color commentary.
“The difference and the skill-set required for what you’re doing as a studio analyst to a game analyst, that’s a big difference,” Strong told AwfulAnnouncing. “That’s a big change and a big transition and more so than I think people might realize. It was a huge change for Alexi.”
Lalas said that moving over was challenging, to say the least. As someone who considers himself an MLS lifer, Lalas felt that as FS1’s lead analyst, he needed to “prove to people that we deserve this and we would treat it with the respect that it deserves.”
“I spent a long time doing studio and I consider myself, first and foremost, a studio rat,” Lalas told Awful Announcing. “And to make that adjustment on the fly and start back up doing color commentary, it’s a very different type of performance.”
It took about a month or so into the season for Strong and Lalas to build that chemistry in the booth, to the point where being in the booth together didn’t feel new or novel to them, Strong said. At NBCSN, Strong’s color commentator stood on the field rather than next to him upstairs, so he had to adjust to that as well.
Strong said he never had a sideline reporter either, and Julie Stewart-Binks had adjustments of her own to make as the third member of the broadcast team.
“Having not done anything at MLS before, coming in, learning a new league, building relationships, building contacts,” Strong said, describing what Stewart-Binks had to go through early on. “So there was a lot of newness.”
Strong, 30, is still also trying to find his way stylistically as a soccer broadcaster. He thought he had some missteps towards the end of last season in terms of balancing being passionate on air and being more quiet while letting the larger moments breathe.
Strong says he’s influenced by the understated English announcers like Martin Tyler, who is a little more backed off. But when Tyler does show emotion, he really goes all out. Strong recalled Tyler’s call when Sergio Aguero scored the last-second game winner that delivered Manchester City the Barclays Premier League title in 2012.
“The fact that he doesn’t do that often gives it more impact,” Strong said.
At the same time, he’s been interested in Andres Cantor and Spanish language broadcasters. Fans like the passion, excitement and joy they bring, Strong said.
“I’m just 30 years old. I’m still trying to figure it all out myself,” Strong said. “But at a certain point, I have to go from a young guy who’s figuring it out to ‘I should know what I’m doing now’ and being closer to a finished product as I get more of these opportunities.”
Lalas said that he’s working on improving mistakes like crutch words in his analysis, the timing of input and when to focus on minor details in the game rather than bigger picture issues.
Speaking of the bigger picture, the Fox broadcast network— otherwise known as big Fox— will broadcast four MLS games this season, beginning with NYCFC taking on the New York Red Bulls on May 21 from Yankee Stadium. That match will have a big lead-in from the FA Cup final, so it should get a fairly high viewership.
“When you are committed to do things like put it on the mothership and on big Fox, that changes perception, and that indicates ambition and associates relevancy,” Lalas said.
Lalas also acknowledged that he and Strong have a responsibility of making the most of their time on that platform and utilizing it to grow the league he loves so dearly.
“This is massive, it really, really is,” Strong said. “The fact that the Fox network is now investing its air time in MLS, that’s a big thing. It’s not just something that should be taken lightly. That’s a significant deal. It’s our job now to deliver a broadcast, pictures and words that takes advantage of that opportunity.”
Strong said that the success soccer had on the Fox networks changed the perception of the sport in the eyes of their management. With more people cutting the cord and cable television slowly losing its reach, Strong said the impact of having games on network TV is a lot more than it was five or 10 years ago.
To enhance its MLS broadcasts this season, FS1 will have coaches mic’d up for certain games. Just like the NBA’s segments, MLS won’t broadcast what coaches are saying live, but it will be packaged in an interesting way, Strong said.
“We’ll be able to eavesdrop in to what is traditionally, in soccer at least, a very private and insulated type of existence,” Lalas said.
Strong said that there were talks of mic’ing up players and referees as well, but that probably won’t be in place right away. FS1 would also like to chat with refs following a game, off camera, to explain to viewers why a certain call was or wasn’t made. That would be a fairly unique innovation in sports broadcasting.
They’d also like to integrate something from the NFL, where a player or coach is interviewed on the field right before kickoff. More access to locker rooms and pregame speeches is something FS1 is interested in as well, Strong said.
One major thing Strong and Lalas also really emphasized was improving the storytelling in their telecasts this season.
“One of the things we can do to build MLS in this country is get casual fans to know and care about who these players are,” Strong said. “This league is full of fascinating characters, really interesting guys. And we need to do a better job of telling those stories and building that out, so that people really do develop that connection.”
People know about players like Clint Dempsey and Kaka, Strong said, but he wants to try to build a connection that fans have with these players like the NFL has with, for instance, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. They want to give fans a reason to watch games even if they don’t root for one of the teams involved because they know the players and the storylines.
MLS is a league designed to foster parity across its 20 teams— definitely a recurring storyline— and Strong and Lalas are looking forward to witnessing the unpredictability of the MLS up close as its season begins Sunday. Each year seems to feature an upstart Leicester City-type team that comes out of nowhere, which is something FS1’s duo appreciates.
“I like the fact that it’s an impossible league to pick,” Lalas said. “The day that I meet the man or woman that can accurately predict what will happen in MLS, I will give them all of my money because I don’t think that person yet exists.”
Strong is looking forward to the great rivalries the league now has, like Portland-Seattle, and is excited to see how strong the depth of the teams’ rosters have grown after the offseason. But most of all, after a 2015 season of new beginnings, Fox Sports is looking for a smooth season and continued growth and continuity for 2016.
