The Major League Soccer contract with Apple TV has been under scrutiny ever since it was signed. MLS got the best financial deal it could, but sent almost all of its games behind a paywall. And at least according to one MLS owner, Jimmy Haslam, the league still needs to do much more when it comes to being a television product.
Haslam is most well-known in the sports world as being the owner of the Cleveland Browns, and often creating headlines for when things go wrong, be it with Johnny Manziel or Deshaun Watson. But his tenure as owner of the Columbus Crew in MLS along with his wife Dee has been much more successful.
The Haslams along with Dr. Pete Edwards helped to “Save the Crew” in 2018 by buying the team when then-owner Anthony Precourt attempted to move the original MLS franchise to Austin, Texas. Under Haslam, the Crew have won 2 MLS Cups, a Leagues Cup, and made it to the final of the CONCACAF Champions League.
But for someone whose net worth is estimated at over $8 billion, the revenue being generated by Major League Soccer’s Apple deal isn’t enough. Speaking at an event in London, Haslam laid out the great disparity between his NFL and MLS teams when it comes to television revenue, and his admission that MLS has a “long way to go in getting people to watch our product on TV,” as recorded by Sports Business Journal.
“Our NFL contract pays $420 million a year; our MLS contract pays $4 million a year,” said Haslam, who also owns the Browns. “So, we still have a long way to go. The Premier League on Saturday mornings is a good draw in the United States. We still have a long way to go in getting people to watch our product on TV, which is where true value is created.”
This is the Catch-22 of the Apple-MLS contract. While the first numbers that were released about subscribers were seen as decent, there was still some ambiguity over what they meant. The reality is that the greatest soccer player of all-time, Lionel Messi, still plays the vast majority of his games behind a streaming paywall.
The accessibility vs revenue debate is one that pretty much every sports league not named the NFL has to wrestle with. We’ve seen it in the racing world where star NASCAR drivers are now openly questioning their new television deals because there are too many races on cable and ratings are continuing to decline.
MLS on Apple is a really good product. It’s available worldwide. But there’s still an open question as to how many American sports fans are MLS fans or even have the opportunity to be one.
But perhaps the league’s biggest challenge for the future of Major League Soccer is the American soccer viewing experience. English Premier League games are more widely available than Major League Soccer. And the EPL features the biggest names, stars, and brands in the entire soccer world. That’s always going to be difficult to compete with when MLS can’t compete for players at that same level.
So what can MLS do to shake things up? Jimmy Haslam even seemed open to the idea of promotion and relegation garnering more interest for American soccer, even though that would severely jeopardize his own investment and the investments of all other MLS franchise owners.
“Do we ever get to that MLS? I’m not sure,” Haslam said. “We’re going to have to change some things up. I don’t know whether MLS is 10th or 12th, but it’s not amongst the top leagues. And if we want to go to — I’ll make up a number, to five or six — we’re going to have to do something different. Could that be a possibility? It could.”
Everyone involved in Major League Soccer wants to see the league take steps forward on a global scale. But it’s a chicken and egg scenario when it comes to creating a more valuable television product. The league has to spend a lot of money to get star players in their prime to earn more television revenue and create a better product. But can they do that until they get the revenue first? That’s an existential question that has seemingly followed Major League Soccer since the dawn of its existence, and will likely continue to do so.
About Matt Yoder