At the behest of a few of my friends Sunday afternoon, I tuned in to the MLS Cup Final. Let me tell you what a good decision that was. That was a thrilling match. Sure, it probably wasn’t a good advertisement for the sport of soccer, but it was absolutely a very entertaining two hours where I thoroughly enjoyed myself. And I’m willing to bet if you saw the game you would agree with me. But based on the ratings, it’s most likely that you didn’t see the game.
668,000 of MLS Columbus/Portland on ESPN. Another 206,000 on Univision Deportes.
— Sports TV Ratings (@SportsTVRatings) December 8, 2015
The ratings for the MLS Cup Final were low, seriously low. The worst part about how low they are is that it isn’t even a surprise since the game kicked off at 4:25 PM ET, right in the middle of an NFL Sunday. That’s a problem.
For as much as MLS is growing in this country, it still has a lot of problems. Whether it’s turf fields, way too much travel, their ridiculous salary structure, a playoff system that makes no sense or the crazy summer time schedule. Admittedly, I am a very casual MLS viewer. I don’t watch MLS nearly as much as a diehard fan, but this can be a positive. I have an “outside the box” perspective on how to fix some of MLS’ issues in order to raise their low ratings and get other soccer fans like myself who may not watch as much MLS to watch more often. Fixing the low rating issues from the MLS Cup Final is a problem that is so easily fixable.
The MLS Cup Final is Major League Soccer’s premier event, so wouldn’t it make sense for MLS to try and get as many people to watch it as possible? Why put it up against the NFL, when the NFL is the king in this country? Instead of having this game on a Sunday afternoon, why not put it in prime time one night this week.
Take Wednesday night, for example. A quick check of the TV guide shows that if MLS played the game Wednesday evening, it’s main competition would be a rerun of Empire and a new episode of Survivor. I love Survivor, but even I would relegate the show to the DVR in order to watch a live Championship game.
Now you may say ESPN can’t do that since they have NBA and College Basketball commitments so that brings to another solution that solves even more of MLS’s problems. Switch to an August-May schedule and play the game on a spring Sunday night when its competition for eyeballs isn’t nearly as steep. It would still have to compete with potential NBA or NHL playoff games, but that’s way better then going up against the NFL.
Switching to a August-May schedule is a topic that has been brought up before but it solves another one of MLS’s major problems, the ridiculousness that is the MLS summer. Right now the MLS summer is jam packed with regular season games and cash grab friendlies against European teams on their preseason tours that MLS clubs love. Those games simply add to an already crowded schedule of games that many teams don’t have the depth to accommodate.
The next thing you need to factor in is that many of MLS’s teams can go more than a month without their best players due to their participation in international tournaments with their national teams. Teams that are in the playoff hunt in June, can be completely out of it by August because their best players were off competing in the Gold Cup, how does that make any sense? The more expansive schedule would also allow MLS to observe international breaks, meaning teams wouldn’t be losing players for games down the stretch in October.
There is another added benefit to switching to the winter schedule. Every four years during the World Cup, talk shifts to whether or not MLS will be able to take advantage of the popularity that the USMNT gains during the tournament. The way the system currently works, if a casual fan discovers the beauty of the sport during the World Cup and wants to start supporting their local team, they could quickly discover that their team is already out of the playoff race. That could be a major deterrent for new fans.
Now if the MLS played a winter schedule, that same fan would now be striking up an interest in his local team just in time for the new season. He would get to see the team play a couple of friendlies against European opponents who have name recognition, and then he would be able to follow his local club right from the start of the season. That would give the league an entire season to lock in their new fans before the fans realize that the league’s playoff system makes no sense.
MLS has it’s fair share of problems, but playing the MLS Cup Final at a time when more people can see it is one they could fix so easily. Sunday’s game was a thrilling and very entertaining affair, it’s just a shame for the league that no one saw it.
