With the ⚽️ MLS Cup Finals 🏆 between Atlanta United FC (defeating NY Red Bulls by 3:1 on aggregate in the Eastern Conference) and the Portland Timbers (defeating Sporting KC by 3:2 on aggregate in the Western Conference) all set after Thursday's semi-finals, it’s an opportune time to dive deeper into the league’s 📺 television viewership and 🏟 stadium attendance during the 2018 regular season as well as the most-recent 📈 franchise valuations:
Good-looking headline numbers mixed with some weakness upon further investigation seemed to be the common denominator across these key metrics:
⏺ Increase on league-wide team valuations was driven by expansion franchises and catch-up of small-market teams.
⏺ MLS - owned Soccer United Marketing has become a financial lifeline for a loss-making league in investment mode, but faces serious business challenges itself and becomes less valuable to the individual franchises every time another team joins the closed-league system.
⏺ TV Viewership benefitted greatly from increased coverage on FOX broadcast channel as both ESPN and FS1 experienced declines on a stand-alone basis.
⏺ Stadium attendance remained flattish compared to last season despite all expansion franchises boosting above-average audiences.
⏺ Revenues from domestic media rights are expected to double in 2023 since "FLAT" being the new "UP" in today's media landscape is a common narrative anyways.
Finally, I share two final thoughts regarding efforts to measure a more complete audience (📺 Linear + 👨👨👦👦 Out-of-Home + 📱 Streaming) and which role newcomer DAZN could play when it comes to the MLS, or soccer in the United States in general. 🤔
In-between, I added the occasional #SportsBiz nuggets here in there. 😉
