General MLS Discussion

Joe_Cos said:
The only problem is RSN as we know it might not be a thing in 3 years. Sinclair who owns majority of the RSNs took a bath when it paid $10B for them. SBJ, has stated that Sinclair might sell the RSNs and the potential buyers will be NHL/MLB and NBA buying the RSN, if a sale is not there a bankruptcy filing of the SPV Diamond Sports Group will occur. So the better chance is the rest of the leagues will follow MLS model.
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And many leagues are already getting there to a degree. Look at the Thursday Night Football games on Prime Video now. The streaming services are about to unload tons of cash on acquiring live sports as a method to attract new subscriptions.

Also, this is Apple that the league is working with; they're going to be up for the challenge and be able to make this work. This isn't some brand new streaming service.
 
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SoupInNYC said:
And many leagues are already getting there to a degree. Look at the Thursday Night Football games on Prime Video now. The streaming services are about to unload tons of cash on acquiring live sports as a method to attract new subscriptions.

Also, this is Apple that the league is working with; they're going to be up for the challenge and be able to make this work. This isn't some brand new streaming service.
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The only thing I don't like about it is the scheduling blocs. I work Saturday afternoons and I generally get together with friends every other Saturday night (which I'm not really going to forgo for regular season MLS) so I'm going to be seeing far less games with this everything on Saturday schedule . Sunday afternoon games during the NFL off season were also the ideal for me making the trip down from Connecticut so I can't see myself making it to the stadium often if at all next season .
 
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Fantazma said:
they have to increase the roster if they doing all these group stage playoffs and also the leagues cup. or else teams will probably not even use main players in leagues cup for example or won't go for it since they know a big amount of games will occur after that tournament.
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That's part of the reason why I was surprised. We're looking at a really heavy workload next year, even if the league doesn't change the playoff format. If they do, realistically they're going to have to add three players to each roster, I think. Unless they're planning to just rotate MLS NEXT Pro players through to cover for guys left off the gameday for rest., which seems less than ideal, to say the least.

As it is, I don't see how anyone is going to have the luxury of carrying very many squaddies who never see the pitch. If any at all.
 
Interesting. In his halftime interview at the MLS Cup Final the commissioner was asked if the league will expand beyond 30 teams. Garber laughed and said "more than likely" they'll stop at 30. He seemed pretty emphatic, so I'd guess it's more than more than likely. LOL

So, either San Diego or Las Vegas will be the last one for the foreseeable future.
 
KevinJRogers said:
Interesting. In his halftime interview at the MLS Cup Final the commissioner was asked if the league will expand beyond 30 teams. Garber laughed and said "more than likely" they'll stop at 30. He seemed pretty emphatic, so I'd guess it's more than more than likely. LOL

So, either San Diego or Las Vegas will be the last one for the foreseeable future.
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They will expand to at least 32.

I propose they expand to 40 and split the league in to two, 30 MLS and 10 MLS 2 and keep adding team to MLS2 and introduce Pro/REl
 
Shawn Ryu said:
They will expand to at least 32.

I propose they expand to 40 and split the league in to two, 30 MLS and 10 MLS 2 and keep adding team to MLS2 and introduce Pro/REl
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They could get to 32 without changing the current league structure, I think. Anything above that would definitely start getting unwieldy from a competitive standpoint. If they were to eventually go to 40, they'd almost certainly have to split the conferences into divisions and maybe make some other changes as well. But they could do 32 now.

But I don't think the issue is competitive structure as much as capital. Remember, the league owns the teams and is ultimately responsible for most of the operating expenses, including player contracts.

My guess is MLS had it mapped out for 30 (or 32) franchises all along, and then planned to pause there as they shook it all out for a few seasons to see what the balance sheet looked like.

And that was before the Apple deal. Now they not only have a whole bunch of other finance issues to consider, but an actual partner. For a decade. On top of SUM and all the connections with the USSF and the 2026 World Cup and all that.

So, there's a lot to work out. I'm sure the one thing they don't want to do is get ahead of their revenue.

[Edit: I don't think pro/rel is workable. How does a league relegate a team it owns out of its own league? MLS NEXT Pro is third tier, too. The USL is the second tier.]
 
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adam said:
One worry I have is that MLS will have their own cameras and crews for each venue. Those cameras will be set up in each team‘s stadium (Think they said they’ll have all sorts of angles, on the field too, 3D maybe. Idk, lots of bells and whistles). I don’t think they are doing that setup for us at YS, Citi, Hartford, etc…. We’ll probably get a mobile crew and equiptment to set up at the venue du jour. So NYCFC home games should suffer from a lesser audio and visual standard till we get our own SSS where the league can set up shop in. Unless they want to get all artsy do someting like handheld only for us, that might get really interesting.

Pro side to this. Our SSS will be the first built knowing the league will be controlling production. We’ll probably have a part of the stadium set up as a studio and have all the new microphones and camera angles in mind when designing it. So when it’s complete, ours will look the best on TV out of the whole league.
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how do you know that ours will be the first SSS since this deal? There are other teams that could still get stadiums... st louis, for example... Charlotte...
 
Shwafta said:
how do you know that ours will be the first SSS since this deal? There are other teams that could still get stadiums... st louis, for example... Charlotte...
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st louis's stadium was already designed and construction started before this apple deal got done. the stadium is basically done. unlikely it was designed to have apple production in mind.

charlotte a new stadium? LOL...

i think vegas or san diego play in existing stadiums (allegiant and snapdragon, respectively).

ours should (hopefully) be the only SSS built in the next 5 years unless the revs actually build something too.
 
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moogoo said:
st louis's stadium was already designed and construction started before this apple deal got done. the stadium is basically done. unlikely it was designed to have apple production in mind.

charlotte a new stadium? LOL...

i think vegas or san diego play in existing stadiums (allegiant and snapdragon, respectively).

ours should (hopefully) be the only SSS built in the next 5 years unless the revs actually build something too.
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Good angle here, M moogoo -- I hadn't really thought of this. We'd be the one "custom-built" park in the post-Apple era.
 
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KevinJRogers said:
But I don't think the issue is competitive structure as much as capital. Remember, the league owns the teams and is ultimately responsible for most of the operating expenses, including player contracts.
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100%. Competitive structure absolutely comes second to business metrics. Any expansion argument based on what would make for a good league schedule is just wrong, they'll fit the schedule to the business not the other way around.

The primary reason (by far) they expand is to mark-to-market the value of franchise licenses. Using fake numbers, the existing teams wouldn't care that they all split a $300 million capital infusion by collecting that as an expansion fee -- they would care that the price for a franchise went up from, say, $200 million to $300. They all just increased the valuation of their teams by $100 million *each*. Sports teams don't make money on operating revenue, they make it on asset value appreciation.

So the league expands when demand is high and prices are rising. With the bull market ending, there's definitely less demand -- I think that's probably why they're struggling a bit to lock in #30. I actually believe Garber here that we might stick with 30 through 2026 as the current owners ride out this economy and see what happens after the local World Cup.

This is a game of artificial scarcity. You always want a few ownership groups willing the pay the current franchise fee -- if that dries up or you accept them all, you lose price support and everyone's franchise depreciates.
 
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sbrylski said:
100%. Competitive structure absolutely comes second to business metrics. Any expansion argument based on what would make for a good league schedule is just wrong, they'll fit the schedule to the business not the other way around.

The primary reason (by far) they expand is to mark-to-market the value of franchise licenses. Using fake numbers, the existing teams wouldn't care that they all split a $300 million capital infusion by collecting that as an expansion fee -- they would care that the price for a franchise went up from, say, $200 million to $300. They all just increased the valuation of their teams by $100 million *each*. Sports teams don't make money on operating revenue, they make it on asset value appreciation.

So the league expands when demand is high and prices are rising. With the bull market ending, there's definitely less demand -- I think that's probably why they're struggling a bit to lock in #30. I actually believe Garber here that we might stick with 30 through 2026 as the current owners ride out this economy and see what happens after the local World Cup.

This is a game of artificial scarcity. You always want a few ownership groups willing the pay the current franchise fee -- if that dries up or you accept them all, you lose price support and everyone's franchise depreciates.
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There's definitely a lot of truth in all this. Although I have to be honest, I think there are a lot of reasons to stop at 30, at least for now, and my guess is that was the terminal number for this expansion phase all along.

But you're absolutely right, the key business metric is the value of the franchises.
 
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From Fabrizio. So no Inter Miami.

🚨 | 𝗕𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗚: Leo Messi

Lionel Messi has now reached verbal agreement with Paris Saint-Germain to extend the contract and stay! 🇦🇷🤝🏻

▫️ Messi has verbally accepted to stay and continue at PSG beyond 2023 as deal will be signed very soon.

▫️ Messi never accepted Inter Miami proposal or negotiated with Barcelona, he was approached by both clubs but it was never advanced.

▫️ No decision yet on the leght of contract and salary, it will be decided in a new meeting soon — Al Khelaifi and Campos, working on it.

How do you see this decision for Messi? ⭐️

#messi #lionelmessi #psg #football #paris #ucl #transfers #fcb #argentina #herewego 🤝🏻
 
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