That's not the issue. The issue is the early season games will do (really) bad TV numbers, which is bad for the league as a whole.
Ummm....yea that was not my point. Yes the MLS tv ratings are not that great and it doesn't help that the NCAA Tourney takes up most of the eyeballs. As I said, it is a matter of opinion/taste. To me I couldn't care less about NCAA, NBA, NHL, and MLB, so for me personally the MLS season starts at a perfect time.
This issue about ratings will not go away for another few more years until more markets come into the league, therefore having more fans be interested in MLS games on a national tv scale. Even then it won't really reach the 350-400k. However the good news is that TV ratings will not really matter as much as they do now, in the future. The traditional sense of sports entertainment consumption will be way different in 5-10 years. TV numbers will only be a part of the total pie chart of the market. In this sense MLS is in good position. A lot of our fans watch our games on MLS Live, ESPNwatch, etc and other internet media. This will only increase.
I just had a conversation with my wife 30 minutes ago letting her know that we will be cutting the cord once our verizon fios contract is up. We don't watch tv anymore, the kids don't watch tv anymore. Our entertainment comes from our MacBooks, iPads, iPhones etc...and I am part of a bigger group that is experiencing the same thing. We will have our internet, our cell phones for making calls, and our Netflix, Hulu for tv shows, redbox for movies etc....
Yes to your point the tv ratings are not great at this time of the year but guess what they won't be great during other times of the year either. Lucky for us the young demographics that care about MLS, don't watch tv that much. This is why MLS/USMNT is a valuable product. The key demo is in our favor.