Examining the criteria that constitute an aesthetic experience while viewing a sporting event may sound abstract to the point of being academic (well, it is), but doing so may hold the key to understanding the challenges Major League Soccer faces as it competes with the other major American sports and foreign soccer leagues for viewers, both at matches and on television. And it also may help explain why the huge commercial success of the recent World Cup may not translate into commensurate growth for MLS.
Major League Soccer has been a success by many measures: The quality of play is arguably higher than ever, which partially explains why leading American players such as Clint Dempsey and Michael Bradley opted to return from major European leagues. Average attendance approached 19,000 for the second season running and the majority of clubs now own lucrative soccer-specific stadiums. And the league will expand to 21 teams in 2015, with the latest additions, New York City FC and Orlando, expected to pay a combined $170 million in entry fees. But TV ratings remain stagnant. In fact, ESPN’s figures for the English-language broadcast of the 2013 MLS Cup were the lowest in league history, 44 percent down from 2012 (though the increase in Spanish-language viewers lowered that drop to just 20.5%). Overall, games on ESPN averaged about 220,000 viewers and NBCSN only drew about half that many. By comparison, English Premier League matches aired on the NBC family of networks were routinely watched by more than 500,000 during the second half of the 2013/4 season, despite the fact that many of them started around sunrise. MLS’s regular season ratings even lagged behind the WNBA’s. Finally, interest in attending matches has not translated into watching that same team on local TV; even in large markets like New York, the number of fans who attend matches may sometimes actually exceed the number on couches. The money was also much better and they were guaranteed starting jobs, which is an especially important consideration the season prior to a World Cup
So we have the makings of a riddle: Why are MLS fans more willing to attend matches than watch them on TV, even when their own team is playing? Part of the answer is that MLS does not have to compete with the EPL for fannies in seats, but that begs two important questions: How does the experience of attending a MLS match differ from the experience of viewing one on TV? And how does the experience of viewing an EPL match, or other higher quality matches, differ from what MLS offers? Answering these questions will not only help MLS improve its TV ratings, I also believe it will help explain why the tens of millions of kids who have played soccer have taken so damn long to morph into lifelong fans.
Author: Dr. Ken Pendleton
Read the Entire White Paper: Major League Soccer – Why Increasing Interest in Soccer Has Not Translated into Better TV Ratings