Apple TV deal a step forward for MLS, but Whitecaps still have challenges to face

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Millions of soccer fans in North America woke up early last Sunday — before 8 a.m. ET or 5 a.m. PT — to tune into their game of the week.

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It wasn’t English darlings Liverpool, it wasn’t storied Real Madrid nor Napoli, it wasn’t even Paris St-Germain, a glitterati soccer giant featuring global icons in Lionel Messi, Neymar and Kylian Mbappé.

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It was Wrexham FC.

A team on the fifth tier of English soccer — that’s a semi-professional level, four tiers below the Premier League — was the most-viewed game on ESPN that day.

On Major League Soccer’s Decision Day, the final day of the 2022 regular season when playoff fates are sometimes cruelly and dramatically revealed, it wasn’t LAFC, NYCFC, Inter Miami, nor any other of the big-market teams that dominated the U.S. screens.

It was Wrexham FC.

Vancouver’s Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney spent US$2.5 million to buy the soccer minnow, invested a couple million more, and with the help of Disney+ and their Welcome to Wrexham documentary, created a media and cash-spewing juggernaut. Each of the 18 episodes racked up a reported average profit of US$520,000, not to mention the profit from skyrocketing merchandise sales.

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Reynolds and McElhenney hit on the right formula: story + star power = $. It was Sunderland Till I Die turbocharged by Hollywood hype.

Never mind that the actual quality of soccer, was at best, on par with NCAA universities or the deepest part of MLS farm teams’ benches. But the content was good. It resonated. It sang.

Now MLS is hoping to hit the same high notes with their Apple TV deal, an agreement that will see US$2.5 billion over 10 years dropped in the league’s coffers for the rights to broadcast every MLS game.

The platform that games are hosted on is slick, quick and comprehensive, with content from every single team easily accessible under individual tabs. There will be NFL Red Zone-type shows, highlights, analysis and commentary. You can watch MLS NextPro games, playoffs, Leagues Cup1 on any device capable of streaming, and in multiple languages.

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The cost is Cdn$20 a month or Cdn$129 per season for non-Apple subscribers. Those with Apple TV+ already can add it on for Cdn$17/$99. Team season-ticket-holders will get it for free, with the ability to share it with up to six family members.

Locally, the deal will massively increase the exposure of the Vancouver Whitecaps to the outside world, but it’s still the local eyeballs that matter most.

For a variety of reasons, some not exclusive to the team, their attendance has been dipping. Last year’s average of 16,399 was the lowest year in the team’s MLS history, and first season they failed to sell-out B.C. Place at least once (excluding the COVID-19 years).

The Whitecaps say they currently have around 9,000 season-ticket-holders, a number that has hovered around the same total since 2019, but that figure encompasses everything from traditional STHs to contra deals and flex passes.

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The Apple TV deal could mean the team loses more ground trying to recapture the casual fan. There will be four games broadcast outside the Apple paywall per week, and at least one is guaranteed to be a Canadian team. But there is no agreement in place (yet) for commercial properties — i.e. pubs and bars — to broadcast games, and while cable subscriptions are dwindling, streaming services are also facing their own “fatigue” problems.

Whitecaps CEO Axel Schuster pointed to several factors that have depressed their numbers. COVID changed many people’s habits — “our biggest competitors are still the beaches, the mountains, the islands, all of that,” he laughed — and erratic start times and mid-week games turned people off. And with economic difficulties impacting just about every B.C. family, many don’t spend the money they used to on live events. The new schedule addresses the game-time issues, and the team is working on ticket initiatives to help cash-strapped families.

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“Have I been super-happy with our numbers last year? Oh, of course not,” said Schuster. “Do I believe that only if we continue to perform like we have done in the second half of (last) season, we’ll make everything perfect? No, I think that the world has changed too much. So it’s on us.

“It’s on us to think about how we can present a product to the people, to soccer-interested people. The problem is not that people are not aware about us or that people don’t like us, the problem is that (season tickets) are maybe not the right fit anymore for the reality of life in British Columbia and Vancouver.”

The idea of streaming games may not be palatable to certain demographics, and some may balk at shelling out for an extra streaming service when they already subscribe to several others. But Schuster is confident people will see the value in the Apple product — just like Reynolds saw the hidden value in a dying soccer minnow. People just needed to see it.

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“I would say to anyone, ‘Give it a chance and really find out what you really have access to and what you don’t have access to (in other platforms),’ ” said the former Bundesliga executive. “The world is changing. If you would have told me that we speak about the soccer in streaming back when Mainz was promoted for the first time to the Bundesliga (2010), I would say, ‘What do you speak about?’

“Apple is now the first really jumping on that new reality. This is the next step that the league climbs on the ladder of competitions worldwide. MLS wants to knock at the door of the top five leagues in the world.

“And I think this league has now done a big step to prepare themselves (for) the next steps, and to knock at that door in the next 10 years.”

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