Major League Soccer on television

Major League Soccer with ESPN and ABC Sports announced the league's first television rights deal on March 15, 1994, without any players, coaches, or teams in place. The three-year agreement covered English-language broadcasting for the 1996–1998 seasons, and committed 10 games on ESPN, 25 on ESPN2, and the MLS Cup on ABC. The deal gave MLS no rights fees, but the advertising revenue was divided between the league and networks.[2]

During the 1990s, Univision and Galavisión broadcast matches in Spanish. The original Univision deal ended in 1999.[3] Telemundo picked up MLS in 2000,[4] but disputes over time slots led to the network dropping MLS after the 2001 season.[5] ABC and ESPN were left as the only MLS broadcasters in 2002.

In 2003, Fox Sports World (later Fox Soccer Channel) also became an English-language TV partner to MLS, while Fox Sports en Español became the Spanish-language partner in the same year.[6]

In August 2006, MLS and ESPN announced an eight-year contract spanning 2007–2014 giving the league its first rights-fee agreement worth US$8 million annually. The deal gave the MLS a regular primetime slot on Thursdays, televised coverage of the first round of the MLS SuperDraft and an expanded presence on other ESPN properties, such as ESPN360 (now ESPN3) and Mobile ESPN. The agreement also placed each season's opening match, the MLS All-Star Game and the MLS Cup on ABC.[7]

In September 2006, the media announced a deal between the Univision network and Soccer United Marketing (SUM) worth US$80 million. The network agreed to broadcast 25 MLS games per season, ten U.S. men's national team games and five international matches operated by SUM;[8] although, ratings were volatile.[9]

Disappointing ratings led to a 2008 push by ESPN to bolster its popularity through measures such as using JP Dellacamera, a veteran play-by-play soccer commentator, instead of baseball announcer Dave O'Brien, as well as an arrangement to simulcast MLS games in Spanish on ESPN Deportes, with the intention of gaining additional Hispanic viewers with a Spanish style. ESPN programming executive Scott Guglielmino explained: "From my perspective, the only question in my mind when it comes to growth is how quickly over time MLS and its management group want to spend on players ... You’re in a worldwide market. The question is how quickly the ownership group wants to push that envelope."[6]

After two years of low ratings, network executives decided to transfer all ABC games to ESPN. The MLS Cup had been broadcast on ABC each year from 1996 to 2008, but with ratings declining from 1.4, in 1996 and 1997, to 0.6 in 2008, the MLS Cup was moved to ESPN at the start of 2009.[10] The network also replaced the regular Thursday night telecast with a "game of the week" on either Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, or Saturday nights, to give MLS games better lead-in programming and more flexibility to air better matchups.[11]

In 2011, Fox Soccer Channel and MLS agreed to a one-year extension to televise up to 31 regular-season games and three playoff game, in a deal worth around US$7 million.[12][13][14] MLS Wrap was a MLS highlight show that aired on Fox Soccer Channel that was often hosted by Sean Wheelock, with analyst John Harkes.[15]

In 2012, NBC Sports Group replaced Fox Sports as the league's second English-language broadcaster, with games airing on NBCSN (which was available in approximately twice as many homes as Fox Soccer), and selected games on the NBC broadcast network. NBCSN broadcast 44 matches and NBC broadcast 5 matches—the average combined audience for NBC and NBCSN's games in 2012 was 122 percent higher than the average audience for Fox Soccer's games in 2011.[16] ESPN ratings also increased in 2012 from the prior year, as a number of MLS games were shown on ESPN in 2012, instead of a primary focus on ESPN2, as had been the case previously.[17]

On May 12, 2014, MLS announced an eight-year broadcasting deal between ESPN and Fox Sports in English, and Univision in Spanish, covering television, digital, and the possibility of radio rights. The biggest change under the new deal was the establishment of a consistent national window for each broadcaster; UniMas airs matches on Friday nights, while ESPN2 and Fox Sports 1 air matches on Sunday evenings and nights respectively (jointly promoted as Soccer Sunday). All three broadcasters will air at least 34 regular-season matches per-season during these windows. ESPN and Fox Sports will also share in English-language coverage of the playoffs, and alternate airing the All-Star Game and MLS Cup yearly. Univision will air Spanish-language coverage of the MLS Cup and All-Star Game, and exclusively air two playoff knockout-round matches per season. Matches exclusively televised by Univision include English-language commentary via second audio program. The deal also includes options for national radio rights for ESPN Radio and Fox Sports Radio, rights to United States men's national team matches for all three broadcasters, rights for ESPN International, and an option for ESPN to take over the distribution of the league's out-of-market package.[18][19]

ESPN and Fox Sports pay a combined $75 million per season, and Univision pays $15 million per-season. Totaling at around $90 million per-season, nearly five times the value of the league's previous deal, it is the highest-valued television rights deal in MLS history.[20] Commissioner Garber stated at the announcement that the new contracts were "another strong indicator of the League's continued growth and the overall fan interest in our sport".[18][19]

In March 2017, it was announced that Facebook had reached a deal to stream English-language coverage of the nationally-televised games allotted to Univision. The streams would include interactive features, while MLS also announced that it would stream a news program known as Matchday Live on its Facebook page to complement the new deal.[21]

Prior to the 2018 season, ESPN invoked its option to take over the out-of-market streaming rights to Major League Soccer. The MLS Live service was discontinued, and out-of-market matches became an overall component of the new ESPN+ subscription streaming service that launched in April 2018 (with MLS Live temporarily made available for free prior to the service's official launch).[22][23] Twitter replaced Facebook as the English streaming rightsholder for Univision's games under a three-year deal.[24]

The 2018 season also saw significant developments in regional broadcast rights, as Chicago Fire and newly-established Los Angeles FC chose to sell their regional television rights exclusively to subscription streaming services (the aforementioned ESPN+, and YouTube TV, respectively), rather than a local broadcaster or regional sports network. Several teams (including Real Salt Lake and the Seattle Sounders) also reached in-market streaming deals alongside a flagship television broadcaster.[25] In 2019, D.C. United similarly signed with FloSports (replacing Sinclair Broadcast Group), however the partnership was met with criticism over the more-limited availability of the broadcasts, as well as promised supplemental coverage that never materialized. The team broke away from FloSports prior to the final game of the season,[26][27] and re-signed Sinclair for the 2020 season.[28] Also in 2020, Chicago Fire FC returned to regional linear television with a multi-year deal with WGN-TV, concurrent with the final year of its agreement with ESPN+.[29]

† ESPN Deportes will simulcast all 34+ ESPN, ESPN2, and ABC games. Fox Deportes will simulcast all FS1 and Fox games respectively, except the MLS Cup final and MLS All-Star Game

†† English language rights for the MLS Cup Final and MLS-All Star Game alternate between ESPN, ABC, & Fox

††† ABC will broadcast 10 matches in 2020.[40] The network also aired the MLS Cup in 2019

Notes:

• Although the viewing numbers on ESPN2 declined by 36,000 from 2007 to 2008, ESPN began simulcasting MLS games on ESPN Deportes in 2008, attracting an average of 40,000 viewers.[42]
• Fox Soccer began getting ratings in October 2008. The Fox Soccer numbers for 2008 represent only the last four matches of the season. Viewership numbers prior to October 2008 are unavailable.[42]
• FOX OTA- (Over-The-Air) average viewing numbers includes the FOX Deportes Spanish language Simulcast average viewing number for the 2016–2017 seasons.[54]

Notes:

• Cable viewership average includes MLS average Television Viewing Audience across the National Broadcast Networks in which games air.
• Numbers do not include streaming viewership.

• The MLS Cup Final has also been aired on Spanish-language networks TeleFutura in 2007 and 2008,[65][66] Galavision from 2009 to 2011,[67][68] TeleFutura / UniMás from 2012 to 2018, and Univision in 2019., , , , MLS Cup viewing numbers listed do not include Spanish-language viewing numbers but only English-language viewing numbers reported from Nielsen.