5 Ways To Make Apple TV’s MLS Season Pass Better In 2024

There’s still nearly two months months until we crown the 2023 MLS Cup Champion, but in terms of a TV and streaming product, Saturday night marked the end of the first year of the staple of the league’s MLS Season Pass production.

As part of its agreement 10-year, worldwide streaming agreement with Apple TV, the creation of the MLS Season Pass subscription service changed how fans watched the league in a number of ways, but no more so than concentrating the majority of the league’s matches on Saturday night.

This was the final such Saturday, with all games kicking off at either 6 p.m. ET or 9 p.m. ET to ensure no advantage in the battle for the postseason. Previously, the vast majority of games kicked at 7:30 p.m. local time.

And while there were certainly many good things about the first year of regular season coverage, there’s also plenty that can and should be improved ahead of a new campaign that could begin as early as late February.

Here’s five changes MLS and Apple should make to how MLS Season Pass covers the regular season in 2024 and beyond:

Twin Saturday Night Match Windows

Making Saturday night a league-wide staple was a good move. Making every game kick off at the same time locally took the idea too far, and didn’t make much sense for an international TV package.

Instead, the MLS Saturday slate should be scheduled in two simultaneous match windows. One possibility could be playing all Saturday night games at either 7:30 pm ET or 9:45 pm ET.

The simultaneous kickoffs would have several benefits. From a production end, it would allow MLS Season Pass to more effectively deploy its studio talent across individual match broadcasts and not just its MLS 360 whiparound show.

Currently, there is studio coverage prior to each set of games, but from kickoff onward the on-site announcers are on their own. Simultaneous windows would allow the studio folks to do more lifting at halftimer and postgame, when they could also pick and choose the best national storylines of the day. That’s something MLS needs more of to grow its influence beyond the hyperlocal interest has in most markets.

Additionally, simultaneous kickoffs in two windows would prevent teams in the Central and Mountain Time Zones in particular from having their games overshadowed. Even if those teams typically don’t have the biggest profiles, there are sleeping giants in Chicago and Houston. And stars from elsewhere play in those markets.

Imagine if the Dallas Cowboys played their home games at 2 p.m. ET or the Denver Broncos played their games at 3 p.m. ET. They would never become household brands.

And in the long term, switching to twin windows it would change very little on the local level. Fans in Washington, Chicago and Los Angeles would still know their games are mostly on Saturday nights. It’s just 7:30 in D.C., 6:30 in the Windy City and 6:45 in Southern California. Plus, you’d be adding some flexibility for teams in Texas that deal with the worst summer heat, potentially playing 6:30 p.m. games for parts of the spring and fall and 8:45 p.m. games in the peak of summer.

If you truly wanted to get crazy, you could even try a 12 a.m. ET window for one or two West Coast games — or at least have it as an option in cases of extreme summer heat.

Daytime Spring and Fall Games In Cold Markets

Conversely, Apple should also allow colder weather markets to opt into hosting afternoon matches during the cold months at the beginning and end of the season. Perhaps 2:30 p.m. ET would be the ideal time, since the West Coast teams can manage without this, and since it would allow matches to conclude by the time FOX national games began just before 5 p.m. ET.

The early season atmosphere in places like Toronto, New England, Salt Lake, Chicago and other markets suffered because of the rigid Saturday night focus. And while the afternoon block may be bad for attracting casual TV viewers, so is a product where the stadium is half-empty and disinterested.

Additionally, some scattered 2:30 p.m. games in the Spring and Fall could help get more fans of European leagues to view MLS if if Apple acquires the rights to a major European soccer property in the near future. Most games in the big five European leagues have concluded by 2:30 p.m. ET, although there are showcase games played later.

A Sunday Apple TV National Showcase

Giving fans a routine with the regularity of Saturday night kickoffs is a good concept. It also probably went a little too far.

Every market has a few games — be they rivalry matches, the return of a former player coach, or a visit from Lionel Messi — that will feel bigger than the rest and deserve standalone attention and a national audience.

Generally speaking in 2023, that only occurred on Fox or FS1’s national broadcasts, and the kickoff times Fox desired weren’t ideal — i.e. they came when they had nothing “better” to show

There’s a simple fix to this: Apple TV and MLS should create their own national TV package — likely a double header either on Friday night or Sunday night — to bring the best stories around the league to a bigger audience. These games that should remain accessible on the free Apple TV service, as a gateway to the more complete offering fans would get with access to Saturday night matches on MLS Season Pass.

It’s true that MLS national broadcasts have struggled to perform with viewers. But MLS has always been at the mercy of its network partners in terms of how and when those games are showcased. It deserves a chance to show it can generate national interest when calling its own shots.

And after all, putting 20-25% of your TV inventory before a national audience and distributing the rest over a concentrated window is basically the formula that has helped the NFL’s ascendancy to dominance over other American sports as a TV product. There’s no reason a similar strategy couldn’t work on a streaming medium.

More Focus On Crucial Refereeing Decisions

If there is one criticism of the tone and technical aspects of MLS’ in-match coverage, it is how crucial refereeing decisions are treated.

Directors across the league are too late to recognize pivotal calls when they occur and shift to the appropriate TV angles. At times, even broadcasters on air have appeared frustrated by this while trying to subtly guide them to the right angle or shot.

Also, the lack of visual technology used to explain refereeing decisions like the offside law is disappointing, given the use of it is commonplace in most European leagues now. Granted, MLS does not use a virtual offside line in its video review decisions, so any such technology wouldn’t be official, merely viewer guidance. It’s still a missed opportunity.

Worst of all, MLS Season Pass refereeing expert Christina Unkel was poorly used this season. Whether she returns or another experienced match referee takes the expert role next season, that person should be dropped into match broadcasts to explain and analyze those critical calls, in the way FOX’s Mike Pereira or CBS’s Gene Steratore would do on those networks’ Sunday NFL coverage.

If Apple or MLS is purposefully treading lightly on match officials, it represents an inconsistency. The MLS website, MLSsoccer.com, has for years featured strong retroactive analysis of the weekend’s biggest calls on the site’s Instant Replay series, which is also available on MLS Season Pass. You can see a recent episode above.

More Crossover Play-By-Play Talent

Some of the strongest additions to the MLS broadcasting stable on the English-language side were Mark Followill and Ed Cohen, two play-by-play announcers who have mostly made their broadcasting careers outside of soccer.

Followill was previously the local play-by-play voice of FC Dallas, but is primarily known for his long-held position as the TV voice of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks. He has adapted seamlessly from being a local MLS voice to a national one, and his work has been good enough that he’s also filled in as a studio host on occasion.

The MLS world is probably even less familiar with Ed Cohen, whose biggest gig is as the primary radio play-by-play voice of the New York Knicks. He occasionally filled in on MSG’s local New York Red Bulls broadcasts, and before that covered the lower division New York Cosmos. But he’s also been one of the most professional voices on Season Pass.

Perhaps the lack of more crossover broadcasters owes to recent history. There were previous pushes by networks to use such talent for World Cup coverage, but the men who were initially chosen did not grow up in a time when even the World Cup was a mainstream event. Dave O’Brien’s performance for ESPN at the 2006 World Cup was well-intentioned but uneven. Gus Johnson’s time calling the sport for FOX came to an end at his own recognition that he didn’t think he could do justice to the sport.

Perhaps those experiences have made Apple and other soccer televisers gun shy about hiring talent from other sports. But those of Followill and Cohen’s generation came up in a different time, when ESPN devoted a lot of time to MLS and European soccer, and when the men’s and women’s World Cup were treated as seriously as the Olympic Games.

That doesn’t mean every American broadcaster knows soccer now. But there’s far more than a generation ago. Based on the performances of Followill and Cohen — as well as disappointing efforts from some others whose experiences is primarily in American soccer — MLS and Apple would do well to find more of them next season.