Streaming is the future of sports broadcasting - whether it’s the pioneering Apple TV deal that Major League Soccer has entered into or LOI TV - says Colorado Rapids' Irish president Pádraig Smith.
MLS can now be viewed all over the world on Apple TV, thanks to a deal struck with the tech giants.
Irishman Smith, who last week was named president of the MLS side, believes it’s the way forward when it comes to attracting younger fans to the game.
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“There is no doubt that there is a shifting content consumption pattern over here, and that’s something that the league understood,” he said.
“I’ll give them huge credit, three years ago they went out to every club and said, you are not allowed to sell your rights beyond the 2022 season, we want to pull together all the content we have both as a club and a league and go to market with that as a potential package or packages.
“I think that was a clever strategy. It worked out well.
“With the shift away from the more traditional linear models, cable models, towards streaming, and with that being something that certainly the younger demographics are chasing, that’s what they want, they consume a lot of content online, it made a ton of sense.
“I think Apple saw what we saw, or what the league saw. They saw the demographics that MLS attracts, which is a younger demographic compared to the other sports over here in the United States.
“I think they also saw the power of soccer and the ability to scale that up and provide a product that was truly global and without any kind of Geo blocking.
“So it doesn’t matter whether it’s somebody in Colorado or Kansas or New York or Dublin or Dubai, you can pick up Apple TV and just watch the game right off the bat.
“That’s incredibly important for us as we look to become a major soccer league internationally.
“I think it was interesting that they mentioned a story about Lorenzo Insigne, who has jumped across from Serie A to Toronto, and him talking about the importance of the deal for him, because people back at home got to see every game.”
While the Premier League has flirted with the idea of streaming matches, the MLS has fully embraced the new technology.
As has the League of Ireland, with LOI TV.
“I think that speaks to a lot of what we want to be over here. We are a challenger brand to a certain extent but we are willing to do those things, we are willing to go and look at what is the best thing for us to try and put forward,” said Smith.
“You see it elsewhere, you see it in the League of Ireland with LOITV and the access you can have with that.
“I think it is something that we are going to see a lot more of in the future.
“I think something like this, the scope of which is probably much greater than anything we’ve seen before in terms of the global reach of it, is really interesting.
“We are incredibly excited about it.”
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