MLS Commissioner Don Garber said that MLS has
"overlooked the core soccer fan base in this country" and
that the league needs to invest in delivering the game to
those fans through "highlight shows and games-of-the-week,"
according to Fred Robledo of the San Gabriel VALLEY TRIBUNE.
Garber: "Our goal is to get ABC and ESPN to get to the kind
of model that we have with Univision, which is why our
ratings are higher on Univision. Everyone knows that Sunday
afternoons at 1 p.m. there's an MLS game. We need everyone
to know that on such and such a date on ESPN and ESPN2
there's an MLS game." Garber says MLS is "also working with
them (ABC and ESPN) on hour-long shows similar to the
English Premiership show that's on Fox Sports World."
Garber: "The idea is to have a Game of the Week, potentially
airing on Monday night and having other highlights of games
throughout the year." MLS "will have to fork over the cash"
initially for the highlight and preview shows, but Garber
"thinks it will pay off." Garber: "To ESPN, we're not
important enough right now. So, we can't expect that other
people are going to do our job for us. It would be an
expensive project for us to embark on, no less than 15 or 16
hours of programming throughout the year, but it's a step we
have to take." More Garber: "Everyone looks at the WNBA and
thinks they have great success. We're outdrawing the WNBA
on average significantly, and yet nobody doubts the
credibility of the WNBA. ... As our fan base increases and
we become more credible, ESPN is going to be forced to
promote us more because they're going to want to pump
ratings" (San Gabriel VALLEY TRIBUNE, 11/10).
