TV is all that separates Major League Soccer "from becoming the truly major league its name bills it as, or so the commonly repeated rhetoric goes," according to Graham Ruthven of the London GUARDIAN. For all that Stateside football has drawn a steep growth curve over the past decade, TV "is the one barrier the league has left to clear." On the face of it, MLS’s new four-year deal with Sky Sports -- which sees the Rupert Murdoch-owned British broadcaster show at least two regular-season games a week, as well as the All-Star game, every playoff fixture and the MLS Cup final -- "is little more than just another television deal with just another broadcaster." But with this new partnership, football in North America "gained a degree of legitimacy" in the U.K., something it has often struggled for. BT Sport -- the previous holder of MLS rights in the U.K. -- has made quite the impression since its launch in Aug. '13 "but Sky Sports can be worn as a badge of authenticity by MLS." Imagine a TV drama "switching from Lifetime to HBO." In sporting terms, that is "what MLS has done in Britain." Apart from anything else, MLS "will now be showcased to a bigger audience" in the U.K., with Sky Sports boasting more than 10 million subscribers compared to BT Sport’s 2.5 million. MLS did not just increase TV prominence in the U.K. this season, "it also seems to have found its own time slot in Britain’s crowded television sports schedule." At odds with "pretty much the rest" of the football world, "scheduling barbs have been angled at MLS ever since the day of its inception as a predominantly summertime pursuit." It is often claimed that implementing a "more orthodox calendar" -- in keeping with Europe and FIFA’s mandatory int'l dates -- would aid the league’s global appeal, "and yet the very opposite seems to be true in the case of Sky Sports’ interest in MLS" (GUARDIAN, 4/8).
