MLS Commissioner Don Garber can still recall a time when he sat with the league’s owners and MLS staff trying to determine whether the league could go forward. But speaking from his Manhattan office last week, just prior to MLS Cup and the end of the league’s 20th season, that tenor, Garber said, has changed quite a bit.
“At that time, I don’t think anyone believed when they made the commitment to build stadiums, own multiple teams, invest deeply in improving the quality of play, that we’d be here in our 20th season, with 20 teams, with three great broadcast partners, with some terrific, world-class players and young stars, and an average attendance that’s over 21,500,” said Garber, MLS’s commissioner since 1999. “So the 20th season was a very good one.”
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Don Garber credits league owners for driving MLS’s success.
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What ended up being a landmark year did start under ominous terms, with a contentious process in pursuit of a new collective-bargaining agreement that went down to the wire in the offseason. “CBA negotiations are difficult for all sports leagues,” Garber said, “and they almost always go down to the wire, as did ours.”
From there, MLS’s run of business took off. The league added the likes of Audi, Coca-Cola and Johnson & Johnson as marketing partners this year. New media-rights deals with ESPN, Fox and Univision began, a package of deals that nearly triples the fees the league receives. The league’s partnership with IMG, with the firm selling the global MLS media rights, also paid off in the form of multiple new contracts signed, pushing MLS’s games to more than 140 countries.
Garber pointed to the league’s growing stable of owners and the work of Gary Stevenson, MLS Business Ventures president and managing director, in particular as reason for the gains.
“In my view, the greatest strength of our league and the key driver of our success has been the commitment and vision of our ownership group,” Garber said. “It’s not just the quality of our owners, but their belief in the sport and their incredible commitment of time, energy and resources in investing and growing the game.”
Garber noted that many of the league’s original investors — including the Kraft family, the Hunt family and Phil Anschutz — are still active in the league but they’ve been joined by a host of new voices with different backgrounds. Among those are the ownership groups for 2015 expansion clubs New York City FC and Orlando City SC.
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MLS Cup capped a season with new teams New York City FC and Orlando City SC (above), new sponsors and new media deals.
Photo by: GETTY IMAGES
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“We look like every other pro sports league in our country, other than the fact that there’s more of an international and diverse component around our board table,” Garber said. “That’s necessary as we’re operating in a global market, and it makes our board meetings and the preparation of our meetings very interesting as there’s more of a broad and diverse level of experience that helps us get to where we need to go.”
With Stevenson, Garber said the league gained his vast
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Photo by: ESPN IMAGES
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knowledge, experience and understanding of the media business when he joined MLS in August 2013. That skill set has paid off with both the league’s crucial domestic and now international media-rights deals.
Garber said the league has completed a project with Boston Consulting Group aimed at better understanding MLS fans and where the league can best invest future resources. Expansion also will continue to be part of the league’s plans, with expectations that 2017 will bring the launch of a franchise in Atlanta, followed by Los Angeles FC in 2018, Minnesota soon thereafter, and Miami rounding out the field for Garber’s vision of having 24 MLS teams by 2020.
Garber said he’ll judge the success of expansion in part by its ability to help build a national audience for MLS. Part of that goes hand in hand with the league’s TV audience, which saw viewership increases across all three of its network partners this year (SportsBusiness Journal, Nov. 9-15 issue). However, the league still struggles to have the same buzz nationally as some markets do locally.
“Driving a national TV audience takes time,” Garber said. “We’re still a young league, and it will take time for us to connect all the dots between the great stories and successes that are going on in the local markets, and converting that into a national TV audience. We understand that, our broadcast partners understand that, but we feel good about the ratings increases that we’ve had.”
Garber said there wasn’t anything he can look back on in 2015 and say the league “missed on that one.” He expects even more going forward.
“Our staff, our clubs, our owners, our partners were really driving on all cylinders, partially to ride this momentum of the soccer movement in the U.S. and Canada, but also because it was a real focus on our 20th season and trying to really put a stake in the ground and say, ‘We’re here, we finished our 20th year, and now we’re ready to embark on MLS 2.0 and figuring out what we do to be even more successful,’” he said. “There’s no doubt in my mind that our best days are still ahead.”
Don Garber on …
■ NYCFC stadium progress: I am convinced at some point that NYCFC will have their own home, and they continue to work hard on that project, and they’re very committed to playing in their own home in the future. What I will say is that the success in Yankee Stadium has been spectacular. It has become a place to be. They have a very rabid local supporter group that loves taking the subway up to the house that Ruth built, and hopefully now it’s the house that Villa built, or Pirlo built, or Lampard built, and it’s getting its own identity.
■ Miami: We’re working hard on our Miami project; we’ve been working hard with David [Beckham] and his staff and partners for years. I believe that we will be able to make progress on that soon, but it’s been difficult and challenging, but so has every project that we have worked on. Nothing imminent, but I remain confident that Miami is a great market and David Beckham will be a great owner.
■ MLS’s international TV success: [I] don’t believe that I ever thought we’d have games on live in England every week with a pregame show, highlights that are running on multiple platforms, exposing our game to a high number of passionate fans in the U.K. and throughout Europe. Part of the driver of the success is that it’s a great time, as we’re playing at times of the year or day where there is no English or European football, but we’re also signing players that are really well-known to the English and European audience.
■ Increasing investment in the league: We do run a very lean operation, which I think is required when you’re operating a business that is growing and is still in the investment mode, but we are growing modestly from a percentage basis in size, and we’ve been adding lots of people in key areas of our business. We’ve significantly expanded our investment in officiating; lots of investments in youth development and on the digital side; we’re building out our international broadcast side; and [Deputy Commissioner] Mark [Abbott] has hired a number of people on the player and competition side.
