MLS expansion club LAFC has signed a partnership with YouTube TV that will make the service its local English language broadcast partner, as well as its jersey sponsor. The three-year deal is valued at just under $6M annually, according to sources. The club says it is the first partnership in North American pro sports where all locally televised matches will be on a live TV streaming provider. LAFC matches will be featured on a designated YouTube TV channel on the OTT service, in addition to original programming and content. Matches will feature a 30-minute pre- and post-game show. Thirty of the team’s 34 matches will be shown on YouTube TV, which also carries ESPN and FS1 (MLS national TV partners). LAFC expects to sign a partnership with a local, over-the-air Spanish-language partner, as well as partnerships with both English- and Spanish-language radio stations. Legends Global Sales represented LAFC for the deal with YouTube TV. LAFC co-Owner Chad Hurley is also co-Founder and former CEO of YouTube (Ian Thomas, Staff Writer).
A NEW ERA: In L.A., Kevin Baxter notes a different over-the-air TV partner, "likely to be Univision affiliate KMEX, will carry LAFC's locally televised games in Spanish." LAFC President Tom Penn said that more-traditional broadcasters "expressed interest in a deal but YouTube TV was a better fit." Local TV has been a "tough market to crack for many MLS teams." A Charter spokesperson said that the Galaxy, seven seasons into a league-record 10-year, $55M contract with Spectrum SportsNet, "averaged about 9,000 viewers a game last season." Real Salt Lake has an over-the-air partner that has "given the team control over game broadcasts that draw as many as 45,000 Utah households." But RSL is "expected to announce a deal soon that would also make its games available via a streaming service available on the internet and on mobile devices." Baxter notes LAFC has "not chosen a play-by-play announcer nor an analyst for its YouTube coverage." The club is "expected to announce soon an agreement with English- and Spanish-language radio partners" (L.A. TIMES, 2/1). VARIETY's Wallenstein & Spangler noted approximately 18 LAFC games will be "exclusive to their own YouTube TV channel, which will be restricted to its subscribers" in the L.A. market. YouTube TV subs will "not have to pay an additional fee for access to the games beyond the $35 per month they already spend on the base package." While all LAFC games for the '18 season "will be available live on YouTube TV, about half of them are nationally televised games, the rights to which have been purchased" by ESPN or FS1 (which are carried on YouTube TV). While a major-market MLS team is "far from the most valuable set of rights on the market, the YouTube TV coup comes as the competition for these game packages is escalating between traditional media companies and tech giants who have taken an increasing interest in bidding them away because of their value to advertisers and audiences" (VARIETY.com, 1/31).
TWITTER REAX: Soccer writer Ryan Rosenblatt tweeted, "That LAFC's games will also be available over-the-air in Spanish is great! But to make English broadcasts available exclusively on YouTubeTV directly contradicts their stated goal - and biggest selling point against the Galaxy - of being the club for all of LA. ... Missteps keep them from being as successful as they could be. And they should be a damn monster." SI's Grant Wahl: "LAFC doing new kinds of things. I like it." Pepperdine sports law professor Alicia Jessop tweeted the deal is "monumental." That YouTube's co-founder and CEO is "part of LAFC's ownership group likely helped drive the deal." ESPN FC's Jason Davis: "My first thought was 'that logo is going to look like shit on black jersey.'"
