Footiebusiness

The Major League Soccer 2011 season got started on Tuesday night with a nationally broadcast match carried by ESPN.  Fans of all sports are frequently critical of the television presentation of  sports events and soccer fans are no different.  Anger is directed at  announcers, camera angles, crowd sounds, commercial intrusion and more.  We thought it would worthwhile to dig a bit deeper into the world of broadcasting soccer to explore the process involved in bringing the beautiful game to the screen.  To make sure we cover the issue, we will present a number of interviews with broadcast professionals and industry insiders over the next couple of weeks to provide insight into the art of televising soccer.

We start with Larry Tiscornia, the Senior Director of Broadcasting with MLS.  This is Mr. Tiscornia’s 12th year with the league.  Prior to his time with MLS, Mr. Tiscornia worked for ABC and before that USA Network.  Thanks to Mr. Tiscornia for his thoughts

Footiebusiness.com:  How much input does the league have in how its various broadcast partners present MLS matches?  Is it a collaborative process or does the league have a number of requirements that the broadcasters must meet?  Does the league’s requirements or “wish list” differ if the broadcast is national versus local?

Larry Tiscornia:  We are in constant communication with all League partners, both locally and nationally, on how all MLS broadcasts are presented to the fan. We have annual seminars, weekly conference calls and various meetings throughout the season. The League also has minimums that are enforced on the local broadcasts to ensure that all broadcasts are presented in a professional manner.

FB: Does the league look for consistency in its broadcasts regardless of the event or are you cognizant of different audiences for an ESPN game of the week versus an all star game against a European power or Superliga game attracting fans of Mexican teams?  If the league is looking to address the distinctions between these audiences, how does the presentation differ?
LT: We’d like the look of all our games to be consistent; however, there is more emphasis to have a big-time feel  for our marquee events, such as MLS Cup.

FB: How many cameras are typical at nationally broadcast MLS match?  What different views/angles have you found are best?  Where are crowd mics typically placed?
LT: On a national broadcast, there could be anywhere from eight to 18 cameras for a regular season game. It is the League’s preference that all high game cameras are lower to the field to bring the viewer closer to the field. For bigger events, we like to see various super slow motion cameras, slash cameras and reverse angle cameras to maximize the viewers’ experience. As for audio, microphones are typically placed throughout the stadium, within the stands and on the field to maximize the natural sound and make sure that comes across to the viewer.

FB: What type of research does the league do into fan preferences for viewing?  What type of fan originated suggestions have you implemented?

LT: The broadcast department started a Twitter account to gather feedback from our fans. We will pass along the constructive comments to our partners throughout the season.

FB: Finally, should fans expect any new technolgies during MLS broadcasts in 2011?
LT: We are always looking to improve our broadcast with new technology, and this year we’ll be incorporating OPTA stats into our broadcasts.

Typically, we do a complete business blog of big soccer broadcasts, but because of some unforseen issues last night, that didn’t happen.  Here are some quick thoughts on the telecast:

1. VW, AT&T, NAPA, Go Daddy and Continental were among the featured national advertisers.

2. New sponsor Allstate was very evident on the in stadium electronic boards, as were Microsoft and many of the other known league sponsors.

3.  ESPN brought the studio team to the site and all three (Bretos, Lalas and Twellman) did a great job in the pre-game.  Bretos has really found his feet as a studio host and Twellman continues to improve.

4.  The Healey/Harkes tandem seemed to have a decent initial broadcast.  Healey is an established pro.

5.  It was nice that ESPN proactively provided the score of the RSL/Saprissa game.  Many fans were watching both at the same time, but it was good that the network recognized that fans had an interest in both games.

6.  ESPN also actively promoted its coverage of the upcoming USA friendly and its La Liga broadcasts.

7.  It is our understanding that the match had a new halftime sponsor “Hot Pockets”.

Sorry for the short post, we welcome your thoughts on the broadcast.

The Portland Timbers became the latest MLS franchise to announce a stadium rights partnership when the team revealed that Oregon based Jeld-Wen, Inc. will having naming rights to the newly renovated facility in Portland.  The facility will now be known as JELD-WEN field.  In addition to naming the park, the company will also be the official door and window provider to the team and will donate 25 tickets to each game to the Timbers’ Tix for Kids program.  The company started in Oregon more than 50 years ago and brings important local flavor to the relationship with the team.  The company employs approximately 2,500 people in the community. The official press release is here.

MLS has announced the return of its Direct Kick package for 2011.  Price at $79, the package offers fans access to more than 220 games during the season and select playoff games.  This is a significant increase in games over previous years (as there are now more games being played).  As has been the case in previous years, the package will be offered as a free preview during the opening weekend of games.  The package will be offered through cable outlests as well as the major satellite providers.  It is unclear whether Verizon and ATT U-Verse.

Finally, Tuesday night is “First Kick” for the 2011 Major League Soccer season.  The match between Seattle and Los Angeles will be broadcast on ESPN2.  CORRECTION: THE GAME WILL BE ON ESPN.  We will provide a “business blog” duing the game which we will post when the game is concluded.

Time for our last Monday After of the preseason.  We’ll start with the Friday afternoon media conference call conducted by Don Garber.  The conference touched on a wide range of business topics, including expansion, tv ratings and stadium construction. The Commissioner acknowledge that the league’s television ratings need to increase (he put this on the league, not ESPN), left the door open for a 20th expansion team outside NY (but did include the Wilpon Family as a possible investor) and reasserted his belief that the Revolution stadium situation is a “when” not an “if”.  On the business side, the conference call didn’t really cover any new ground.  Garber touched on the negotiations with FSC, lauded the new KC stadium rights deal and was effusive in his praise of the KC ownership group, but not of these items represent a significant “new” business item.

The 2011 MLS media packet came by mail over the weekend and for those who are intersted, the kit includes the following:  There is a flash drive with the media guides for all of the teams, a media handbook (with contact information) and  a booklet containing background information about the league.  Over the next few days we will share some of the nuggets contained in that book.

Finally, the most recent edition of Sports Illustrated came out this week with the magazine’s MLS preview.  We have previously remarked about the quality soccer coverage in SI (that recently included a feature on the “Special One”).   Unfortunately, the MLS preview was exceptionally brief, including only a Grant Wahl article on Charlie Davies and a brief sentence on the rest of the teams.

CORRECTION/ADDITION: One final note about SI’s coverage.  As indicated above, SI (both through the magazine and CNNSI.com) provide excellent coverage of soccer.  It is through the lens of the magazine’s increased coverage of the sport that we expressed our disappointment with the 4 pages devoted to MLS preview (i.e. 3.5 pages on Charlie Davies and some quick notes about the teams).  SI writer Grant Wahl was kind enough to reach out and note that the 4 page preview represents a increase over past years and might represent the largest MLS preview ever put out by the magazine.  So while we can only hope for more coverage going forward, it seems that the sense that the coverage was limited was based on increasing expectations and the extent of preview coverage alloted to some of the other sports.

On the eve of its inaugural MLS match, the Whitecaps are making news in another league.  According to reports, the Whitecaps are seeking to become the first MLS match to enter a team into WPS.  Vancouver already has a women’s soccer franchise that plays in the W-league.  WPS and MLS have operated separately since the WPS league formed, but Vancouver has a strong leadership team and ample assets to make a strong stand in WPS.   Billionaire Greg  Kerfoot has long been a friend of soccer and Steve Nash adds glamor and splash to the ownership.

In an offseason that has seen popular soccer announcers shift around from network to network, it seems worth resetting the status of the major English langage booths.  ESPN’s primary team will be Adrian Healey and John Harkes (one of the few to stay in the same job).  Max Bretos and Ian Darke will also provide play-by-play for select games.  Bretos and Taylor Twellman will be the primary studio team for national broadcasts.  Alexi Lalas and Rob Stone will also reprise their previous roles for the network.  Fox Soccer Channel has added two new play-by-play voices in JP DellaCamera and Allen Hopkins.  Hopkins will take the lead for the network’s Saturday night games while DellaCamera will work on Friday nights while retaining his role as the primary voice for the Union.  Kyle Martino will join Christopher Sullivan in providing color analysis of the game.

Finally, the we are looking forward to the annual Sports Business Journal MLS focused edition which should come out on Monday.  The series of articles are usually full of great business nuggets about the league.

Major League Soccer announced an update to its MLS MatchDay 2011 App which adds support for iPad.  According to the league press release, the update also adds new features such as live games and support for Apple’s AirPlay and iOS 4.3. “MLS MatchDay allows fans to follow the League and its 18 Clubs at home or on the go using their iPad, iPhone or iPod touch. The update was built from the ground up to work on all three devices, including, for the first time, iPad, taking full advantage of its unique capabilities and large, high-resolution display.”  According to reports, the app will also be available for those devices running and android operating system.  For some unknown reason, the league opted not to promote that option.

ESPN has announced that longtime soccer voice Adrian Healey will be the network’s primary MLS voice during the 2011 season.  Healey, who has been doing MLS play-by-play since he manned the Revolution booth in 1996, will sit next to John Harkes during most of the network games.  Max Bretos will also reportedly announce a number of matches.  Ian Darke’s MLS role remains unclear.  To date, Darke has only done the 2010 MLS Cup match.

One final note, 2012 expansion franchise Montreal Impact has unveiled its plans to expand Saputo stadium into a 20k park for its first MLS season.  The new plans include the addition of 7,000 new seats and a roof that will cover about 1/3 of the fans in the stadium.  The franchise will also more than double the amount of corporate boxes to 40.  We will have more on this stadium in coming weeks.

In what Sports Business Daily termed “one of the most surprising deals of the year, Livestrong has been announced as the naming rights sponsor for Sporting Kansas City’s new stadium set to open this Spring.  The facility will now be know as Livestrong Sporting Park. Remarkably, the deal will cost Livestrong nothing, and will tie Sporting’s name with the well known cancer charity in return for the gift.  Moreover, for the duration of the agreement, a portion of stadium revenues, including ticket sales, will go to the charity.

The deal is estimated at $8 million dollars over 6 years (with the money running from the team to the charity).  Although cynics may argue that this deal suggests that KC was unable to locate a stadium sponsor, others suggest that this represents a shrewd move.  Sporting will now combine its new identity with a well recognized entity that has raised over $400 million to fight cancer.  To the  extent that the team can generate free publicity at charity events and through the media for its association with the team, KC may reap benefits for years.  However, one must wonder if the team would have turned down a very profitable sponsorship deal if it had been in the offing.

The team has actually had a history with the organization and now takes that relationship to a new level.  Regardless, of the reasons, Sporting is generating headlines and that is key.  The value of this move will be based on the relationships it establishes and the press that it generates.

A foot and a half of water in the basement means no new content today.  However, here is a favorite from 2009, when Steve Goff, Ives Galarcep and Jason Davis provided some great insight into covering soccer online.  While some of the answers (especially about ads) may have changed, they do provide some great info.

Steve Goff of the Washington Post’s Soccer Insider, Ives Galarcep of Soccer By Ives and Jason Davis of MatchFit USA spent some time with Footiebusiness.  Look below for their thoughts on the coverage of soccer on the internet, and check back for more stories in this series.

Footiebusiness.com:  Your blog covers soccer on a local, national and international level.  What types of stories drive the most traffic (e.g. National Team vs. MLS vs. Red Bulls vs. DC United vs. UEFA)?

Ives Galarcep:  National team stories drive the most traffic, followed by MLS stories and Americans Abroad stories. My Q&As and running commentaries are pretty popular as well.

Steve Goff: USA national team drives the most traffic, followed by DC United.

Jason Davis: National Team, by far.  It’s clear that my potential audience increases dramatically during periods of USMNT activity, and that inevitably leads to more traffic.  It makes sense strictly from a numbers perspective; while a narrow focus might give me a higher profile within a smaller community, the broader national appeal of the National Team give me the ability to attract more readers if my content is good.

FB: Do you pay attention to the sources of traffic on your blog?  Do you find that links from other soccer sites drive traffic or do most of your readers go directly to your site?  Similarly, do you track which links people use on your site to go elsewhere?  Do these factors dictate which stories you cover?

IG: Most of my readers are regulars, with about a quarter coming from other sites. I don’t really track outbound links much though.

SG: Most of my readers come directly to my blog. However, I do receive traffic through secondary sites such as bigsoccer.com and dcunited’s in-house blog. I do not trace the popularity of links that I provide, but based on the number of comments, I have a good idea what’s popular.

JD: Referral links were my lifeblood for a time, and my traffic was almost entirely dependent on whether or not I was linked to by a much more popular site than mine.  As time has gone on, I get more direct traffic than I used to, though the links still drive a good amount of my daily hits.  The links people follow out aren’t generally something I worry myself with; many of them are referenced news stories, so they aren’t necessarily indicative of anything other than the reader looking for background information.  I’m very much an “if it interests me, it will probably interest others” type of writer, so I go with my instincts and try not to over-analyze my traffic, or let things like exit links dictate my content.

FB:  How has the blog changed the way you cover soccer?  Do your sources act differently when they know a story might be headed for the blog as opposed to a different medium?

IG: As a newspaper writer I was more of a team beat writer who focused on team news and features, with my column allowing me to write about a broader range of subjects. Now, with the site (I’m not a fan of calling it a blog, but that’s the label it will have until I re-design it into a more news site format) I can write about a broader range of topics. With my readership more evenly spread out around the country I have moved away from a New York/New Jersey focused site to a national site. Actually, I moved my coverage to a more national approach and the readership eventually took on that shape. As for sources, I think most folks in the American soccer community realize that my site is read by a pretty big audience so if anything it has made securing interviews easier. There are a few instances where some media relations people don’t quite grasp the power of new media, and are still stuck in the old way of thinking that traditional media (such as newspapers) are king, but more and more people are beginning to understand the power of the internet and the influence of websites like mine.

SG: For better or worse, the blog has become the priority because of its immediacy. Indeed, I always inform someone whether the interview is for the blog or paper/web.

FB: You made a bold decision to blog full time.  Has the blog increased in readership since you made that decision?  How do you decide what events to cover live?

IG: To give you an idea of the change when I went independent, the best month I ever had traffic-wise on my old newspaper blog was 375K pageviews in a month. My first month with the new site had 750K pageviews. This past summer, we averaged 1.5 million pageviews per month.

FB:  Do you have any interest/input into the advertising that appears on the blog?  How is the advertising content for your blog decided?

IG: For the first year and a half of the new site I sold all the non-Google ads myself. In the past four months I have begun working with an agency that has been selling ads for me. Most of the advertisers have been soccer specific, or companies looking to target the American soccer fan demographic, which is what my site delivers.

SG: I have no involvement with ads and don’t know the process.

JD: I’m still working on a low enough level that almost all of my advertising comes from affiliate membership, and is therefore commission-based.  They drive almost no revenue, but they give the site more of professional image in my mind.  I can choose the ads that appear, and obviously attempt to have them match the content of focus of the blog.  I do have a few direct partnerships, which obviously guarantee a little money, and I’m hoping to work towards more in the future as long as they don’t compromise the look and feel of the site.

Thanks to Steve Goff, Ives Galarcep and Jason Davis for their thoughts.

Time for our Monday wrap of the weekend that was.  This is where we hit on some business points from Friday, Saturday and Sunday that we passed over the last couple of days.  We’ll start in Seattle where “legendary Sounders forward Steve Zakuani” who is a prominent voice in a spot for the local electronic tool system in Seattle.  Whether he is a “legendary” player can be debated, but it is nice to see an MLS athlete feature prominently in a non-soccer related spot.  Zakuani is joined by “Bill Nye the Science Guy” in the spots.  The ad can be heard here.  Thanks to Footiebusiness reader Travis Pahl for the link.

Perhaps the biggest business story on Friday was the announcement that MLS and sports data leader Opta had joined forces to bring enhanced statistical display and collection capabilities.  The multi-year partnership will work in concert with the league’s ongoing relationship with Elias. Soccer fans have long wondered about the impact of advanced statistical analysis on enjoyment of the game and its acceptance in mainstream sports circles.  This relationship will provide the league with a significant trove of statistical data that should enhance broadcast and internet research experiences for fans.

Finally, Seattle was able to pack more than 3k into its Starfire venue on multiple nights for its Cascadia preseason games.  This continues an impressive trend in MLS this Spring with large preseason crowds filling venues for training matches.  As we discussed when commenting on the new MLS Spring destination in Arizona, preseason is a great opportunity to sell the sport and the league in a less formal setting.  MLS seems to be making use of this opportunity and allowing fans to connect to players and teams in the offseason.

On a day when San Jose finally started its demolition project, we thought we would take a quick look at the status of stadium construction around MLS.  Before we get to MLS notes, a quick not about MLS expansion candidate Atlanta.  The Falcons are moving towards a new outdoor stadium in close promixty to the Georgia Dome.  Arthur Blank, the Falcons’ owner, has long been a rumored MLS expansion owner and in an AJC article discussing the possible new stadium, the possibility of an MLS franchise coming to Atlanta was raised as possible stadium tenant.

In Portland, the renovated PGE Park continues towards completion (despite a slow loading webcam).  The team expects to have a new sponsor for the stadium, but the renovation is apparently on schedule.  For those intersted in the status of construction, the team offers a neat one minute time lapse camera of recent construction.  A summary of the renovation and a 3D image viewer of construction is here.

In Houston, Green Bank beat out 10 other institutions to fund 21% of the $33 million construction loan.  The team is expecting the stadium to be completed in time for the 2012 season.  According to the article, construction of the new park will lead to 1,500 jobs in Houston and 300 permanent jobs afer the stadium is complete.

Finally, as noted in the opening, San Jose started the construction process today, but beginning the demoltion of its future stadium site. Although the event included a fair amount of pomp and circumstance, the demoltion does not guarantee construction.  Financing and ownership committment still need to be confirmed before the job moves forward