{"id":3630,"date":"2011-08-19T06:27:36","date_gmt":"2011-08-19T10:27:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/?p=3630"},"modified":"2011-08-19T06:27:36","modified_gmt":"2011-08-19T10:27:36","slug":"mls-moves-to-nbc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/2011\/08\/19\/mls-moves-to-nbc\/","title":{"rendered":"MLS Moves to NBC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have been trying to figure out if last week\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/aponline\/2011\/08\/10\/sports\/soccer\/AP-SOC-MLS-TV.html?_r=1&ref=sports\" onclick=\"__gaTracker('send', 'event', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/aponline\/2011\/08\/10\/sports\/soccer\/AP-SOC-MLS-TV.html?_r=1&amp;ref=sports', 'announcement that the MLS will move to NBC');\" target=\"_blank\">announcement that the MLS will move to NBC<\/a> (really Versus Network, which will become NBC Sports Network on Jan 2, 2012) will really push the MLS (and U.S. Soccer) forward.<\/p>\n<p>The best I can tell is that the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/news\/article\/2011\/08\/10\/nbcs-wide-reach-makes-new-mls-deal-olympic-feat\" onclick=\"__gaTracker('send', 'event', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/news\/article\/2011\/08\/10\/nbcs-wide-reach-makes-new-mls-deal-olympic-feat', 'MLS is anticipating a huge marketing banana');\" target=\"_blank\">MLS is anticipating a huge marketing banana<\/a> as result of the larger NBC Sports coverage of the 2012 Olympics.  I\u2019m never one to call <em>hoping<\/em> a decent strategy!<\/p>\n<p>Versus Network in and of itself has been a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoweek.com\/article\/20110801\/IRL\/110809982\" onclick=\"__gaTracker('send', 'event', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.autoweek.com\/article\/20110801\/IRL\/110809982', 'death sentence for the IRL');\" target=\"_blank\">death sentence for the IRL<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>IndyCar\u2019s ratings, while still a long way from NASCAR\u2019s, for example, recently resulted in its three most-watched races on Versus this summer (Texas, Toronto and Edmonton), though all of those ratings points were less than 1.0, which represents 1.1 million households.<\/p>\n<p>The rebranding of Versus should make the channel\u2013which some have complained is too obscure and difficult to find, especially for casual fans\u2013much more of a household name. IndyCar certainly hopes some of that expanded recognition will rub off on it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>There we go with that <em>hopeful<\/em> thing again.  The top three IRL races on Versus have netted a total of 3.3 million viewers.  Wow; let\u2019s be honest, those number suck.<\/p>\n<p>I agree that moving to the NBC brand will be better for the MLS, but to me it seems like the MLS would have tried to go all in with ESPN.<\/p>\n<div class=\"addtoany_share_save_container addtoany_content_bottom\"><div class=\"a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_ addtoany_list a2a_target\" id=\"wpa2a_1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.addtoany.com\/share\" onclick=\"__gaTracker('send', 'event', 'outbound-article', 'https:\/\/www.addtoany.com\/share', '');\" class=\"a2a_dd addtoany_share_save\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-content\/plugins\/add-to-any\/share_save_171_16.png\" width=\"171\" height=\"16\" alt=\"Share\"\/><\/a>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\nif(wpa2a)wpa2a.script_load();\n\/\/--><\/script>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have been trying to figure out if last week\u2019s announcement that the MLS will move to NBC (really Versus Network, which will become NBC Sports Network on Jan 2, 2012) will really push the MLS (and U.S. Soccer) forward. The best I can tell is that the MLS is anticipating a huge marketing banana &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/2011\/08\/19\/mls-moves-to-nbc\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">MLS Moves to NBC<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"addtoany_share_save_container addtoany_content_bottom\"><div class=\"a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_ addtoany_list a2a_target\" id=\"wpa2a_2\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.addtoany.com\/share\" onclick=\"__gaTracker('send', 'event', 'outbound-article', 'https:\/\/www.addtoany.com\/share', '');\" class=\"a2a_dd addtoany_share_save\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-content\/plugins\/add-to-any\/share_save_171_16.png\" width=\"171\" height=\"16\" alt=\"Share\"\/><\/a><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[41],"class_list":["post-3630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive","tag-u-s-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3630"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3631,"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3630\/revisions\/3631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}