Rapids TV Now As Easy as Apple Pie

Huge news out of MLS today as the long-awaited deal for TV rights for 2023 and beyond was announced.  The league signed a 10-year $2.5 billion deal with Apple to be the home of all MLS league matches and Leagues Cup matches for the next decade.  There's a lot to unpack here and we'll get to the details but the most important thing for Rapids fans is this.  NO LOCAL BLACKOUTS!  That's right, the long local nightmare is over.  Starting next season you'll be able to see the Rapids in Colorado without having to find...creative ways around the Altitude-Comcast/DISH impasse.

So, lets go over the basics:

• Apple will be creating a "MLS Channel" (official name is not yet announced, so we'll call it MLSC for now) in the AppleTV ecosystem.  This channel will show literally every league match, every Leagues Cup match, pregame, halftime, and postgame shows, a whip-around show during games (more on that later), along with highlight shows and other content.
• The league is still negotiating with ESPN and Univision to air games on their cable channels.  It sounds like slightly less than they currently do (more like 20-25 than the current 30 or so per season).  Those games will also be available through MLSC.
• There will be no more local broadcasts.  No games on Altitude at all (or Root Sports, or FOX Sports or any of the other regional sports channels across the country).
• The ESPN+ deal ends at the end of this season and will not be renewed.
• MLSC games will be available in English and Spanish, and some (mostly the Montreal matches) in French.  Portuguese is coming by 2025.
• You will not need a AppleTV+ subscription to get MLSC.  MLSC will be a separate subscription from AppleTV+ accessed through AppleTV.
• If you have AppleTV+ and do not get MLSC you will get some of the MLS content as part of your subscription but not all of it.
• If you have neither AppleTV+ or MLSC you will be able to watch a free game through AppleTV.  My guess is that these will be the same games ESPN/Univision are broadcasting.
• MLS full-season ticket holders will get a MLSC subscription as part of their season ticket deal.  The whole Apple MLS package will be free for season-ticket holders.

So those are the big points.  Essentially if you want to watch MLS, you're going to need to get MLSC.

One question I know we all have as Rapids fans is "who's calling these games?".  Well, that's the possible bad news in this deal.  MLS will be doing the production for these games in-house and they will be using a single commentary team for the games, instead of a local set of commentators for each team.  The plan is to hire about 10-14 teams of commentators to do all the games.  Who those commentators are is unknown.  So we are looking at the possibility of losing Richard Fleming's and Marcelo Balboa's call if they aren't hired by the league to work on MLSC.  (Balboa will still be coaching for the Rapids and presumably doing his Univision work)

The league has said that after the national pregame and postgame shows that if the team's want to do a local pre/post game they can, so maybe the Rapids can keep Fleming around with that being one of his responsibilities.  Also viewers will have the option to choose the local radio broadcast over the national feed from MLS, so you can get Connor Cape and maybe they can work Fleming/'Celo into the radio work?

The other significant change from this is that the league will be moving to a stricter scheduling plan.  All games will be on Wednesday or Saturday nights after about 6pm local time.  The only time games will be moved from those windows are for stadium availability issues or if ESPN/Univision needs a game in a different time slot for their channel schedule.  That's where the whip-around show I mentioned above comes in.  Each game day MLSC will have a show that will jump from game to game based on what's going on with live look-ins and reporting.  By having all the games in the same window this gives plenty of content over the 6 or so hours it will take to cover the early starts on the East Coast to the late finishes on the West Coast.  So no more (or significantly reduced) Sunday games, mid-afternoon Saturday games, or random Friday or Tuesday night games.

The two sets of games involving MLS teams that won't be on MLSC will be the U.S. Open Cup which will still be on ESPN+, and the CONCACAF Champions League which will be on FOX.  But as Rapids fans its not like we have to worry about those matches.  ;)

So what this comes down to is that starting next season you'll need a MLSC subscription through AppleTV to watch the Rapids, but you'll be able to watch every game, no matter where you are, and everything else in MLS too.  And if you're a season-ticket holder you'll get it for free.

TV and Roster News

Two big pieces of news today. first the Rapids officially announced that they'll be back on altitude in HD this year for 27 games. That appears to be every non-FSC or ESPN game, and the two ESPN games will be rebroadcast on Altitude. When the games overlap a Nuggets or Avalanche game the game will be on Altitude 2. All the games will have a 30-minute pre-game show and the home games will have a 30-minute post-game locker room report. They'll rotate through 6 different play-by-play guys, using the whole Nuggets and Avalanche staff and also pulling in local independent (and View From the Couch favorite) play-by-play guy Marc Stout. Rapids legend Marcelo Balboa will continue to do color commentary.

The bigger piece of news is that both Mike Holody and Steven Emory have signed contracts with the team. Today was roster and salary compliance day, which means all teams had to get down to 30 players and below the salary cap. This doesn't mean that teams can't continue to sign players, just now if they sign anyone they have to fit in under the roster and salary limits. With today's signings the Rapids currently have 25 of a possible 30 players under contract. We won't know the salary cap room they have until after the Union releases the salaries after the seasons starts. Here's the roster as we know it right now:

Under Contract:

Goalkeepers:

Steward Ceus

Ian Joyce

Matt Pickens

Defenders:

Michael Holody

Kosuke Kimura

Tyrone Marshall

Drew Moor

Scott Palguta

Anthony Wallace

Marvell Wynne

Midfielders:

Davy Armstrong

Steven Emory

Ross LaBauex

Jeff Larentowicz

Pablo Mastroeni

Brian Mullan

Joseph Nane

Sanna Nyassi

Jamie Smith

Wells Thompson

Forwards:

Andre Akpan

Quincy Amarikwa

Conor Casey

Omar Cummings

Macoumba Kandji

Offered Contract Or In Negotiations:

Defenders:

Eddie Ababio

Forwards:

Caleb Folan

Rapids On KWGN

The Rapids have just announced their TV contract. 25 of the 26 non-nationally televised games will be on KWGN and in HD! The only game that will not be on KWGN or Fox Soccer Channel is the home game against LA in mid-May, which will only be available through Direct Kick or MLSLive.tv.

A strange departure from Altitude, KSE's in-house network. I wonder if Altitude rejected the Rapids or KWGN actually paid money to get the rights.

Now we just need Comcast in Denver to add FOX Soccer Channel in HD!

Rapids Finalize TV Schedule

The Rapids announced a deal with KUSA, the local NBC affiliate, to broadcast the remaining Rapids games not being covered by Altitude. The games will be broadcast on Universal Sports in the Denver market, which is channel 9.3 over the air and channel 250 on Comcast. The deal also includes English-language broadcasts for the Rapids two Telefutura games this season (both against Houston) starting with this Sunday's game at the Dynamo. The 4 games covered by Universal Sports will be:

• April 19th at Houston (also on Telefutura)
• June 28th at Seattle
• August 30th against Houston (also on Telefutura)
• September 12th at Toronto

Good job by the Rapids FO getting a deal done!

KSE Fails On Second Road Game

The Rapids just "announced" (by not mentioning that it had changed and hoping nobody noticed) that this weekend's game will only be available on Direct Kick or MLSLive.tv. Originally it had been scheduled to air on Alititude 2, also owned by KSE, but apparently KSE decided it wasn't worth the $$$. Given the attendance problems at the first game I'm not sure how making the team less visible when on the road is going to improve things, but hey, maybe that's why I'm not working for KSE.

This brings the total to 3 road games that do not have local TV coverage scheduled at this point, or 20% of the road schedule (Seattle and Toronto are the other two). I could almost see the logic if KSE was buying tome from the local FOX Sports affiliate and the ratings weren't there, but when they own the team and the network and can piggyback on LA's coverage their costs have to be pretty minimal. Apparently even that is too much to spend on the Rapids.