Real Salt Lake Media Deal A Game-Changer For MLS
By Sean Maslin
Kyle Beckerman supporters in Boise, Idaho will need to trade their USA jerseys for Real Salt Lake ones. On Friday, the club announced a major media deal with Sinclair Broadcasting Company which will see the club be the first team to have their own regional sports network.
As part of the deal, Real Salt Lake content will be shown on KMYU and KUTV. KMYU will show all non-national broadcast matches and a weekly wrap-up show of all things Real Salt Lake.
KUTV’s online streaming service will show some of Real Salt Lake’s preseason matches at the Desert Diamond Classic and is currently in negotiations to show Real Monarchs matches. The Real Monarchs is Real Salt Lake’s affiliate club in USL Pro which will be starting play this year.
The deal will expand Real Salt Lake’s viewership from mainly the Salt Lake City area (which has an estimated population of about 500,000) to over five states and 5 million people. No longer limited to Utah, RSL matches will be available in cities like Las Vegas and Boise, Idaho. Sinclair is also working to add Albuquerque, Phoenix, and Tucson to the Real Salt Lake viewing map.
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Sinclair Broadcasting company is a major media group that currently owns over 165 local television markets all across the United States. Major media companies like ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox set up affiliate agreements with these local television companies to broadcast their content on the local affiliates channel.
While many MLS clubs have set up television agreements with different cable companies and sports networks, none of them are on the scope of this deal. With the exception of the New York Red Bulls (who are on the Madison Square Garden network) and the Los Angeles Galaxy (whose games can be found on Time Warner Cable) most MLS clubs have television regions that are very limited.
The territory that Real Salt Lake would be shown in is relatively open in terms of MLS team coverage so the ability to grow and develop a regional brand is enormous. The notion of regional networks is becoming more and more of a trend here in the United States and seems to be a very profitable one. In a league where clubs like Columbus Crew SC and D.C. United are struggling to have all of their matches shown this deal raises the expectations of the league’s media presence.
The one complication would seem to be with Las Vegas and to a lesser extent Phoenix. Both of these cities have expressed interest in having an MLS team with Vegas going as far as hosting MLS league officials. Although sports markets often intersect here in the United States (The Atlanta Braves, for example, used TBS to broadcast matches all across the country) having a competitor in the same market of an expansion team is never a good idea.
Nonetheless, this deal is very good news for Real Salt Lake and MLS. The establishment of a regional network will expand their viewership and their brand and give MLS a presence in a part of the United States that is currently a gray area.