MLS: How to solve the network commercial conundrum

In the coming years, big TV networks and MLS will have to become best friends. But to do so, they’ll need to solve the commercial conundrum.

Something will have to give in the television ad-break area before MLS can make the popularity ranks just underneath the NFL and NBA. Media timeouts make those broadcasters happy. It doesn’t quite work so well with soccer.

The networks and U.S. soccer authorities have recognized for years the necessity of making peace in this area.

On the networks’ side, they watch and wring their hands as viewers increasingly tune into soccer games to see if they like it. Just like during the last World Cup, even though it lacked a U.S. entry this time.

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ABC News created a soccer FAQ that briefly forgot MLS, USL and other U.S. leagues. The FAQ explains all the strange and exotic qualities of soccer. It includes that soccer doesn’t have the commercial breaks that U.S. sports have.

U.S. soccer got the International Football Association Board (IFAB) as recently as 2015 to start talking about doing something about timeouts. The request didn’t get as radical as calling for network broadcasters dictating media timeouts to sell products, nor did the request urge a vote in 2015, or even now. They just requested a discussion, one that need to be had.

The basic idea got some support. That was to consider — not vote — to establish a fan-information clock during stoppages in play. That would only let fans know how much time is left.

Some fans erupted after connecting U.S. interests to the request. They suspected an attempt, ultimately, to introduce media timeouts and erode some of soccer’s international tradition.

The Times literally connected the 2015 IFAB discussion to a time clock like in American football and basketball. The writer described the clock as taking time-keeping out of the fourth official’s hands. But then the matter got dismissed as ending in discussion only.

The fact remains that U.S. broadcasters and MLS will come to a fork in the road in coming years. Even Americans who say they can’t stand soccer admit they’re aware of the sport more than ever. Maybe they miss the Tour de France every year, but they see at least a little of the World Cup every four.

Several weekends during every MLS season, Sunday viewers are up for grabs.  The length of soccer matches allows ease of programming. That fact, broadcasters know, and are very intrigued by.

The question remains for networks where to stick their commercials when the time comes for major broadcasters to program MLS games of the week.

A runner along the bottom the screen won’t cut it for them. If U.S. soccer and broadcasters ultimately can’t sell IFAB on conditional media timeouts, they’ll have to get creative. For now, a high-resolution inset might work, 30 seconds at a time, but as we know, soccer is not a sport conducive to ad breaks.

Nevertheless, if MLS wants to continue growing, it will need the networks. And if the networks want to take advantage of the MLS growth, it will need to solve the commercial conundrum. For now, we are at an impasse, though I’m sure a development will be on its way.