Why Sporting KC’s international players (& families) appreciate growth of MLS streaming

After Sporting KC’s 2-1 victory over St. Louis City SC in the 2023 MLS Cup Playoffs, Daniel Salloi — who scored the game-winning goal — offered a greeting in his native language to his family watching overseas in Hungary.

It came during his postgame interview with Apple TV broadcasters. It was a fairly typical moment, a player shouting out his or her family after a big game, but one aspect was not lost on Salloi.

After all, he previously had tried to watch Sporting KC’s games while on international duty with the Hungarian national team.

“I remember all these pop-up ads coming up on the screen and then having to restart it every five minutes,” Salloi said. “I was like, ‘Is this how you guys watch my games?’”

“And they’re like, ‘Yeah, this is it. And sometimes we miss like a 10-minute period.’”

In the U.S., MLS Season Pass, which started last season, was met with mixed reviews.

It brought a heavy price tag, took games off ESPN, Fox and local channels, and shifted away from local broadcast teams. At this time, there is no way to pay for just a single club’s matches, which means for a Sporting KC fan to watch every match in the MLS regular season and postseason, plus the Leagues Cup, there’s an $89.99 (plus tax) price tag.

But there are benefits, such as the access to every MLS game regardless of local market. And fans appear to be tuning in.

Neither MLS nor Apple will actually tell you the number of active subscriptions to MLS Season Pass. But in year one, by the time Lionel Messi joined the league, they were mentioning the m-word: “millions.”

During November’s Soccerex forum in Miami, MLS commissioner Don Garber and Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services, said some matches had hit a million viewers globally.

In an interview with The Star, Seth Bacon, the executive vice president of media for Major League Soccer, said the league’s goal was to create a product that helps bring America’s version of the global game to a global audience.

“Having a global presence was going to be really important for us as we wanted to grow the league into one of the top leagues in the world and a league of choice for people,” Bacon said.

For that, the league also made efforts to include interface details that cater to an international audience.

If your location is set to Thailand, the team abbreviations appear in Thai. In Berlin? They’re accurately displayed for the club in German. Budapest? It’s Hungarian.

“Having that level of clarity of message, the reach that we’ve created and the quality that we’re delivering, we’re super excited about doing that,” Bacon said. “Not just to the core fans we have here in the United States and Canada, but fans around the world.”

MLS is the most diverse sports league in North America. As of October of 2023, there were players from 83 different countries in MLS, which nearly doubles the second-most globally represented league in America, the NBA (45 countries represented).

The game’s global nature has indeed brought in global fans, too, and the MLS Season Pass product has been the avenue of access for them.

Noted FC Cincinnati super-fan Zaidan Tunechi, from Kumasi, Ghana, use to walk nearly 40 minutes to the nearest bar that would stream games. Tunechi has never been to America, but he became a fan. And MLS Season Pass allowed him to watch his favorite team’s games.

While there are probably many more stories of fans like Tunechi, MLS Season Pass has notably benefited the families of MLS players. That includes a Sporting KC roster full of international talent.

Istvan Salloi, Daniel Salloi’s father, said he believes so much in his son and the league’s growth that he once convinced a sports station in Hungary to buy rights to Major League Soccer games. That got him maybe a couple of games from around the league to watch each week, not the ability to watch every minute of Sporting’s matches.

“It was very difficult before (MLS Season Pass),” Istvan said. “I had to find a stream. Many times it was frozen. The quality was very bad. I got a lot of X-rated pictures (in pop-up ads).”

The X-rated pop-ups have vanished with MLS Season Pass. And Istvan can even rewind and replay the live action, a feature he’s particularly fond of.

Trust him, he might even use it too much.

As the sporting director of Zalaegerszegi TE in the Hungarian first division, Istvan has access to the scouting databases with loads of clips from all the games worldwide. He’s notorious for taking video clips and sending them to his son.

While Istvan says the younger Salloi resisted at first, Istvan didn’t give up on sending those clips.

“You know why I don’t give up on you?” Istvan recalled telling his son. “’Because I don’t want to hear when you will be 35 or 40, ‘Why didn’t you tell me that?’”

Istvan laughed.

“I do everything, and he decides to watch the videos or not,” Istvan continued.

Istvan’s love for sending video clips may have even helped lead to Salloi’s goal in Sporting’s 4-1 playoff win in St. Louis. In Istvan’s words, because his son’s aerial prowess is not a strong suit, Istvan was looking for places for him to go to score goals on corner kicks.

And he found that spot — crashing the empty space in front of the goal during a corner kick taken to the near post.

“I scored many goals like this,” Istvan joked. “I told him, ‘OK son, do this maybe three, four times, you will get the ball.’ So in St. Louis he scored like this. ‘You’re welcome.’”

While Salloi has blossomed into one of the most consistent wingers in the league, Istvan is just happy he can watch his son without the hassle.

“Even if he was doing very bad, I would watch him,” Istvan joked. “Just in that case, he would get much more video clips.”

Salloi’s family isn’t the only one to benefit. He brought up the whole international contingent on the squad and how the players noticed how much easier it was for their families to watch games.

For Andreu Fontás, whose family lives in Spain, it’s helped his dad stay his biggest fan.

“It was almost impossible to find ways to watch games, even last year,” Fontás said. “Now it’s so simple, so easy and great that the next morning he has the game. I think it’s just one more step in the growth of this league.”