<p>Apple’s partnership with Major League Soccer has been a game changer, but have you noticed the impact it has had on the MLS Season Pass voices who cover the games?</p>



<p>One of the benefits to Major League Soccer of bringing all of the production of games in-house is that it has complete control over the broadcasts streamed across Apple’s MLS Season Pass. In previous years, you had networks such as FOX Sports, ESPN, and Univision televising games. Under that arrangement, MLS had no control over what FOX, ESPN, and TUDN talent would say. The talent was hired by the respective TV broadcasters.</p>



<p>Under MLS’ deal with Apple, all of the commentators, co-commentators, and analysts are hired and paid by MLS. What difference does that make? When the league you’re covering is the same league that’s cutting your paychecks, quite a lot.</p>



<h2>MLS Season Pass voices silenced</h2>



<p>Since MLS Season Pass debuted in 2023, we’ve seen two major developments: </p>



<p>First, we’ve lost a lot of dissenting voices to MLS who could be relied on in previous years to speak their mind. The best example is Taylor Twellman who criticized the US Men’s National Team after they crashed out of World Cup 2018 qualifying. His <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3kuMy9wUaw" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">What Are We Doing?</a> rant on ESPN’s SportsCenter is one of the most famous soccer rants of all time.</p>



<p>Twellman was at it again in 2019 when he took to the ESPN airwaves to <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/MLS/comments/bzlgm6/taylor_twellman_rant_on_us_open_cup_structure_its/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">criticize the US Open Cup</a>‘s structure.</p>



<p>By MLS hiring Twellman, the league has ensured that he now remains silent on controversial topics that involve MLS. When MLS announced in mid-December to remove its teams from the US Open Cup, the majority of MLS Season Pass talent was silent on social media. The most you got from Twellman was a <a href="https://twitter.com/TaylorTwellman/status/1735959642230931737" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">retweet</a> of his original ESPN rant. Gone was the anger and criticism of a competition that is near and dear to Twellman’s heart.</p>



<p>The same thing happened this week with the latest <a href="https://worldsoccertalk.com/news/mls-open-cup-pr-disaster-rolls-on-as-league-continues-to-stall-20240210-WST-488874.html">US Open Cup reports</a>. You won’t see MLS Season Pass talent speaking up about it. They’re playing the silent game.</p>



<h2>Opinions replaced by silence</h2>



<p>The same can be said for other usually opinionated voices of US soccer. MLS Season Pass co-commentator Max Bretos, who appeared alongside Twellman on the infamous <em>What Are We Doing</em> rant, has been silent on social media about the US Open Cup controversy. So too were many others who in previous years could have been counted on to share their honest opinions.</p>



<p>With Apple publishing the weekly podcast entitled, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/offside-with-taylor-twellman/id1696346528" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Offside With Taylor Twellman</a>, it’ll be fascinating to see if this week’s episode (or Wednesday night’s MLS season opener) even mentions the US Open Cup since it directly impacts MLS.</p>



<p>To date, the only mainstream media that is consistently vocal in their criticism are Herculez Gomez and Sebastian Salazar on their <a href="https://worldsoccertalk.com/news/futbol-americas-premieres-on-espn-with-focus-on-u-s-and-mexican-soccer-20210308-CMS-327824.html">Futbol Americas</a> show. In the meantime, we have been unable to find any CBS Sports Golazo clips this week where they share their analysis of the developing story.</p>



<h2>Some MLS talent has effectively become fanboys</h2>



<p>Second, the vast majority of soccer talent hired by MLS Season Pass have effectively become fanboys for the league. Take a look at any of the Twitter timelines for any of the talent hired by MLS, and you’ll see countless examples of the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MLSSeasonPass?src=hashtag_click" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">same messages</a> promoting MLS Season Pass. Many of the tweets come from messaging that is provided by MLS to the talent.</p>



<p>For example, here’s a communication sent by MLS to its MLS Season Pass talent ahead of the launch last year. It’s one of many that MLS sent throughout the year to encourage talent to amplify news about MLS Season Pass:</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><figure class="image"><img loading="lazy" width="1100" height="1200" src="https://ds-images.bolavip.com/news/image?src=https://images.worldsoccertalk.com/webp/full/WST_20240220_WST_490681_mls-messaging-1100x1200_75ca9828.webp&amp;width=1100&amp;height=1200" alt="" class="wp-image-490695" srcset="https://worldsoccertalk.cms.futbolsitesnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2024/02/mls-messaging-1100x1200.png 1100w, https://worldsoccertalk.cms.futbolsitesnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2024/02/mls-messaging-275x300.png 275w, https://worldsoccertalk.cms.futbolsitesnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2024/02/mls-messaging-768x838.png 768w, https://worldsoccertalk.cms.futbolsitesnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2024/02/mls-messaging.png 1126w" sizes="(max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px"></figure></figure>



<h2>Playing the PR game</h2>



<p>It’s normal operating procedure for a public relations team to ensure consistent messaging. What’s different here is that we’re not used to MLS announcers or talent being controlled in such a manner. The reason why many of us enjoy listening to or reading what the talent says is because of their honest opinions. We don’t want them to be fed lines. We want them to be themselves, which is the reason we listen to them during broadcasts. Otherwise, we’d hit the mute button.</p>



<p>Other leagues don’t have this problem. With Premier League games, we hear the world feed featuring commentators from Premier League Productions. Meanwhile, we love hearing Jon Champion and Peter Drury calling it as they see it. Neither of them works for the league. They both work for NBC Sports.</p>



<p>What we want is for MLS talent to be themselves without fear of what league executives may think or do. The best commentators and analysts are the ones who tell us how it is. We don’t want to hear the voices of MLS Season Pass silenced.</p>



<p><em>Photo: IMAGO / Icon Sportswire</em>.</p>



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MLS Season Pass has silenced a lot of dissenting voices

Has MLS Season Pass silenced many of the voices of US soccer? We take a closer look at the consquences of the MLS/Apple deal.

MLS Season Pass has silenced a lot of dissenting voices - World Soccer Talk

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<p></p><div><figure class="image"></figure></div>What would you do if you were in charge of Fox Soccer Channel’s TV coverage? The dilemma is that you’re trying to establish your own brand and to build an audience with your own personnel, but soccer fans — as you’ll probably agree — are difficult people to please. We always want perfection.<p></p>
<p>A perfect example is this past Saturday’s England against Kazakhstan World Cup Qualifier that was shown live on Fox Soccer Channel. Hosts Nick Webster and Warren Barton did a fine job in the beginning of the show with expert analysis and discussion. But when the game started, soccer fans were startled to hear that Webster and Barton continued their discussion into the game and didn’t hand over the commentary, as is customary, to the international feed — which would have been Clive Tyldesley and Gary Stevens.</p>
<p>While Webster is a decent analyst, he is no soccer commentator. So instead of commentating the game, it feeled like Webster and Barton were simply talking over the game and providing their analysis. Webster’s style improved later when he began commentating on the game itself, but I always had the feeling that I was missing out on something — that one of the commentators from the international feed would have been able to impart some wisdom that Webster would have missed.</p>
<p>The dilemma for Fox is that GolTV does the same thing but with better results. Few people seem to complain when Ray Hudson and Phil Schoen commentate on the World Cup qualifiers that GolTV broadcast. It’s quite rare that GolTV will broadcast the commentators from the international feed.</p>
<p>So what would you do if you were Fox and you wanted to feature your commentators? Would you have someone like Max Bretos or Christian Miles do the main commentary instead, and have Webster and Barton provide the studio analysis only? Or would you suggest something different? Let us know by clicking the comments link below and sharing your thoughts.</p>


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MLS Season Pass has silenced a lot of dissenting voices

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