Mark Goldbridge secured a deal with the Deutsche Fussball Liga (DFL) to broadcast 20 live Bundesliga matches on his That's Football YouTube channel this season. Goldbridge has over one million subscribers and drew nearly 500,000 viewers to Bayern Munich's opening weekend win over RB Leipzig. Major League Soccer's Apple TV Season Pass currently averages about 120,000 viewers per match, according to Don Garber, down from an estimated 343,000 on ESPN in 2022. MLS asserts it is measuring viewership differently after the Apple deal. Leagues are increasingly wary that paywalls reduce visibility. The Bundesliga prioritized visibility by partnering with a popular YouTube host, a move that generated controversy.
In a change to his regularly scheduled programming, Mark Goldbridge took a break from blowing steam out his ears at another Andre Onana howler and venting his shouty exasperation at Manchester United's latest calamity to talk and watch all things Gegenpressing and Ballbesitzfuball with his audience of over one million YouTube subscribers. This was after the Deutsche Fussball Liga (DFL) struck an agreement with Goldbridge to broadcast 20 live Bundesliga matches on his That's Football YouTube channel this season.
While the league has been coy on viewership since saddling up with Apple TV two years ago, Don Garber recently put the average number of viewers per match at 120,000, considerably lower than the 343,000 average viewers MLS was reportedly getting per match on ESPN in 2022. Garber would, and has, argued MLS is now judging its viewership numbers differently.
While MLS attendance figures are among the strongest in the world, the league has long struggled as a TV product. The 10-year, $2.5bn Apple TV deal was an opportunity to move the goalposts. In the time since MLS Season Pass launched, though, the broadcast landscape has shifted. Leagues are increasingly focused on drawing as many eyeballs as possible, wary of how disappearing behind a paywall can put them out of sight, out of mind.
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