Portland is not ‘Soccer City USA’ … and it’s the MLS & Apple TV’s fault

People call Portland, OR Soccer City USA, but it didn’t feel like it last night.

2/27/23

Home opener for the Timbers (Portland’s MLS team).

Decided to go to a sports bar to watch the game.

You’d think any sports bar in the city would have it on right?

It’s Soccer City USA!

Nope.

First bar, playing NBA TV — literally just talk show hosts spewing gibberish.

Second bar, same thing, NBA TV.

Third bar, a stone’s throw from the stadium, finally had the game. By the time we had gotten there, there were 3 minutes left in stoppage time in the whole game.

Why?

Cause now, all the Timbers games are on Apple TV. Majority of bars however, do not have Apple TV.

Don’t know who to blame. The MLS for accepting an Apple TV sponsorship and prioritizing big money over local fan support? The bars for not having Apple TV?

In any case, last night felt anything but like I was in ‘Soccer City USA.’ More like drive all night to find a place that has Apple TV City USA.

I mean with all the money the MLS got from the Apple TV deal, they should buy every sports bar in each MLS city an Apple TV so they can play the games.

The deal between the MLS and Apple TV was $2.5 BILLION for 10 years. You better be paying for local sports bars Apple TV.

Some calculations:

$129 for Apple TV box.

MLS Season Pass $99 per year.

Total per bar = $228

x 10 (High estimate of 10 sports bars per city)

= $2,280 (cost to get all sports bars in one city covered)

x 29 (29 MLS cities)

= $66,120 (cost to get all sports bars in each MLS city covered)

Divided by 2,500,000,000

= 0.000026448% of the total deal

A drop in the bucket.

Sports are a staple of community, and the MLS should recognize this and front the money. Plus this would just look good for the MLS and Apple TV.

Sign this petition here to support this: https://chng.it/Pfd48stpQ9

I’m going to go into the Timbers office today to voice this idea.