MLS expansion franchise FC Cincinnati has partnered with subscription service FloSports on a multi-year agreement to be its exclusive regional streaming partner. This follows the first broadcast deal between an MLS club (D.C. United) and FloSports, whose Sunday debut was beset by technical difficulties.
Fans in the Cincinnati designated market area (DMA) will have the option to watch games either on FloSports’s soccer affiliate, FloFC.com, or on a linear broadcast via WSTR Star64. Regional fans outside of Cincinnati but still within the club’s MLS-determined home region—notably, the DMAs for Dayton, Ohio, and Louisville and Lexington, Ky.—will only be able to watch via FloFC. Anyone outside those regions can watch on the national carrier, ESPN+.
In discussing the balance between revenue and reach, MLS SVP for media Seth Bacon said last week that finding a willing and capable broadcaster and understanding the sport’s demographics are important.
“You really have to understand what the partner will commit to and how engaged they’ll be and make sure they’re the right fit for the market,” Bacon said. “We also know that—based on research and what we’ve seen and who our fan base is and how they’ve behaved over many, many years—offering our content in a digital-first way is not something that scares our fans or scares us as a league or any of our fans because we have a very tech-savvy, digitally-native audience.”
FloFC’s first D.C. United MLS broadcast on Sunday afternoon did not go as planned for some viewers. A number of fans cited outages on social media (many of them aggregated by The Washington Post), and even the D.C. United-sponsored official watch party at Lou’s City Bar in Columbia Heights was unable to deliver the match’s first few minutes. FloSports later tweeted an apology that said “some users were blocked in a region that shouldn’t have been.” D.C. United ownership commented on the situation late Monday morning.
— D.C. United (@dcunited) March 11, 2019
A Twitter account identified as FloSports software engineer Patrick Michalina acknowledged a technical problem early in the match but said it was “fixed.” An account identified as FloSports VP of software development Jason Byrne added additional explanation.
Goes without saying the debut with DCU didn't go great. A very small number were geo-blocked that shouldn't have been. When we updated settings to resolve, it regrettably reset the stream. That caused the glitches early in the game. After that it was solid. Not a capacity issue.
— Jason Byrne (@jasonbyrne) March 10, 2019
The D.C. market can only watch 21 local United broadcasts via FloFC, although 13 games will be nationally televised. FC Cincinnati, on the other hand will have a hybrid approach in the local region. The linear TV broadcaster, WSTR, carried the club’s games last year when it was still in the USL. The broader region encompassing the rest of southwestern Ohio and most of Kentucky is the only area with exclusive FloFC carriage.
“You certainly have to pay extra attention when it comes to expansion teams,” Bacon said, “and luckily we have an unbelievably engaged and motivated ownership group and management team in Cincinnati who really knew the market, knew what was best and said, ‘Let’s focus on this linear piece, but super-serve the fans in the broader area by making this partnership with Flo.’”