The 2016 soccer season hits its pinnacle on Saturday as Toronto FC face the Seattle Sounders for the MLS Cup from BMO Field in Toronto on FOX and UniMas at 8p. The FOX broadcast will mark the channel’s first-ever presentation of the championship event, and the first time since 2008 that the MLS Cup will air live on English-language network television.
For FOX, the game culminates a season that included FOX Sports’ split-national MLS telecast delivering a record 1,298,000 viewers on Sept. 18, making it the most-watched MLS telecast of any kind and on any network in 12 years. Cynopsis Sports spoke with Jonty Whitehead, Executive Producer of Soccer, about the company’s plans for the event
Whitehead on moving coverage to FOX: This is FOX Sports’ first presentation of an MLS Cup, and as MLS Cup is the pinnacle of what’s been a fantastic season for MLS, we want what should be a tremendous game – with two fantastic teams (Toronto and Seattle) – to be available to as many people as possible. We had terrific numbers for a couple of games we aired on the FOX Broadcast Network earlier in the season so it would be great to think we can build on those numbers in a one off, winner takes all, culmination to the season.”
On production: We are really excited about the production, we were fortunate enough to have done a really tremendous Eastern Conference final game from there (BMO Stadium Toronto) last week which finished 7-5 on aggregate! What struck me then was what a fabulous atmosphere there is in the stadium, so our first priority is to get that raw, intense atmosphere across to the viewers. We will have a number of enhancements to our regular season coverage to help us achieve this, including camera’s embedded into the pitch itself, a cable cam flying high above and the latest in super slo mo technology to bring all that happens right back into the viewers’ homes. We will have the Coaches mic’ed up on the sidelines and have added a specialty Movi Camera to get in and amongst the pomp and ceremony of the leagues show piece event.
On soccer fans: The one thing I have been impressed with is that although we encounter some challenges with clashes with some of the more traditional American sports over the course of an MLS season the core fans tune in every week without fail. They are committed, passionate and knowledgeable and only increasing in size. It is also no secret that this demographic is an advertisers dream – young, city dwelling professionals, with disposable income.
On future challenges: Moving forward as the audience grows for the sport, one of the main challenges we face is that we really need to make the sport accessible to the new and first time viewers. We need to keep the new viewer engaged while also entertaining the committed and knowledgeable soccer fan that tunes in on a regular basis. This is a fine line on occasions and we can get it wrong, but when we do we have to learn from those mistakes and try not to repeat. It is important to us here at Fox Sports that we have a fun, entertaining, informative approach which delivers an authentic American voice for the sport that is, after all, the world’s game.
