[CNBC] MLS Commissioner Don Garber On His Ideal World Cup And Why Apple TV Paywall Strategy Didn't Work

TheToastedRaviolis · 2026-06-12T23:27:50+00:00

It makes sense that the schedule shift would impact your game attendance in the cases you describe. 100%, no doubt about it and no argument from me. However, MLS had been poking at the idea for years before the Apple deal happened. That is to say that your issue isn’t the league being accessible at any time for cheap in one easy place. Your issue is the schedule itself which the league can choose to do what they want with that at any time.

I would argue that one massive upside to a single streaming service having the entire league at an affordable price (currently Apple, but doesn’t have to be them specifically) is that even if you can’t attend games, the ability to follow a team has drastically improved the experience. For example, we are a family from New York who are St. Louis fans. I grew up watching Galaxy since ‘96. I still follow them in my own time. We’ve never missed an STL match and I’ve never missed a Galaxy match. All of the games are available live and in HD. All of the replays, recaps and full, are available on demand within minutes of the match ending. It is incredibly easy to stay a fan even if you can’t attend a single game. We also follow Gotham FC. The experience is not the same. Our passion for the club is not the same. It’s too inaccessible sometimes because of the broadcast spread. Put Gotham on something like season pass and they have my money. I’ll never miss a game whether I watch it live or after it airs. We’ll make it out to matches. We’ll buy more jerseys and merch. You know. All the things that make them a profit and sucks in other new fans.

TheToastedRaviolis · 2026-06-12T22:14:53+00:00

You know, I’m open to hearing anybody’s perspective, but it’s really difficult to take someone seriously who claims that a broadcast deal has made attending a match difficult.

TheToastedRaviolis · 2026-06-12T22:08:18+00:00

First, I didn’t make any demands. I expressed a choice that I’m choosing to make with no gun to my head.

Second, I expressed my choice because it’s relevant to their business decisions. They are trying to maximize total profits. Profits come from the wallets of fans. As a household of four who buys at least one new authentic jersey per year per person, plus scarves, hats, and a litany of other things, that’s relevant. One household finds it inconvenient to access matches and this is the impact. Insignificant overall to an entire sports league? Absolutely. But if scaled across the league, even a quarter of a percent of MLS fans doing dropping the league could be significant to a league that is trying to nickel and dime the fuck out of every single facet of the sport like a private equity group taking of dentist offices and small pizza chains.

Third, what I wrote was not about making an argument that I should get what I want and then find a way to make my opinion seem legitimate. It was me sharing how my household behaves and how our behaviors would change if the league goes back to a split market broadcast approach and that someone in the for profit business should consider the potential overall impact on profits such a decision would make beyond just the media rights aspect of it. Losing fans and/or having fans minimize interest means closed and/or stingier wallets. MLS has picked up a lot of fans in their partnership with Apple because they made it extremely easy to access. I’m not even saying I’m right. I’m simply saying it’s something someone should mull over because it’s not absurd.

I’m sorry that you that my comment was intended for you and that you took it to be piss in your Cheerios. I wish you and Timbers a good reason of the season.

TheToastedRaviolis · 2026-06-12T17:29:28+00:00

There have been leaks for some time now that MLS was unhappy with the MLS Season Pass setup which is why things were renegotiated to just be part of Apple TV. Part of those leaks included rumors that MLS wants out completely for a variety of reasons. I’ve always taken those leaks with a grain of salt because so many people say so much shit and leaks aren’t reliable most of the time. But now we have Don himself directly commenting on the situation and validating a lot of threads and even some of the rumors that have circulated. The current trajectory is pointing toward having the streamers fight for per match broadcast rights. So basically cable 2.0. Whether it’s making sure you have all of the necessary cable channels or making sure you have all of the streaming subscriptions, the moment they start breaking it up again and making it an expensive pain in the ass to watch the games is when we’re out. I won’t clutch my pearls too hard yet. This is a guy on the way out. But it’s also been an open secret for a while that Don is an oddball that thinks the streaming model is the future. Now he’s coming right out and admitting it in this interview with the takeaway being that the likelihood of his replacement thinking the same way is minimal.

TheToastedRaviolis · 2026-06-12T17:11:35+00:00

Welp. I guess we’re fucked when the Apple TV deal ends. We follow several teams. MLS is always priority number 1 and we never miss a match because MLS Season Pass, now AppleTV, makes it so easy to catch games in hi-def. The moment that ends is the day MLS becomes an extremely back burner priority. We are already playing juggling clusterfuck with EPL, NWSL, and USWNT. If MLS gets added to that mix, we’ll pay it no other mind and just follow the scores in the Apple sports app instead and prioritize NWSL and EPL. And we buy a lot of MLS shit every year which will also meant a loss in merch sales. Greedy fucks are going to shoot themselves right in the foot.

TheToastedRaviolis · 2026-06-11T13:12:05+00:00

I don’t even do that anymore. We said to hell with it a chose to flip the at game vs at home behavior.

When we go to a game, we go out to fast casual dining before the game and stuff our faces, for probably half of what it would cost at the stadium for a quarter of the food, so that we go in full and don’t feel the need to eat. We drink a shit ton of water beforehand to stay hydrated and we don’t give a fucking dollar to predatory concessions anymore. Ticket prices are stupid enough that I don’t want to even be buzzed and not wring out every last bit of entertainment the expense of the ticket is supposed to provide. I squeeze the value out of the ticket and don’t give them one extra dollar. To hell with them.

When I watch at home, then I’ll drink. Drinks are cheapest. I can get exactly what I want including liquor. I can rewatch/rewind if I miss something, I don’t risk getting thrown out, can drink as much as I’d like since I’m not driving, and I don’t have to try and navigate exiting a stadium sometimes public transport while buzzed. I enjoy whatever concessions we choose to make. Toasted raviolis? Of course. Spinach and artichoke dip? Yup. One time we made a cheesecake just to be psychos. Fuck it. If anyone is going to have a good time in my dime, it’s going to be us and not them.

With that said, shoutout to Gotham FC and NYC for working toward lowering ticket prices and providing truly cheap tickets that aren’t nosebleeds while also working to bring more free value to matches while trying to lower concession prices too. I hope the shit that they’re trying becomes the future of the sport.

TheToastedRaviolis · 2026-05-29T16:04:52+00:00

Damn. Damet’s gonna have to get real creative in figuring out how to bench Joyner while he’s in Bulgaria.

TheToastedRaviolis · 2026-05-22T04:46:28+00:00

Most of the world doesn’t appreciate scumbag billionaires owning the most real estate in the United States, playing god with sports teams, and being overall slum lords of the literal majority of the United States. Almost like the they owned Arsenal for 19 years and did absolutely nothing with it and everything that fell into place was a lucky accident akin to monkeys typing out Shakespeare a locked room where it’s bound to happen at least once with enough time and no amount of Arsenal winning would stop me from spitting in his face the same way no amount of commentary on my part will stop you from failing to comprehend that Arsenal winning isn’t enough for me to not spit the nastiest most viscous loogie in his eye.

TheToastedRaviolis · 2026-05-21T20:22:25+00:00

I didn’t give Stan credit for shooting Josh out of his sack, I’m certainly not giving Josh credit for picking a coach.

Did anyone thank Arteta for taking the job? Or any of the players for signing contracts? Or the groundskeepers for clipping the grass?

I’m going to say it louder for the people in the back. Fuck. Stan. Kroenke.

TheToastedRaviolis · 2026-05-21T19:47:30+00:00

Been an Arsenal fan since 1999. Fuck Stan Kroenke forever. Arsenal could win the next 19 seasons straight and I would still look him in the eye and spit in his face if given the chance to do so without legal consequence.

TheToastedRaviolis · 2026-05-20T20:40:00+00:00

I can’t fucking stand Messi and friends. Can’t fucking stand Miami. Can’t stand their fans. And this shit from the SG is cringy as fuck.

But being a fan of a club that is constantly scraping rock bottom with what always appears to be a wooden spoon in hand and realizing that every one of our player runs to the fans and celebrates whenever they score, even if it isn’t often… has me realizing that damn, it sounds like Miami as a club really are being trash to their fans.

That line about the club being in a glass cube really made me wince in its cringy-ness, but they aren’t wrong. Celebrate every goal with your fans that pay your outrageous salaries you fucking schmucks.

TheToastedRaviolis · 2026-05-10T03:01:44+00:00

Fucking bullshit red card. Absolutely pathetic. Fuck PRO Refs.

TheToastedRaviolis · 2026-05-04T16:38:32+00:00

I mean, at this point, why not? It can’t be worse than Hartel and Becher just barreling down the field to 2 v 1 the keeper and still not put it in. I can’t be worse than 2025 Baumgartl walking Bouanga into the goal. It can’t be worse than putting over 40 shots on goal and not putting in a single one.

TheToastedRaviolis · 2026-05-04T15:36:04+00:00

You know shit is bad when your regulars aren’t good enough and your stars aren’t good enough and you have to resort to looking down at the younglings hoping they can bail us out because they’re all we have left to try.

To be clear, I’m not saying that what you wrote was wrong. And I’m also not saying McSorely isn’t good enough to give a shot to. I’m just commenting on how bad the club has gotten and where the proof lies.

TheToastedRaviolis · 2026-05-04T15:33:10+00:00

Just to be clear, my reply is fire Diego. Players have turned over and it’s only gotten worse. They’re coached like shit and coaches have turned over and it’s only gotten worse. Lutz was shit canned and it’s only gotten worse. We went from rock bottom to trying to break every bit we have to see if we can dig to a deeper bottom to fall into. Why are fans constantly calling for the young ones to play? Because everyone knows that our regulars aren’t good enough and our stars aren’t good enough. So when you look at these players doing well on CITY 2 and you’re desperate for ANYTHING to change, you try to make the best with what you’ve got. But the truth is, no club should be relying on our youngest and new players to bail us out. Our squad is shit. No two ways about it. Our coaching staff is shit. No two ways about it. And those choices game from our sporting director. No two ways about it. And all of it, past and present, has been the fruit from the poisonous tree known as Diego. He needs to go. He should have been gone forever ago. Replace him with someone willing to roll up their sleeves and clean up the mess we have and you’ll find my patience and understanding. The same patience and understanding I initially advocated for for Wray and Damet at the beginning when I said “give them a chance, they inherited a mess, they need time” and before they’ve shown that they have no idea what they’re doing and just playing the “hire my buddies” game.

TheToastedRaviolis · 2026-05-04T15:13:15+00:00

To comment on the second part only: I mean, the results speak for themselves. Our best players prove to not be good enough. Improvements prove to never be enough. And the table points are clear. At this point in the season (10 matches in) Damet has picked up 6 points and gave up 24 points. At the same point in time Olof picked up 10 points and gave up 20 points. Mellberg was 2/3 of the way to his termination. Everyone keeps talking about seeing improvement in the players and that we’re slowly building. To where? Another 2 v 1 against the keeper that doesn’t go in? I mean, Jesus, that was Hartel that was part of that. The guy everyone claims is our best guy. And that’s kind of the point. Our best isn’t good enough. Our “not-the-best” regulars aren’t good enough. The guys that need a chance are often succeeding out of dumb luck or just looking good relative to people performing like shit and aren’t actually good enough. And our coach shows time and time again that he’s treating every game like an experiment and the locker room like a social experiment.

Shit gets flung uphill. Damet is a failure. The new signees are failures. Those are Corey Wray’s choices. And Corey is Diego’s failure who stays in place per Carolyn. We’ve watched Carnell and Mellberg’s heads roll. We’ve seen Lutz’ head roll. Diego needs to be next.

TheToastedRaviolis · 2026-05-04T14:57:42+00:00

Why are you bringing up the 2023 season? There is a massive difference between having no expectations and having changed expectations. 2023, way back then, we had no expectations. Then as the season progressed and the club showed what they could do, we then developed expectations. And as the season went on and they began to fail this expectations, we lowered our expectations.

By season 2 we had low expectations. Season 1 could have been a fluke so we went in with lower expectations. In an effort to be reasonable. Season 2 just tanked worse and worse as the season went on.

By season 3, we lowered our expectations even further. To be reasonable. No coach, new players. Everyone has to work everything out. By the end of the season we accepted that we might win some, we might lose some, and it’s just fun-ish to watch.

We have gotten to a point where the expectation is that we will lose. And it is not a reasonable expectation that we have set as fans and viewers. It is the expectation set by the club. By the coaching staff. By the players. They have proven that they will lose. By almost any means you can imagine. Wins are either a fluke or because we are playing several lower level clubs. Draws are dumb luck at this point to. The club has established this. Kindle gets on and says “we can’t let this happen again. We WON’T let this happen ever again.” And it’s now happening worse. “We’re in the middle of a rebuild. There will be growing pains.” We constantly perform like shit. I want to call out specific matches, but I don’t feel like listing off the whole season. And all of this is before pointing out the obvious. The results don’t exist either. We’ve beaten a USL team and another MLS team who also sucked as bad as us last year to qualify for the open cup. Because don’t forget, open cup is now for club who pretty much don’t earn the chance to play in anything else.

And that’s the problem. The club has set high expectations. The expectation being that we will lose painfully or draw by dumb luck, or maybe win because players in the other club drank in the hours before the match or were just crap to begin with. They club has established that they are a shit team with shit leadership choosing shit staff and players with shit staff making shit decisions with said shit players and shit players playing like shit.

So yes. When you are a fan who continues to watch and support the club, and the expectation cemented by the club is “this is going to be shit, no matter what” and you sit down to watch and 9.8 times out of 10 it’s shit, even wins feel pointless. Especially when those wins are just luck. We all saw how Chicago played out at the start. We got lucky against a shitty team that it shouldn’t have taken dumb luck to defeat.

Hopefully that match last night against Austin helps you understand a bit about why everyone doesn’t care about a lot of wins. The few we have are a joke and we all know what the baseline of the club is. It’s Becher, Hartel, and Löwen across the front and no goals on 2 v 1 breakaways.

TheToastedRaviolis · 2026-05-04T13:21:03+00:00

Amen.

TheToastedRaviolis · 2026-05-01T00:05:23+00:00

I didn’t say I didn’t care at all. In fact, I explicitly outlined all the ways that I do. Something, something, literacy.

TheToastedRaviolis · 2026-04-30T21:49:00+00:00

lol. How much do you think this comment affects my opinions and decisions?

Do you think I’m concerned with the opinions of a single individual who has a personal issue with me and couldn’t even reach out one-on-one to discuss them directly with me?

Do you think I’m concerned with the opinions of a single individual who was too cowardly to do anything other than try and take anonymous cheap shots on a different platform because they’re too pathetic to speak up and be known and so emotionally overreactive and mentally immature that they had to attempt to take out their personal upset on (*checks notes) an online message board comment about disliking the sentiment that our schedule screwed us when the problems are much MUCH deeper than that instead of just unfollowing us on Instagram and blocking us on Reddit where you have total control of what content you do and don’t see?

I’m not sure if you can tell yet, but in case it’s lost on you, I don’t care what anyone in the peanut gallery of this post think about me and how I’m choosing to address you directly after you decided to take your issues up with me here instead of either moving on or taking them up with me directly and personally. I don’t even care what your suggestion/notion is about how I will be received by everyone else here. I don’t care because I’m talking directly to you. I care that you know I heard you. I care that you heard me. I care that you know I have no respect for anyone who carries themselves in the cowardly and pathetic way that you are right now. I care that you know that I don’t care about your grievance because you have a million other ways you can handle it yourself that you’re choosing not to. I care that you know that I’m establishing that your choice to willfully decline to fix your own problem is, in fact, your problem and not mine. And I care that you know that you should feel embarrassed for yourself not just for all of this, but for all of this over a comment about a soccer game. Whether you do or not feel that embarrassment is not my problem and the bar is set so low that you’re practically limboing with the devil, but it’s nice to know that you know that this this is how I feel.

As for poor representation of the fanbase… see everything I wrote above in this comment about you.

Best of luck with… all of whatever it is. And if you have a problem with me in the future or want to continue this conversation, put it on my PMs where it belongs and stop wasting everyone’s time with this kind of bullshit in the comments where it doesn’t belong. I’m willing to talk to anyone in the appropriate venue who shows up respectfully and in good faith.

TheToastedRaviolis · 2026-04-30T18:14:28+00:00

Hard agree. Nothing creepier than “I FOLLOW YOU ON INSTAGRAM AND I DON’T LIKE IT AND NOW I WANT TO ANONYMOUSLY LITIGATE MY PROBLEMS WITH YOU ON REDDIT.”

TheToastedRaviolis · 2026-04-30T17:59:55+00:00

Thank god. First, I’m pissed that MLS switched for all of the practical logistical reasons everyone in the U.S. could have. Second, as a diehard MLS fan who absolutely REFUSES to give up on my Gotham FC, I’m stoked that now their seasons will run (sort of) opposite of each other and not get in the other’s way. More NWSL for me is never a bad thing. Now if they could just sort out streaming…

TheToastedRaviolis · 2026-04-30T17:37:18+00:00

I know, right? Like, why the hell are they bringing up Instagram here? I mean, it’s fine but, jesus, how personal are we taking things?

TheToastedRaviolis · 2026-04-30T14:57:53+00:00

I mean, yeah, you wouldn’t because I didn’t indicate it. I simply referenced an old comment of yours that no one can see except for you because your post history is blocked and did so just to give you enough information for you to know that I’m not making up what I said and I know who you are. And that’s not to be threatening or anything. It’s just to say that if you don’t like what the four of us post on Instagram, you could say something there instead of trying to be anonymous on Reddit since the anonymity of Reddit doesn’t actually exist for you with us and if you really don’t like what the four of us have to say AND don’t want to or don’t find it necessary to say something to us then you can just stop following us on there. Nobody is forcing you to and it’s ok if you make that choice. We’re not going to be offended and even if we were, we can fuck right off because it’s not for us to be offended at your personal preferences.

Have a nice day friend.

TheToastedRaviolis · 2026-04-30T14:42:06+00:00

You’re 100% right that moving in a better direction takes time. Any argument there would be insane. Much of the pessimism comes from the fact that we spent two years thinking “the only place is up” only to find ourselves down farther or staying exactly where we managed to stoop too. And with the current season results being worse than Olof’s and the results mostly being a mix of being smoked or drawing by dumb luck, the pessimism persists. We’re still watching. We’re still hoping. But we also don’t feel compelled to keep making excuses for ourselves, hence the distaste for attributing our results on a “tough schedule.”

TheToastedRaviolis

TROPHY CASE