MLS teams and national TV

On the schedule, all 13 MLS teams are suppose to be equal. They each play 30 matches with 15 at home and 15 on the road. However, one place where all teams are not equal is national TV broadcasts.

Here is the breakdown by team of games airing on ABC/ESPN2 (ESPN2), TeleFutura/Galavision (T/G), Fox Soccer Channel (FSC) and HDNet (HD):

Team	ESPN2	T/G	FSC	HD	Total
LA	6	6	5	8	25
FCD	6	7	5	2	20
Houston	3	6	6	4	19
Chivas	6	4	5	3	18
Chicago	4	4	4	6	18
DCU	4	5	4	5	18
New York	5	4	5	4	18
New England	4	3	4	5	16
Colorado	4	6	4	2	15
RSL	2	1	4	6	13
Columbus	1	1	3	7	12
Toronto FC	1	2	5	3	11
KC	2	1	2	5	10

No surprise that LA and Beckham have the most games on national TV (25 out of 30!), but I am a bit taken back by FC Dallas in the second position. Perhaps Hoops Nation is starting to take off. I would have thought Chivas or DC or maybe Chicago would have taken that spot. True, those three teams are not far behind FCD, however, about a third of Chicago's and DC's games are on HDNet. I'm not knocking HDNet (I hope MLS helps them gain some subscribers because what I've seen, it's a damn good station), but of the four TV options, they reach the fewest eyes.

No surprise to see KC down at the bottom of the list since, up until last weekend, there was a chance that they would be playing on a high school football field and they were not that great last year, but I am a little surprised to see so few Toronto FC matches. I know, they are new and not American, but since they have their own stadium, I would have thought it might make for some interesting TV.

Real Salt Lake and Columbus were two of 2006's worst teams, so, again, not a surprise that they do not see much national TV time (actually, if it wasn't for HDNet, you would be hard pressed to find the Crew at all).