MLS Direct Kick

Last updated
MLS Direct Kick 2017.png

MLS Direct Kick was an out-of-market sports package distributed by most cable and satellite providers in North America. As of the 2011 season, package subscribers were able to watch up to 221 Major League Soccer regular season games as well as some MLS Cup playoff matches. [1] [2] The target market for this package (based on advertisements) is soccer fans who are unable to see games because they have moved out of that team's market. It has been superseded by MLS Season Pass.

Contents

Availability

MLS Direct Kick was available with these cable and satellite providers:

Blackout restrictions

If a local MLS team is playing and the game is being seen locally, the associated feed on MLS Direct Kick is blacked out. Note also the games being televised on Fox/Fox Sports 1, ESPN/ESPN 2/ESPN Deportes, and/or Univision/Unimás/TUDN telecasts are not available in the package due to the rights of those games being purchased by the previous television stations prior to the beginning of the season.

Original logo MLS Direct Kick.svg
Original logo

History

The MLS Direct Kick Package was known as The MLS/ESPN Shootout Package in the early years of MLS. The name change occurred prior to the 2005 MLS season.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NFL Network</span> American sports-oriented pay television network

NFL Network is an American sports-oriented pay television network owned by the National Football League (NFL) and is part of NFL Media, which also includes NFL.com, NFL Films, NFL Mobile, NFL Now and NFL RedZone. Dedicated to American football, the network features game telecasts from the NFL, as well as NFL-related content including analysis programs, specials and documentaries. The network is headquartered in the NFL Los Angeles building located next to SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, and broadcasts its worldwide feed from Encompass Digital Media in Atlanta, Georgia. The network has secondary East Coast facilities in the NFL Films building in Mount Laurel, New Jersey.

ESPNU is an American multinational digital cable and satellite sports television channel owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company and the Hearst Communications. The channel is primarily dedicated to coverage of college athletics, and is also used as an additional outlet for general ESPN programming. ESPNU is based alongside its sister networks at ESPN's headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NFL Sunday Ticket</span> American football subscription television

NFL Sunday Ticket is an out-of-market sports package that broadcasts National Football League (NFL) regular season games unavailable on local affiliates. It carries all the regional Sunday afternoon games produced by Fox and CBS. The ideal customer of this package is presumed to be a fan of a team who is unable to see their team on local television because they do not reside in one of that team's markets, or sports bars who want to increase business by attracting fans of out of market teams. Beginning with the 2023 NFL season, for residential customers in the United States, NFL Sunday Ticket moved exclusively to YouTube TV, as well as to YouTube's recently-launched Primetime Channels service as a standalone subscription option. The league then formed a new company called EverPass Media to distribute the package to bars, restaurants, and other commercial venues. From 1994 to 2023, the package was distributed in the United States exclusively by DirecTV.

YurView California is an American cable television channel serving San Diego, California, owned by Cox Communications, which carries the channel primarily on its San Diego area systems on channel 4.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NHL Center Ice</span> NHL sports program

NHL Center Ice is an out-of-market sports package distributed by most cable and satellite providers in the United States and Canada. The package allows its subscribers to see up to forty out-of-market National Hockey League games a week using local and national television networks.

A regional sports network (RSN) in the United States and Canada is a television channel that presents sports programming to a local media market or geographical region.

In North America, an out-of-market sports package is a form of subscription television that broadcasts sporting events to areas where the events were unable to be seen by viewers on other broadcast and cable television networks due to the games not being broadcast in their local market.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Big Ten Network</span> American collegiate sports network

Big Ten Network (BTN) is an American sports network based in Chicago, Illinois. The channel is dedicated to coverage of collegiate sports sanctioned by the Big Ten Conference, including live and recorded event telecasts, news, analysis programs, and other content focusing on the conference's member schools. It is a joint venture between Fox Sports and the Big Ten, with Fox Corporation as 61% stakeholder and operating partner, and the Big Ten Conference owning a 39% stake. It is headquartered in the former Montgomery Ward & Co. Catalog House building at 600 West Chicago Avenue in Chicago.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NHL Centre Ice</span> Canadian television sports package

NHL Centre Ice is a Canadian digital cable subscription out-of-market sports package controlled and distributed by Rogers Communications through Rogers Cable as of 2014. It is offered by three national satellite television service providers, Bell Satellite TV, TELUS Optik TV, Telus Satellite TV, and Shaw Direct and many digital cable television providers such as Eastlink, Shaw, Cogeco and more.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Root Sports Northwest</span> American regional sports television network

Root Sports Northwest, sometimes branded simply as Root Sports, is an American regional sports network owned by the Seattle Mariners. Headquartered near Seattle in the city of Bellevue, Washington, the channel broadcasts regional coverage of sports events throughout the Pacific Northwest, with a focus on professional sports teams based in Seattle and Portland. It is available on cable providers throughout Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Alaska and nationwide on satellite via DirecTV.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MLB Extra Innings</span> Out-of-market sports package

MLB Extra Innings is an out-of-market sports package distributed in North America by satellite provider DirecTV since 1996 and by most cable providers since 2001. The package allowed its subscribers to see up to 80 out-of-market Major League Baseball games a week using local over the air stations and regional sports networks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NBA League Pass</span> Sports television service

NBA League Pass is the National Basketball Association's direct-to-consumer subscription-based product that provides live and on-demand NBA games. It is available to those in the United States and also as an international package for all other countries. TV versions can be viewed through a cable or satellite TV provider, as well as an over-the-top streaming service operated by the league.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NASCAR Hot Pass</span> Former sports television service

NASCAR Hot Pass was a sports television package available exclusively on DirecTV in the United States, in Canada on several providers and in South America and the Caribbean on DirecTV Latin America. It debuted at the 2007 Daytona 500, which aired on February 18 of that year. In 2007 and 2008, it was a pay-per-view subscription package. However, from 2009 to 2012, it was free for all DirecTV subscribers, and the features were noticeably downgraded. As of the 2013 season, DirecTV stopped offering the service when its sponsorship agreement with NASCAR was not renewed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DirecTV</span> American direct broadcast satellite and streaming TV company

DirecTV, LLC is an American multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital satellite service serving the United States. It also provides traditional linear television service delivered by IP through its U-verse TV brand and a Virtual MVPD service through its DirecTV Stream brand. Its primary competitors are Dish Network, traditional cable television providers, IP-based television services, and other over-the-top video services.

NBC Sports Philadelphia is an American regional sports network owned by the NBC Sports Group unit of NBCUniversal, which in turn is owned by locally based cable television provider Comcast, and the Philadelphia Phillies. It is the flagship owned-and-operated outlet of NBC Sports Regional Networks. The channel broadcasts regional coverage of professional sports teams in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, as well as college sports events and original sports-related news, discussion and entertainment programming.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Space City Home Network</span> Regional sports network in Houston

The Space City Home Network is an American regional sports network owned jointly by the Houston Rockets and Houston Astros.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pac-12 Network</span> College sports television network

The Pac-12 Network (P12N), sometimes referred to as Pac-12 Networks, is an American sports-oriented digital cable and satellite television network owned by the Pac-12 Conference. The network's studio and production facilities are headquartered in San Ramon, California.

Spectrum SportsNet, formerly Time Warner Cable SportsNet, is an American regional sports cable and satellite television network owned by Charter Communications through its acquisition of Time Warner Cable in May 2016, with the Los Angeles Lakers maintaining editorial control over the content, including team-assigned reporters and anchors, as well as team-related programming. The network is based near the Lakers' team headquarters in the Los Angeles suburb of El Segundo, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bally Sports San Diego</span> American regional sports network

Bally Sports San Diego is an American regional sports network owned as a joint venture between Diamond Sports Group, and operates as an affiliate of Bally Sports. Prior to the team parting ways with the network in 2023, the San Diego Padres owned a 20% stake. It was launched on March 17, 2012.

A carriage dispute is a disagreement over the right to "carry", that is, retransmit, a broadcaster's signal. Carriage disputes first occurred between broadcasters and cable companies and now include direct broadcast satellite and other multichannel video programming distributors.

References

  1. Chabot, Jeff (15 March 2011). "Dish Network to launch MLS Direct Kick". HD Report . Retrieved 15 March 2011.
  2. "MLS Direct Kick" . Retrieved 5 April 2011.