Son Heung-Min, right, celebrates scoring his third goal with teammate Denis Bouanga in Wednesday night’s 4-1 win at Real Salt Lake.
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From a marketing standpoint, Son Heung-min is one of the most unique athletes in Major League Soccer’s history. And now he has helped MLS reach one of the most unique TV deals of its 30-year existence.
On Thursday morning, MLS announced a new, multi-year agreement with Korean broadcaster SPOTV to show LAFC games to South Korean audiences with Korean-language broadcasts.
The package available in the nation of just over 50 million supplements the access fans around the world – including in South Korea – already had to every MLS match through Apple TV’s MLS Season Pass service, and the smaller selection of matches available to Apple TV+ subscribers who have not also purchased Season Pass.
And it solves a unique problem, given Son’s enormous profile in his homeland, where he has been voted its most popular athlete for eight consecutive years, according to Gallup.
Throughout the history of MLS, there have been other star players with a greater worldwide profile than Son, including current reigning MLS MVP Lionel Messi and dating all the way back to David Beckham’s introduction to the LA Galaxy in 2007.
But in the era of MLS’s new worldwide streaming distribution model through Apple TV, Son is the first star to command such a large and loyal following in a nation whose native language isn’t one of those covered by MLS Season Pass broadcast options. (Every game is available in English and Spanish, and games involving Canadian clubs are also available in French.)
The announcement follows the club’s agreement to also broadcast its matches on a local Korean-language radio station for this season, with the potential to renew beyond the season. (In addition to having broad appeal in his home country, Son also has uniquely strong appeal in Southern California, home of the largest South Korean community outside the nation’s borders, with a population estimated at 320,000.
A One-Time Solution?
It’s unlikely MLS will see this as a model to replicate in the near future very often. There aren’t all that many athletes in any sport who can dominate the role of national hero in the manner of Son. Messi does for Argentines, but all MLS games are already broadcast in Spanish. Vancouver’s Thomas Muller is a big name in Germany, but not nearly on the Messi or Son level at this stage in his career.
If Mo Salah ever decided to test MLS waters, he might merit similar considerations for a unique deal tailored to his native Egypt and the rest of the Arab world. But the 33-year-old is currently just a month into a two-year contract extension with Liverpool.
And in the third year of a 10-year, $2.5 billion streaming relationship, MLS and Apple have begun exploring other ways to get games on lineal TV in foreign countries to expose potential subscribers to the availability of MLS Season Pass.
The creation of the Sunday Night Soccer package in Year 3 of the deal has given MLS a smaller inventory of matches to distribute to lineal TV partners abroad as simulcasts of what is available to MLS Season Pass subscribers globally. Here’s where the package is available over network or cable TV globally, and through which broadcaster:
- Australia: SBS
- Germany: Sportdigital
- Israel: Charlton
- Middle East: Dubai TV
- South Korea: SkyK
- Southeast Asia: SpoTV
- Spain (and Catalonia): TV3
Domestically, MLS also has agreements with FOX Sports to simulcast 34 regular season matches between FOX and FS1, plus additional Leagues Cup and MLS Cup Playoff matches. And in Canada, about 41 regular season matches are shown each season via TSN (in English) and RDS (in French).
Those domestic simulcast agreements in both countries expire following the 2026 season, which will conclude only a few months after the World Cup jointly hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico.
