| Runtime: | 2 or 2.5 hours |
| Starring: | Various personalities (see below) |
| Country: | United States |
| Network: | ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN+, ABC, & ESPN Deportes |
MLS on ESPN was the branding used for television presentations of Major League Soccer on ESPN properties, including ABC and ESPN2. Major League Soccer on ESPN debuted in 1996, the league's first season, and ended in 2022 when MLS and ESPN did not renew their broadcast contract. From 1996 to 2006, the weekly soccer match on ESPN2 was called MLS Soccer Saturday, but in the new contract, that was replaced by MLS Primetime Thursday. For the 2009 season and beyond, the Thursday telecast was replaced by a variety of primetime games on Wednesdays through Saturdays. From 2009 until 2019, as part of ESPN's far-reaching strategy of moving sports programming to ESPN, all matches – including MLS Cup – were on either ESPN or ESPN2.
On August 4, 2006, ESPN reached a comprehensive multimedia agreement with Soccer United Marketing (SUM) for the rights to Major League Soccer through 2014. As part of the eight-year agreement, ESPN2 televised 26 regular-season and three playoff MLS matches each year, all in primetime on Thursdays.
Highlights of the agreement included:
Also in 2007, ESPN2's coverage of MLS included new on-screen scoreboards, similar to those used on other sports telecasts. In 2008, another new score graphic was debuted, this time in the upper left hand corner of the screen.
ESPN joined forces with Fox Sports and Univision to broadcast over 100 MLS games (combined), live and exclusive, from 2015 and 2022 in its succeeding media rights deal.
In 2023, MLS moved their inventory of games to MLS Season Pass, and the Fox Sports family. ESPN stopped televising MLS matches for the first time since the league's inception in 1996.[1] [2]
In addition, ESPN added numerous production enhancements to the telecasts through the years. They included:
ESPN was accused in 2011 by Soccer America writer Paul Kennedy of putting more emphasis on overall negativity and the more violent aspect of MLS games (such as two confrontations, two challenges and a player nursing a bloody head in its first six shots) in "Greatest Highlights of the Month" segment for their intermission reports.[3]
See main article: List of MLS on ESPN personalities and List of MLS Cup broadcasters.