Major League Soccer unveiled its regular season schedule for the 2007 season Tuesday, including the broadcasting schedule for each of the league's national television partners.
Each of the league's 13 teams will play a 30-game regular season this year and fans will be able to see many of the 195 regular season games live nationwide, as ABC, ESPN, Univision, Fox Soccer Channel, Fox Sports en Español and HDNet will all air live matches. Additionally, every MLS game will be televised either nationally or through regional network broadcasts.
The 12th MLS season will kick off on April 7 live on ABC at 3:30 p.m. ET as four-time MLS Cup champion D.C. United will visit the Colorado Rapids for the first-ever game at that club's brand new stadium, Dick's Sporting Goods Park. The season will conclude on Nov. 18 with MLS Cup, live at 12 p.m. ET from United's home of RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C.
Each of the league's national broadcast partners will anchor its coverage on a specific night throughout the MLS season, which will be highlighted by ESPN2's "MLS Primetime Thursday." Fox Soccer Channel, Fox Sports en Español and HDNet will all air games on Saturdays, while Univision's family of networks, which includes TeleFutura and Galavisión, will feature MLS broadcasts on Sundays.
"MLS Primetime Thursday" will consist of 29 broadcasts, beginning on April 12. Three MLS Cup Playoff matches will be shown in the time slot, as will the 2007 Sierra Mist MLS All-Star Game. The best from MLS will take on Scottish power Celtic FC on July 19 at Dick's Sporting Goods Park. Select broadcasts on ESPN2 will also include an extra 30 minutes of coverage.
Spanish-language coverage on the Univision family of networks will be available on 25 occasions. Those matches will often involve the MLS teams that play in the markets with the largest Hispanic populations. Playoff coverage on the Univision networks will be announced at a later date.
FSC returns to air 28 live regular season games on Saturday nights, each running in a three-hour window entitled "MLS Soccer Saturday on FSC." Thirty-minute pre- and post-game shows will be included, while the match itself will also be shown live on that network's sister station in Spanish. Fox Sports en Español is the largest all-sports Spanish-language network in the U.S. The two Fox networks will also carry three games from the MLS postseason.
For the fifth year, MLS games will also be available in high definition on HDNet, which will air 31 regular season games, 27 of which are slated for Saturday nights. Playoff coverage on HDNet will be announced at a later date.
Jonathan Nierman is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
