The Kyle Bailey Show: Will Palaszczuk

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We got to welcome in and welcome back Willie p.
Will Pologic, voice of Charlotte FC, wfn Z host reporter.
He's back with us for a Thursday conversation, will Pologic,
How are.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
You nothing going on at all? KB?

Speaker 1 (00:12):
It's going on MUCHOW Well, you and I've been texting,
so let's get right into it. I saw the Tom
Bogert tweet that you sent me. We had Tom on
last week. Major League Soccer owners have voted and passed
a schedule change. The league will now run from late
summer months through May, and it's due to start in
the summer of twenty twenty seven. MLS will take the

(00:32):
winter break in January and February. So this I think
we talked about this about a year ago. Seemed possible,
then didn't happen. Now it's happening, and I would just
love big picture your perspective on why they're doing this
and what this means from Major League Soccer.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
The complicated First off, KB, they went about two years
into this kind of discovery process to try and figure
out what's the best way to elevate this product and
elevate this league. Because there are a lot of people
who are wanted to make sure that Lionel Messi's entrance

(01:09):
into this league does not go without at least benefiting
other teams not named Interer Miami. And what they've come
to find is that when it comes to the way
the by windows are structured, the most lucrative by window
and sell window for worldwide soccer happens in the summer,
usually when the European leagues are in their off season,

(01:34):
and aligning that off season with MLS was always going
to be a priority for MLS ownership in order to
try to align that, because trying to get top quality
players to come in the middle of an MLS season
was always a harder sell on talent than it was
doing so in a normal fashion, so that part of

(01:56):
it was kind of the paramount part. The second wrinkle
is MLS does not like the fact that it's major
playoff and MLS Cup games go immediately opposite the NFL
and the very big brunt of the college football schedule.
The MLS Cup right now takes place on college Football
Championship weekend. For example, if Charlotte FUGHC one of the

(02:18):
host MLS Cup, they'd have a real hard time kicking
the acc Championship out of Bank of America Stadium in
order to do that, so they'd be in a situation
where they'd have to basically play it at an alternate site,
which nobody wants. So from that perspective, that takes away
that very big, big possibility of happening, and at least
that very very big conflict. It takes those games and

(02:39):
puts them in an area where the sports calendar is
not as cluttered with something as joynomus as football. There
is still going to be some overlap with the NFL
in college football, but with the way the schedule shift happens,
it's going to start in mid July go until November,
so it really is kind of the same, the same
footprint and overlay because it is now, but then they

(03:01):
will shift it obviously into the spring for the real
run up to the playoffs. It'll be a better run
up for the playoffs than they have currently. And I
think also they're going to try everything they possibly can
to avoid the northern teams from having to play games
with punitive weather conditions. They had something in the MLS
release that said they will not play more than three

(03:22):
games away from home at a time, so there might
again be a long road trip for like the Minnesota's
and the New Englands of the world. In terms of that,
maybe in February, maybe we play a little bit more
in those northern markets, say in mid July and August,
but at the same point in time, aligning the buy windows,
getting the playoffs away from football. And another thing too
that I think annoys a lot of people who come

(03:44):
to this league from outside of America is a lot
of times they've had to play during international windows. Having
the international windows lined up now will allow them to
take off during those times so that you're not having
to play games with a less than full runs. It's
a win win win for everybody in MLS. I know
people are reever very resistant to change, but I think

(04:06):
it's something that will elevate the league and also the
most important part of it, get a higher level of
player to this league, which of course increases exposure, increases quality.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
Yeah, listen, I think all the reasons you just listed
make perfect sense. I'm no expert here, I'm certainly no authority,
but I think it all makes sense. I told you earlier.
I'm very interested in the logistics of it. We brought
this up yesterday, So just when the time comes, all right,
they're gonna play the twenty twenty sixth season status quo
before they make the switch in twenty twenty seven. How
do they handle that? Like are you rolling in from

(04:37):
one full season into the next full season, Like how
do you make that transition?

Speaker 2 (04:42):
So I'm glad you asked, and that answer was not
clear to me until we just got the release from NLS.
What they're gonna do is they're gonna play what's called
position season in the spring of twenty twenty seven. It'll
be a fourteen game season, they're gonna have playoffs, they're
gonna have basically the whole bit of it. It's going
to and again probably be a season kind of like
with an asterisk around it, kind of like what we

(05:04):
had during the COVID times. MLS did something kind of
similar with this MLS's back tournament during the COVID year
of twenty twenty So it might kind of have a
fo gaysy element to it, but it's better than just
taking the whole four or five months off and losing momentum.
So I think they'll try to do something that's like
a makeshift season during that period. Of time that leads

(05:27):
up until May, just to kind of get everything aligned,
and then they'll play the true twenty seven to twenty
eight MLS season beginning in mid July of twenty seven.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
Okay, all right, now, there was more big news today,
and we can feel free to bring us back to
this if there's something that you feel needs to be
added in. But also news today from paulton Orio that
Major League Soccer will come out from behind the separate
MLS season pass subscription beginning next season, and that all
games will be available on the Apple TV streaming service.
You know, I've had a really, I don't know, call

(05:58):
it a peculiar situation. Every time I've turned you on
on Apple TV, which has been many times, it just plays,
and I don't pay for the subscription, so I don't
know why I'm getting you every single time. I always
thought it was maybe a questionable idea to put that
behind a separate paywall. I'm glad to hear they're coming
out from behind it. Why are they doing this.

Speaker 2 (06:16):
Now, Well, I think part of the reason is Apple
has just acquired more properties. F One obviously had a
very very celebrated move to Apple here at the end
of the F one season, they obviously have gotten the
Big Baseball package as well, and one of the things
that they came to find was that the separate subscription

(06:36):
was limiting their viewership. And I think it's something that
I've said was my biggest gripe with the service. If
I'm allowed to have a gripe and leave me, I've
voiced it publicly and privately over the course of the
last couple of years, is that I think just if
you subscribe to Apple te like if you can watch
Ted Lasso in the morning Show, you should be able
to watch MLS, not too dissimilar to the way that

(06:56):
if you subscribe to Peacock for the office in Parks
and rec can watch the Premier League. I also find
that I also find it very interesting KB and I
found this out literally just today that there's actually an
Apple and Peacock bundle that combines the two services for
I think fourteen nine nine a month, So you can
get your Premier League Soccer, you can get your MLS soccer,

(07:19):
you can get your F one, you can get your
Michael Scott on, your Leslie Nophon and Ted Lasso on
all in one subscription, and you only got to pay
one piper. So again, this move makes a ton of
sense for MLS. I know the people whoill come to
me and say why is it not on regular TV?
And I understand that that's always going to be a gripe.

(07:40):
I can just tell you that in the year of
Our Lord twenty twenty five, streaming is the future. This
is kind of the way that a lot of these
leagues are trying to at least develop themselves. I think
the one thing that I keep saying to people, because
we didn't really have a long a long wave when
we were basically had one season of basically the old way,

(08:00):
I can tell you that the old way was not
good for a lot of people because it had the
same problems that people have when it comes to things
like Fandel, Sports Network, Ballely, things of that nature. You know,
we had similar carriage issues and disputes when it comes
to people who are trying to get it either over
the top or not have cable and things of that nature.
This is at least a way that says, okay, these

(08:21):
are in one place. There's no blackouts, there's no separate subscription.
It's a very very simple thing. Subscribe to Apple you
get MLS and you get everything else that Apple offers.
It's it's a win win for the league.

Speaker 1 (08:33):
I totally agreed. All right, we haven't talked about this
since it happened, but five days ago the season ended,
the series ended. I was watching. I guess it was
six days ago, but I was watching and saw the
extra time goal, and I could hear the pain in
your voice. And my son even picked up on He Sai, Daddy,
he sounds sad, and I said, he is sad because
it's you know, it's been a fun season and it's over,
not the way that they wanted to go out that

(08:54):
you wanted to go out. What are your thoughts now?
Kind of you know, after it's all done, you know,
how do you about the year?

Speaker 2 (09:01):
The weirdest thing KB is that it felt different, And
I heard Ashley West would even say it when he
spoke on Wednesday, that it felt different than last year
because it felt like they had maybe turned a corner,
particularly with the way that they had looked during the
regular season. But it was a season that honestly had
a lot of peaks and valleys. It was a roller coaster.
You had, you know, the great start that they had

(09:21):
they got in the first place, and then you hit
May in June and they have the swoon that they had.
You get back, you get a nine game win streak,
you have a little bit of a wonky lead up
to the finish, and then the playoff series that was
incredibly uneven. It just seemed like consistency was definitely a
moving target for this squad, and I think a lot
of that had to do with injuries, but a lot
of it also had to do with the fact that

(09:42):
I just think that they did not have enough consistent
quality when it came to the roster, and it's something
that zarn Karnetta and Dean Smith will have to address
during the off season. Obviously, the biggest thing is Dilson
Molanda's departure. Who ends up stepping into that place as
an outside solution or somebody internally. And also I thought
it was very very telling that Dean Smith, in a
game that Charlotte needed to have in Game two of

(10:03):
the postseason, only went to one player off his bench,
which tells me that he needs to have more players
on his roster that he trusts. I think he loves
the guys he has in the starting eleven when it's
fully healthy with pet bl Wilfrid Zaja, Dan Teklamani, etc.
But I think there needs to be more quality creativity
off the bench. It's a hard thing to do in
this league because of the salary restrictions and things of

(10:25):
that nature. But making the right interleague moves, making the
right homegrown type moves and things of that nature, and
try to elevate and create some more workable depth. Those
are what separates the teams that have nice regular seasons
and the teams that win MLS Cup.

Speaker 1 (10:42):
Breaking news real quickily, I got to hit a break.
I know, you know how these things work, but I'm
seeing breaking news that Charlotte FC has recently appointed former
Reading and Leeds manager Brian McDermott as club consultant, announced
his new What does that entail? How important is.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
That it's a guy who honestly brings a lot of experience.
It's European wise. I actually was talking about this with
my old Coyle league Jessica Charman, because, as you know,
Reading is the squad that she used to support. He's
an incredible manager and resource. I kind of got into
this a little bit a couple of weeks ago when

(11:16):
I heard Zarconeta kind of first bringing this up. He's
just another voice in the room to kind of give
them more of that bridge between Europe to Charlotte. See
the one of the things that people don't understand, at
least worldwide, is that Charlotte's not a recognizable city for
the Europeans necessarily. But putting somebody attached to this brand,

(11:37):
attached to this group, we'll bring some additional credibility. Dean
Smith obviously brought a lot of that, Zaha Furthered a
lot of that, as did Ashley Westwood. This is just
another name to kind of attach to the brand that says, oh,
if he's there, it must mean something that's good. So
it's another name that at least allows Charlotte OFFC to
recruit in that fashion.

Speaker 1 (11:55):
Further legitimizes the club. I get it all right, buddy, listen,
I appreciate you. We could go all day, but we'll
do it again very soon. Thank you for the time, man,
Thank you pal.