Photo courtesy Philadelphia Union

If you live outside Philadelphia Union’s regional television market, you might have heard something a bit different while watching the Union’s 6-1 Saturday night victory over New England Revolution at Talen Energy Stadium.

Philadelphia’s Hall of Fame play-by-by anchor JP Dellacamera opened the broadcast alongside the iconic color commentator Tommy Smyth.

For those in the Delaware Valley, you’d be forgiven for wondering why this was unusual. For the rest, you know this was the first time this season MLS’ streaming partner ESPN+ featured the Union’s home broadcasting team.

“ESPN+ selects the feed for each game at their sole discretion,” Philadelphia Union told Philly Soccer Page in response to the national platform’s infrequent use of the team’s broadcast. “In the past, there has not been a lot of visibility into what drives feed selection.”

Clarity has since been provided. The acclaimed voice of Dellacamera and Irish charm of Smyth will feature more prominently going forward.

“We’ve recently met with MLS and ESPN to discuss how the Union feed can be used more frequently (at least for home games),” said the Union. “We discovered that there were technology challenges that led [to] our home feed (and other MLS teams as well) not being selected.”

This helps explain why the Union’s broadcast was only selected twice during the 2018 MLS season per PSP’s Jim O’Leary. Conversely, while ESPN offers MLB.tv subscribers a choice of home or away, no such option existed for MLS games on ESPN+.

“Through our great partnership with 6abc, they helped us with workarounds that now enable ESPN+ to take the Union’s feed for home games.”

Philadelphia’s ability to find a solution offers hope for out-of-market fans of other MLS teams hoping to connect with their club’s local broadcast.

For Union fans scattered across the country, they can look forward to hearing a few more “Doops in the old onion bag.”