Minnesota United FC fans would love an option to watch away games on local television after the continued struggles with NASL live this year. The NASL Commish, Bill Peterson, spoke to Soccer Morning and spoke to that and said, that some teams are “looking to broadcast away games on local stations.”

While we have heard nothing from the team yet suggesting that they will broadcast away games, it would make sense if Minnesota was one of these teams. They have the financial resources and are looking to expand their fan base in Minnesota and continue to connect with fans and the public.

Why broadcasting away games would be a great move for Minnesota United FC

Minnesota fans have struggled all year watching games online, with problems with the video feeds, inconsistent camera work and at times poor announcing. While broadcasting away games wouldn’t necessarily fix every thing, it would allow local fans an opportunity to be able to watch the game without worrying about the video stuttering or crashing.

In addition, it would fix the problem with inconsistent announcing from away game to away game. Minnesota is fortunate to have a fantastic announcing tandem in Chris Lidholm and former coach Buzz Lagos who combine their skill in describing the action with their knowledge of the game to create a great broadcast. Minnesota fans would be ecstatic to be able to hear them announcing games both home and away.

Lidholm sees a real positive in having local announcers be able to announce away games: “It brings a consistency to the announcing. All the other [local] sports teams do the same thing, they have the same set of announcers and I think that can be important.”

Minnesota United FC has shown itself to be a high quality, professional organization. Broadcasting away games would help to expose more potential fans to the team and to prove to the local market that Minnesota United FC is a team on par with the other major sports team in the area. It would continue to help them draw in high profile sponsorships by providing sponsors with more games where they would be advertised by the team and seen on TV.

The challenging logistics of broadcasting away games

There are two basic options for broadcasting away games. The first would be to send the announcers along with the team to away games, which would add to the cost of away travel with added airline, hotel room, and meal costs.

The stadium would also need to have a space for away announcers to be able to broadcast and would need to be set up to send the broadcast back to the channel in Minnesota. As the NSC in Blaine is currently configured, there isn’t a space for away announcers to broadcast right now, and that is likely true at other stadiums around the league. This would be something new for lower division teams, and would need cooperation from the other teams in the league to make work.

The second option would be to have the announcers watch a feed, which brings up a host of other issues.

“Some announcers watch a tv and do it that way,” Lidholm explained, “when we [currently] watch them online the streams have a tendency to buffer a little bit, so you will need a clean, clear feed to do it right.”

Not every stadium in the NASL can provide that kind of feed and would again need the other teams working with Minnesota United FC to make happen.

Ultimately, it’s unlikely we’ll see every game away and home broadcast live locally next season due to all the logistical issues that would need to get worked out. However, even a few more would be a dramatic improvement over the options Minnesota fans currently have to enjoy their Loons when they are away from home.