Real Salt Lake has sold its local online streaming rights to KSL, but its TV contract remains unchanged.
The new deal does not affect the team’s local TV deal with KMYU. RSL recently renewed its contract with that station, which will continue to air games through 2020. But local fans also will be able to watch the games free online at KSL.com and on the KSL app.
“We’re really excited,” said Trey Fitz-Gerald, RSL’s vice president of broadcasting and public relations. “We think this is a big step forward for us as the TV landscape changes.”
RSL’s local TV broadcasts will remain the same, airing in three-hour blocks on KMYU, with a 30-minute pregame and a 30-minute postgame.
The same coverage will stream online — which means that fans will see KUTV sportscaster David James doing play-by-play, with Brian Dunseth doing the color commentary, on the KSL app and KSL.com.
KMYU and KUTV are owned by Sinclair Broadcasting.
KSL will also stream Utah Royals FC, Real Monarchs and a number of RSL Academy matches without pre- and postgame shows.
RSL owner Dell Loy Hansen said the deal will make it possible for fans to “be connected around the clock to our club, our players and our coaches, 24/7 from the palm of their hands.”
And KSL’s vice president and general manager, Tanya Vea, promised the three-year deal — which coincides with the recently renewed RSL-KMYU agreement — “will ensure that [fans] have instant and enhanced access to RSL.”
Real Salt Lake will produce the games and provide the program to KMYU and KSL.
“People will have instantaneous access to RSL, Monarchs, Royals and the Academy,” Fitz-Gerald said. “Not only live games, but a lot of ancillary video content.”
In addition to that ancillary content, the deal includes:
• A weekly coach’s show — “The Mike Petke Show” — that will be hosted by Dunseth.
• A weekly magazine show titled “OnFrame” that will stream Tuesdays throughout the season beginning Feb. 27. Dunseth will host, and the show will feature Bill Riley (who does RSL’s play-by-play on the radio), sideline reporter Rebecca Cade from KSTU and appearances by Royals coach Laura Harvey and Monarchs coach Mark Briggs.
The games will stream only in Utah and a few other areas — Boise, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Reno — that are part of Real Salt Lake’s TV territory. In other parts of the United States and in other countries, KSL’s stream will be geoblocked because of the MLS TV and streaming contracts.
As has been the case, any RSL game that airs nationally on Fox, Fox Sports 1 or ESPN will not be available on a local outlet, either television or streaming. Games that air on Univision, however, will continue to air on KMYU and will be streamed on KSL.com and the KSL app.
And KSL Classifieds will be a hub for selling individual game tickets.
Real Salt Lake opens the MLS regular season on March 3 at FC Dallas.
