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Philadelphia Union games will be played almost exclusively on Saturdays and Wednesdays beginning in 2023 as part of the new streaming partnership Major League Soccer announced with Apple on Tuesday.
“Through this new agreement we plan on midweek games will be on Wednesday nights,” MLS Deputy Commissioner Gary Stevenson said in a press conference on Tuesday. “Weekend games will be Saturday nights, unless there is a field stadium availability issue or if we have a linear window that is outside of that.”
Stevenson said this season there are 63 different start day/time combinations.
“It’s really hard for our fans to kind of understand when the games are starting, whether they’re a fan going to the stadium or whether a fan watching the broadcast,” Stevenson said.
The broadcasts on a new streaming service exclusively available through Apple TV will include a “whip-around show.”
“That whip around show will be as long as six hours because most of the games will start at seven or eight o’clock local depending on when the club wants to have kickoff,” Stevenson said. “But can you imagine what a Saturday night’s gonna look like? It’s almost like decision day every single Saturday.”
The Union has played twice this season on Sundays and has two Sunday games and a Friday game remaining on their schedule. The U.S. Open Cup typically holds games on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights.
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