MLS Kickoff 2025: MLS's Ignacio Garcia Talks New Production Facility, Sunday Night Soccer Enhancements MLS Productions will christen its new studio facility at WWE Headquarters in Stamford, CT By Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S. Friday, February 21, 2025 - 11:31 am
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Major League Soccer and Apple will kick off their third season as partners this weekend from a new home. MLS Productions, the league's media- and broadcast-production arm, has moved its operations to WWE Headquarters in Stamford, CT, as part of an expanded multiyear deal with IMG. It marks a new era for the MLS Season Pass on Apple TV, which will now feature studio shows produced from the state-of-the-art The Studios at WWE.
MLS's Ignacio Garcia: We're going to see an exponential step forward. We have a multiyear deal here at WWE Studios, so we are able to look at our future long-term rather than on a year-to-year basis. (Photo: Mark Smith/USA TODAY Sports)
MLS will once again work with IMG to produce live match and studio productions and programming for more than 600 games annually on MLS Season Pass on Apple TV, and NEP Group will continue to supply production facilities and technology. MLS has also brought on AE Live as its exclusive graphics partner and will adopt a centralized graphics-integration model for all game broadcasts.
MLS Season Pass is launching a Sunday Night Soccer featured-game-of-the-week broadcast with enhanced production and dedicated studio programming. Sunday Night Soccer, which debuts this weekend with the San Diego FC-LA Galaxy matchup, will be available to stream for Apple TV+ subscribers and will be preceded by new preview shows, MLS Countdown and MLS La Previa. MLS Wrap Up and MLS El Resumen will move to Sunday evenings following the Sunday match to highlight and recap the full week of matches.
Also new this year, IMG Director, Content, Stephen Cook has been brought in to oversee all media production along with veteran match director Tony Mills. A legend at the front bench, Mills was a director at Sky Sports from 1991 to 2017; he famously directed the first-ever English Premier League match televised, in 1992, and the first-ever Premier League match in HD, in 2006. Additionally, IMG and MLS have elevated Greg Burud to oversee all studio production for MLS Season Pass on Apple TV; he served as coordinating producer for MLS Season Pass studio programming last season and had served a producer at ESPN for a more than a decade.
SVG sat down with MLS SVP/Executive Producer Ignacio Garcia, who joined the league prior to last season after more than 20 years at ESPN Deportes, to get an inside look at its revamped production operation in Stamford. In addition, he offers a peek at what to expect from Sunday Night Soccer productions, the launch of centralized graphics and some REMI productions this year, how the new hires will impact the on-air product, and what else viewers can expect from the latest iteration of MLS Season Pass on Apple TV.
From an operations standpoint, why did it make sense for MLS Productions to move to WWE Studios in Stamford?
It makes sense for several reasons. This is a state-of-the-art, fully connected facility where all control rooms and studios are tied together. We have access to the facility 24/7, which will allow us to expand our commitment in producing content. It also will serve as a bigger hub for us as we bring several different groups and partners together under one roof.
For example, previously, we had the MLS features team working from the league office and the IMG features team working in our studio or remotely. Now all those teams will be together under one roof, allowing them to collaborate and communicate better. That's just one of many examples, and we're excited to have everyone working from one space.
The Studios at WWE is a 30,000-sq.-ft., state-of-the-art production facility housing five studios featuring the latest technologies, wide-ranging production amenities, a cutting-edge virtual-production stage, and the latest-generation technology from Sony and Disguise.
Walk us through the footprint of the studio space in Stamford and how MLS will utilize it.
We have access to over 10,000 sq. ft. of space, including those two studios that mirror one another. The control rooms also mimic one with the other so that, with everything we are doing, we will be able to bring the same quality across the two different languages.
We also have another space for production offices, which will be home to over 70 people from MLS, IMG, AE Live, and other partners that we work with.
What are some specific examples of how your production team will benefit from the new Stamford facility?
First, moving here allows us to have a consistent look between our English-language and Spanish-language shows. In previous years, although the talent and production resources were equal for the two shows, there was clearly a significant difference in terms of the size of the studios, with the Spanish studio being much smaller. Now we have two studios that mirror one another.
By having access to virtual-production technology, we can customize the look of our studio depending on the competition or the situation. That is very hard to do when you have a purely physical set. Having said that, we're going with the approach of mimicking the look we have on the larger, physical set on the English-language side. That could also open new possibilities in the future to customize different looks or evolve or bring new technology.
MLS will be centralizing its graphics workflow in the Stamford facility. That's a change from previous seasons, when graphics were generated from the production truck for distribution.
MLS is centralizing its graphics workflow in the Stamford facility this year. Why the change f
