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So we’re almost a month away from the start of the 2018 Major League Soccer campaign and there was great news for British Orlando City SC fans yesterday.
Scrolling through Sky Sports’ MLS fixture itinerary, we couldn’t help but notice that Orlando City SC‘s 2018 home opener against D.C. United will be shown LIVE on Sunday March 4th.
The third time in four seasons that Sky Sports have aired our home opening fixture, this broadcast follows live coverage of Orlando City SC versus New York City FC in 2015 in our inaugural MLS fixture and again in 2017.
Orlando City SC versus D.C. United will be shown on Sky Sports Football and Sky Sports Main Event from 00:30 on Sunday March 4th.
GOOD NEWS 🙌🏽 | @SkySports Main Event will be showing @OrlandoCitySC’s season opener against @dcunited on Sunday March 4️⃣th (00:30)! 📺🦁🇬🇧
💜🦁💛#OCSC #MLS pic.twitter.com/6obDxSSdAn
— Orlando City UK (@Orlando_CityUK) January 27, 2018
Fantastic UK MLS access
In February 2015, Sky Sports secured a four-year deal to exclusively broadcast live Major League Soccer fixtures and fortunately for us British folk, there’s been plenty of Orlando City SC on the TV in that time.
Two thirds of the way through last season after 26 regular season fixtures, Orlando City UK calculated that 12 of Orlando City SC‘s MLS fixtures had been shown live by Sky Sports.
Having shown a fantastic proportion of live Orlando City SC fixtures since we entered MLS three years ago, Sky Sports’ game selection process supports the work we do here at Orlando City UK.
Game selection process
While we can’t be 100% certain on how the bods over at Sky Sports select which MLS games are aired and which ones are not, it’s worth getting familiar with their fixture itinerary process.
As of today, Sky Sports have 14 live televised broadcasts scheduled up until Chicago Fire’s home fixture with Portland Timbers on Sunday March 31st.
Following March and based on our experiences so far, Sky Sports often select new televised fixtures around one week to a fortnight from that game being played.
That means lots of surprise televised fixtures throughout the course of the new campaign, for example…
GOOD NEWS 📺 | @OrlandoCitySC vs @WhitecapsFC is LIVE on @SkySports Football this weekend! 👏🏽👍🏽
💜🦁💛#ORLvVAN #OCSC #MLS pic.twitter.com/0BfnNxVvtR
— Orlando City UK (@Orlando_CityUK) August 22, 2017
Orlando City UK Watch Parties
With the new 2018 Major League Soccer campaign nearly upon us, we will try our utmost to arrange another Orlando City UK Watch Party.
Simply waiting for Sky Sports to air a fixture that is preferably on a Saturday evening, stay tuned to our Twitter as you’ll be the first to know about our plans and preparations.
Sky Sports Fixture Tracker
This season, Orlando City UK will be keeping an accurate log on ALL of the live televised Orlando City SC fixtures, as selected by Sky Sports.
Simply head on over to our Fixtures page where we’ve created a tracker so you can see exactly when Sky Sports are showing Orlando City SC next.