Arron's Assessment: Watch if you can

While the Cardinals have turned things around, winning 12 of their last 17 games as I’m writing this Thursday morning to get ahead of the time crunch of Memorial Day weekend and state track, vocal fans have been slow to forgive the franchise’s worst start to a season in recent memory.

The BattleHawks were a contender for the top spring team in the city for a while, and while Ka-kaw is still the law, a short 10-week season and missing the playoffs despite tying for the second best record in the league have already put the battling birds in the rear-view mirror until 2024.

City SC has cooled somewhat from its 5-0 start, winning just two of the following seven games, but remained in third place in the Western Conference standings, just three points behind LAFC prior to Saturday’s home match against Vancouver.

A 4-0 win over Sporting KC the previous match day was a grand way to kick off what figures to be the biggest rivalry for the start-up side moving forward.

The biggest drawback City SC faces is a lack of mainstream accessibility. 

Apart from a few select games being shared with Fox or FS1, the majority of MLS games can’t be found through cable or satellite television packages.

Instead MLS’s deal with Apple TV gives nearly exclusive rights to the world of online streaming. Apple’s MLS Season Pass is available to Apple-Plus subscribers (yay, Ted Lasso) for an additional $79 per season.

For nonsubscribers, Season Pass is available for $99 per season.

If you are a major fan and purchased season tickets, an MLS Season Pass subscription is included.

The City SC versus Sporting KC match was scheduled to be available on FS1, but to my knowledge no other City SC game has yet been available outside of the Apple’s steaming services.

Apple does offer up to six MLS games per week free through its streaming app, so if you want to watch City SC play and don’t want to pay for the Season Pass to guarantee access, there is still a slight chance that you can get the game on any given week through the Internet.

Among the many highlights of the Sporting KC match was City SC goalkeeper Roman Bürki, seemingly in the right place at the perfect time all night to shut out the side from Kansas.

Bürki ended that 13th match of the season in a three way tie for the league lead in saves with 52.

Though he has missed the last four games due to injury, City SC’s main striker, João Klaus, has also been one of the more exciting players in the league and ranks in a tie for 11th place for most goals this season with five.