As a football (soccer) fan from the UK it surprises me that MLS hasn't jumped down Google's throats looking for a similar online solution for fans. It's a fantastic league that most Americans don't appreciate because it's perceived to be of poor-quality, but given a true online presence as good as their website is would boost its popularity ten-fold.
Ability-wise, MLS is on par with the Championship or the 2. Bundesliga (ie, the better second divisions). It's nowhere near the level of the top European divisions.
That said, I'm really looking forward to the revival of the New York Cosmos, and I'd definitely pay to watch live matches online.
I've always thought that this would be a huge boost to non-league clubs as well - I presume that FC United of Manchester, for example, haven't signed any TV deals and would be free to broadcast live video that they're already recording in Gigg Lane, complete with hilarious Manc commentators (unluckeh!).
The issue with these kind of statements is that leagues are judged on the ability of their top teams. La Liga, for example, sports the likes of Barcelona, Valencia, Real Madrid, Athletico Madrid and co, but also contains a large number of small teams with no hope of continental competition. The Premier League is different in that it has a large number of strong teams who can fight for Europa League places. If anything, being compared to the Championship is a huge compliment, as the Championship is a fiercely competitive league that produces teams that have done extremely well in the past few years (Blackpool being the latest example).
MLS will never be rated as good as European leagues because they're never in direct competition with European teams. However, I truly believe that all MLS needs is to bleed some youth into the league. If they set up a summer loan deal with the Premier League academies then great youth players will get their chances in MLS alongside their heroes, the future stars of the Premier League will be "seen first" in MLS and maybe some will stick around.
On the subject of non-league teams, they could use all the money they can get. FCUM have decent backing, but the likes of Redditch United can no longer pay their team. I'm sure a basic YouTube deal where live matches would give the fans a great way to give them what little money they may need.
Doubt that when this goes live it will be accesible from the UK, so don't get your hopes up. Someone needs to disrupt the video streaming space license-wise...
Sadly, I think you're right, although all of the MLS online video content that already exists is available to me, so I typically get my fix from there or from Reddit.
