Dax McCarty is prompt. He joins the Zoom call right on time. He is ready. The microphone is in a good place. The lighting is good. He knows this conversation is not just to capture the written word but for audio and video. 

The first question is a softball (with apologizes if you think I’m mixing my sports metaphor). I ask him to give me less than a minute on the biography of Michael Dax McCarty, now a studio analyst for Apple TV.  Nearly two minutes later he stops talking.  

“My talent coach says I talk too much,” he concedes later in the conversation. “As I’m sure, you can see this right now. It’s probably something you’re going to echo.”  I had made a note about the occasional bouts of over-talking as I watched McCarty’s work on television.  “I have the gift of gab,” he says.  “You realize it’s a blessing and a curse. When you are on TV there is a shot clock.”

Long careers are often made by how much one learns in the first months and years of a career. 

I suspect that’s how it happened for the kid who left the University of North Carolina for MLS after his sophomore season. He learned enough to play 19 seasons, with six teams. Half his 38 years of life. He retired after the 2024 season with Atlanta United. 

He’s now five months into his second career, television. So much to learn. So much work to do. And in his mind, no time for a post-playing career break. He says he doesn’t want to sit and watch others talk about soccer in the lead-up to the 2026 World Cup.

“There’s a little FOMO in terms of soccer in this country for now,” he said.  “I would have a fear of missing out on being a part of this groundswell of energy and love that the game is getting now, especially in the United States.”

He says he will have plenty of time to drink beers, go to the beach and travel, vacation with his family. This job with MLS Season Pass was, he says, “too good an opportunity to pass up.”  He fears that if he told them he wanted a year off, that job would not be there waiting for him. 

The folks at Apple TV keep him busy. He appears in all of these shows: MLS Countdown, MLS 360, Sunday Night Soccer and MLS Wrap-Up. Add to that a couple of podcasts, including his own with Alan Gordon and Dan Gargan, “Major League Journeymen.”

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