Here are all the details on how Apple and Major League Soccer are teaming up to stream MLS games starting next year
What you need to know about Apple’s next major step toward becoming a major live sports broadcaster.
Back in June, Apple and Major League Soccer announced that the Apple TV app would become the streaming home for MLS games starting in 2023 via a separate subscription. Not a ton of details were released at the time, but I wrote a piece then about what we knew then, and what I speculated this deal meant for Apple’s rumored future acquisition of the rights to NFL Sunday Ticket. Yesterday Apple and Major League Soccer filled us in on all of the details of how this partnership will work:
Apple and Major League Soccer today announced MLS Season Pass will launch February 1, 2023 — introducing an unprecedented subscription service to fans in over 100 countries and regions that features every live MLS regular-season match, the entire playoffs, and the Leagues Cup,1 all with no blackouts. MLS Season Pass will bring MLS to its biggest worldwide audience ever, in a more simple and streamlined way: All matches will be available on billions of devices through the Apple TV app on Apple devices, smart TVs, streaming devices, set-top boxes, and game consoles, and the web at tv.apple.com. The launch of MLS Season Pass marks the official kickoff of the 10-year partnership between MLS and Apple, a historic first for a major professional sports league.
And:
Starting February 1, fans can subscribe to MLS Season Pass on the Apple TV app for $14.99 per month during the season or $99 per season, and Apple TV+ subscribers can sign up at a special price of $12.99 per month and $79 per season.
Let’s talk price, since that’s the aspect of this that people are going to be most interested in. $80-$100 is not an unreasonable amount of money for a fan of a sports league to play to stream that league’s games. Let’s see how this compares with the other major U.S. sports via streaming:
MLB.TV - $140
NBA League Pass - $99
NFL Sunday Ticket - $294
NHL (via ESPN+) - $99
It’s worth keeping in mind that in terms of popularity, Major League Soccer is in fifth place behind those other four. So $99 is arguably too expensive. A counterpoint would be that with the Apple/MLS deal subscribers will get access to every single game, including the postseason. Not sure about NHL, but I believe it’s the case with the other three that postseason games aren’t included, and in many cases these other streaming services don’t provide access to every regular-season game either. For example, this past season Apple TV+ was the exclusive home to Friday Night Baseball games. At least some of these other sports streaming packages are subject to local game blackouts too, which is not the case with Apple/MLS. At the end of the day I think the pricing for this deal is a way for Apple and Major League Soccer to say, “Hey, this is a premium sports league and this is a premium sports package.” And they’re not being unrealistic in framing it that way.
I don’t plan to subscribe to MLS Season Pass, though I can’t say I would never do so. I’ve never been particularly interested soccer, but all of my kids play youth soccer. Earlier this year I had the opportunity to take my son to see our local MLS team, Nashville SC, play a match. We both really enjoyed it, and I particularly loved that my son got the opportunity to see how professional soccer players play the game that he loves. We’ll definitely be tuning in to some of the games that are made available at no cost to Apple TV+ subscribers, and I’ll be curious to see how much content is available that way.
I think Apple did a stellar job broadcasting Friday Night Baseball games this past season. I loved Apple applying its design prowess to on-screen graphics, and I can’t wait to see how they handle MLS games. And personally I’m more interested to see what this means for the future. Friday Night Baseball gave Apple its first hands-on experience streaming live sports. MLS Season Pass is the next big step for Apple to take in live sports streaming. I hope this spreads to college football soon, as well as the long-rumored NFL Sunday Ticket.