Major League Soccer and Apple on Wednesday detailed about their new broadcasting deal starting with the 2023 season. The league and tech giant announced a 10-year deal this summer, with Apple paying his $2.5 billion for the rights to televise all of his MLS games. Here’s what you need to know about today’s update.
- Beginning February 1, fans can subscribe to the MLS Season Pass in the Apple TV app for $14.99 per month for the entire season or $99 per season, and Apple TV+ subscribers can sign up for a special price of $12.99 per month and $79 per season. I can do it.
- Annual subscriptions are included in the package for MLS Club season ticket holders. Apple expects 300,000 to 400,000 subscribers to fall into this bucket.
- Nearly all games (scheduled for Wednesdays and Saturdays, with some Sundays under consideration) kick off at 7:30 PM local time, with pre-match coverage beginning 30 minutes early.
- MLS will produce whiparound shows similar to “NFL RedZone” and CBS Sports’ “Golazo Show,” allowing fans to keep up with multiple games at once.
- The first weekend of the season, everyone can watch in front of the paywall.
what we already knew
October 27th, athletic reported some key details about ongoing planning work for early production operations. The league interviewed over 200 play-by-play commentators and color his commentators to build its English, Spanish and French broadcast teams. If they don’t like the league’s commentary assignments, viewers can switch to Home His Team’s Radio His feed for a more local perspective. The match window includes a 30-minute pre-match national show, a match-specific primer at each stadium, a halftime show and a post-match national show. Given the number of time zones we cover, we typically cover game night from 7pm to 1am ET.
Even before the MLS-specific paywall, there can be quite a few matches played. Six midweek matches and four Saturday matches could be available in front of the paywall, according to documents distributed to clubs in August. (especially given the history of ESPN/ABC, TUDN, and Fox), and sources said athletic The league expects the number of games available for free in 2023 to be significantly higher than at any other point in the league’s history.
According to the documents, the MLS All-Star Game will only air on Apple TV+ and Apple’s MLS streaming service. The league hopes to broadcast the MLS Cup finals simultaneously in front of linear networks and Apple TV paywalls until at least 2026.
Other MLS playoff games will air on Apple TV’s streaming service and possibly on linear platforms as well. The league is still exploring simulcast arrangements with linear partners such as his ESPN, Fox and Univision in the US, and his TSN and TVA Sports in Canada. Exactly where the playoff games will be broadcast will depend on the details of the potential simulcast deal.
Teams can also generate their own content tailored to their local fan base. This will appear in the Apple TV app alongside national game replays and league-generated content.
what i learned on wednesday
First, and most relevant, was pricing. When the service launches on February 1, fans can subscribe to the MLS Season Pass for the Apple TV app for $14.99/month or $99/season for the season, and Apple TV+ subscribers can get special deals of $12.99/month and $79/month. You can sign up for the price. every season. It is not known how many screens can be displayed simultaneously with a subscription. This is an important detail for opportunists like my family and myself.
The recurring fact of including subscriptions for season ticket holders is a necessary boost to encourage the team’s die-hard fans to test the new platform from launch. Putting the season-opening weekend in front of the paywall also provides an opportunity to advertise to non-season ticket members and more casual viewers, but it makes a terrible first impression if operations don’t get up to par quickly. The $99 price may seem steep, but it’s on par with the league’s previous ventures. Before switching to ESPN+, MLS Live offered every match for $79 a year, barring pesky regional power outages. You pay about $12 a month to watch every MLS team, but your favorite team was a tough call. With local power outages no longer considering the new format, it appears to be the market price to keep up with the increasingly relevant league, even if there are no seats in the team’s stadium.
Yet, understandably, some resist price increases beyond ESPN+’s previous price points. Its ability to bundle its sports services (including far more soccer leagues and many other sports) with Hulu and Disney+ made it an easily digestible monthly fee given the content on offer. Indeed, ESPN+ featured localized blackouts, which were a bane for fans on the go and writers on the market. Whether the increase is clearly justified will depend on the content the league and its clubs generate to fill the full slate of available matches.
Perhaps more interesting to me was the decision to delay the kickoff time. Game start times fluctuated a lot throughout the season, but the baseline window was 7:08 p.m. (barring scandal or injury, of course) with his local kickoff for games to finish by 9:00 p.m. did. With the game kicking off at 7:30pm, MLS has a clear time slot for the pre-match show, but it will also shift into the evening.
The initial reaction among fans was incredibly mixed ( Quote Tweets and Mentions Here). Some see that as a fair price given the promise of full access to MLS games and additional content. We see it as earning cash to make up for — the dreaded paywall within a paywall.
Wherever it lands, MLS will have two and a half months to get the platform ready before launching in February. As with any jersey published, it’s easier to decide if it’s worth the money when you try it on.
(Photo: Jeff Halstead/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
