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Two years into Apple’s 10-year MLS partnership, where do things stand?

MacDailyNews

Dec 6

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In June 2022, Apple and Major League Soccer (MLS)announced that the Apple TV app will be the exclusive destination to watch every single live MLS match beginning in 2023. The deal runs through 2032.

A new Major League Soccer champion will be crowned this Saturday, December 7, as LA Galaxy hosts New York Red Bulls for the 2024 MLS Cup presented by Audi — the resounding conclusion to a historic postseason that has seen massive upsets and heroic comebacks. The match will stream free in over 100 countries and regions on MLS Season Pass at 4 p.m. ET. Apple TV offers a breadth of options for watching the championship match live, including through the Apple TV app on Apple devices, smart TVs, and streaming devices; set-top boxes; game consoles; and on the web at tv.apple.com.

Paul Tenorio for The Athletic:
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The innovative 10-year partnership between MLS and Apple has brought clear improvements, including broadcast quality across all games and accessibility worldwide without blackout restrictions. But it has also limited the league’s ability to grow an audience. With consumers continuing to move from linear to streaming options, MLS is left questioning if its pioneering deal came too early — especially in the saturated American sports marketplace and as the soccer-watching landscape expands to include the English Premier League, German Bundesliga, European Champions League and Mexico’s Liga MX.
The fans watching Season Pass enjoy the product, but getting more people to tune in is the hard part. The number is also hard to judge from the outside as Apple does not share subscription data.
“We have more subscribers than we and Apple thought we would have,” Garber told the CNBC Sports videocast this week.
Sources — kept anonymous because they were not authorized to speak publicly — briefed on the numbers told The Athletic that more than one million people watch MLS games on an average Saturday across all games, that around 94 percent of subscribers feel Season Pass is “significantly” better than previous broadcasts and that playoff viewership was up around 50 percent from 2023 to 2024. That number may have been aided by Messi and Miami in the playoffs, as well as a huge push around Miami’s playoff opener, but audiences were still up even removing Miami’s three playoff games.

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MacDailyNews Take: It’s still very early, but one hopeful tidbit that sources of The Athletic report is that Apple is mulling the possibility of introducing an “MLS Game of the Week” in 2025, with a marquee game (read: Messi) to be played on Sundays. “The hope is that it becomes appointment viewing for all MLS fans in the same way Apple has found success with its Friday Night Baseball broadcasts,” Tenorio writes.

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