Today marks the launch of Apple’s powerful integration of Major League Soccer into the company’s TV app. For a monthly or annual fee, users in 100 countries can watch live or replayed video of all MLS and League Cup matches without regional or time cut-offs.
The service is available on any device running the Apple TV app, from Apple Macs, iPads, and iPhones to third-party smart TVs, streaming consoles, or game consoles. It’s priced at $14.99/month or $99/season, but existing Apple TV+ subscribers can pay $12.99/month or $79/season instead.
The MLS season hasn’t started yet – everything starts February 25 – but until then, the app will offer videos from past games for subscribers to catch up on, including a few freebies even if you’re not a subscriber.
By that point, other tech companies like Amazon were planning to stream games from top sports leagues, but they often face the same recurring restrictions.
It appears that Apple made this deal with MLS in part to illustrate its vision of what sports streaming can and perhaps should be. While NFL content is tangled in an absurdly tangled web of legal agreements and business interests, this MLS service imagines, “What if watching sports over IP was easy?”
In the years before his failing health and death, former Apple CEO Steve Jobs privately and publicly focused on the TV business as a business in need of a radical rethink in the digital age. The original Apple TV 4K (and the TV app that would later appear on other devices) was the result of Apple’s years of battling through TV’s legal and marketing complexities to try and find something less expensive. maddening than what cable television was doing at the time.
It was largely a failure, as entrenched interests didn’t give Apple enough room to achieve its goals – and understandably so. Why would TV stations and production companies give up money and control over their content, as well as lucrative regional agreements, so that Apple can break into their territory? After all, other industries have already lost too much of the pie to companies like Apple, Google or Amazon.
However, there was enough for users to get what Apple envisioned. Whatever the niche, the MLS service seems to be an extension of this still nascent concept. This isn’t the first time Apple has offered sports through the TV app, but it’s the most aggressive effort to bring third-party content prominently on the app alongside original Apple content on the TV+ service.