Sportsball — Apples Major League Soccer streaming service launches today It’s a glimpse at Apple’s original, fading vision for post-cable TV.
Samuel Axon – Feb 1, 2023 12:00 pm UTC Enlarge / Major League Soccer across a number of devices in a promotional image made by Apple.Apple reader comments 3 with 0 posters participating Share this story Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Reddit
Today marks the launch of Apple’s heavy-duty Major League Soccer integration in the company’s TV app. For either a monthly or annual fee, users in 100 countries can watch live or recorded video of all MLS and League Cup matches without regional or timed blackouts.
The service is available on any device that runs Apple’s TV app, from Apple’s Macs, iPads, and iPhones to smart TVs, streaming boxes, or other companies’ game consoles. It’s priced at $14.99 per month or $99 per season, but existing Apple TV+ subscribers can pay $12.99 per month or $79 per season instead.
The MLS season hasn’t started yetthings kick off February 25but until then, the app will offer videos from past games so subscribers can catch up, including a few that are free even if you don’t subscribe.
Further ReadingBad news for cable: A major sports league will stream exclusively on Apple TVOn one hand, the appeal of this new service seems a bit niche. North American soccer has been growing rapidly, but it’s still not as popular as other major sports leagues. That said, this kind of total, blackout-free access is a departure from what’s been typical for sports streaming services. They typically have exceedingly complex content-gating schemes based on location, time, and other factors.
To that point, other tech companies like Amazon have been making plans to air games by major sports leagues, but they’re often saddled by these same recurring limitations. Advertisement
Apple seems to have struck this deal with MLS partly to illustrate its vision for what sports streaming can and perhaps should be. While the NFL’s content is tangled in an absurdly complicated web of legal arrangements and business interests, this MLS service imagines, ‘What if watching sports over IP was straightforward?’
In the years before his health decline and death, former Apple CEO Steve Jobs had privately and publicly focused on the TV business as one that needed a radical reinvention for the digital era. The initial version of the Apple TV 4K (and the TV app, which would later appear on other devices) was the result of years on Apple’s part of wrangling with the legal and market complexities of TV to try and find something that was a bit less maddening than what cable TV was doing at the time.
That was largely a failure, as entrenched interests would not cede enough ground for Apple to achieve its goalsunderstandably. Why would TV networks and production companies cede money and control of their content, as well as lucrative regional agreements, so Apple could wrestle its way onto their turf? Other industries had already lost too big a piece of the pie to companies like Apple, Google, or Amazon, after all.
There was just enough there for users to get what Apple was envisioning, though. Niche as it may be, the MLS service seems like an extension of that still-nascent concept. It’s not the first time Apple has offered sports via the TV app, but it marks the most robust effort to bring third-party content to a prominent place inside the app alongside Apple’s original content on the TV+ service. reader comments 3 with 0 posters participating Share this story Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Reddit Samuel Axon Based in Chicago, Samuel is the Senior Reviews Editor at Ars Technica, where he leads the site’s gadget and reviews section. He covers Apple and display tech, as well as hardware and software for developers and creative professionals. He has been writing about technology for 15 years, and is an AR and game developer for iOS and other platforms. Email samuel.axon@arstechnica.com Advertisement Channel Ars Technica ← Previous story Next story → Related Stories Today on Ars