MLS is expanding its global broadcast footprint and, in doing so, revealing its true feelings about its broadcast deal with Apple.
According to a report by Alex Silverman of Sports Business Journal, MLS has signed several distribution agreements with international broadcast partners for its brand new Sunday Night Soccer package. The league has inked deals with linear broadcasters in Australia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Spain, Germany, Israel, Malta, and Korea and is also pursuing linear distribution in other territories.
The ironic part about these deals is that one of the supposed benefits of MLS’s media rights agreement with Apple was the global reach of Apple TV+. By striking deals with linear partners worldwide, MLS is sending a clear message: the Apple deal is not working.
That hasn’t been much of a secret. MLS Season Pass clearly isn’t attracting the subscriber numbers the league likely predicted after signing the Apple deal in 2022. And to make matters worse, it doesn’t seem like the people who are subscribed to MLS Season Pass are watching in very large numbers anyway.
Unfortunately, here in the United States, that hasn’t changed MLS or Apple’s approach to business. Aside from a small linear package with Fox, which barely features the league’s biggest draw, Lionel Messi, and largely neglects the most important parts of the season, MLS fans are forced onto a streaming service to watch games.
Clearly, the league realizes this is a problem, and that’s why it’s reaching deals in other countries to make games more accessible. But, in a sense, doing so is admitting defeat.
Apple TV+ is a global streaming platform. If fans in other countries were signing up for MLS Season Pass subscriptions like the league anticipated, there would be no need to go and strike additional linear deals. In fact, Apple would likely prevent MLS from doing so because it’d undercut its own product. But it seems like there’s not much to lose on that front anyway, since Apple isn’t getting in the way.
Sure, these linear packages are only for MLS’s Sunday Night Soccer game. Fans in these countries will still need to purchase a Season Pass subscription if they’d like to watch any MLS game they’d like.
But this gets to the crux of the issue. If MLS is striking this type of linear deal in other countries, presumably as a way to attract new fans who might become Season Pass subscribers in the future, why aren’t they doing it in the United States?
Sunday Night Soccer is available on Apple TV+ without a Season Pass subscription, but that doesn’t really give it any more exposure than your run-of-the-mill MLS game, does it? It’s still not on linear television, where someone could presumably stumble across it and tune in for a little while. It’s tucked away on a streaming app where, unless you happen to be perusing Apple TV+ while the game is on, you’re unlikely to find it.
And until something akin to these international rights deals hits the United States, it’s unlikely that MLS’s Sunday Night Soccer strategy will breakthrough meaningfully.
MLS remains out of sight, out of mind.
