MLS kicked off its season last weekend, and the experience for viewers looked a little bit different.
The league is entering its fourth year of a broadcast deal with Apple TV, but it’s the first in which MLS is available to all Apple TV subscribers, not just those that purchased the $99 per year Season Pass add-on. The increased accessibility should help the league reach more fans, but there’s still some sour grapes among MLS team executives about the deal.
Last year, one anonymous team executive called for the league to “end the deal with Apple,” suggesting the partnership was “bad for fans” and that MLS would be better suited on traditional linear networks.
This year, even with the league dropping its $99 paywall, another anonymous team executive remains unsatisfied. In a new survey of MLS team executives conducted by Paul Tenorio and Felipe Cardenas of The Athletic, at least one team executive still has gripes with the Apple deal.
“The length of the contract and the way it was structured was a mistake from the very beginning,” the executive told The Athletic. “And I think the content leaves a lot to be desired. The game times on the weekend should be addressed too, but that’s the sporting culture that we’re in.”
“Clearly something is not working with Apple,” another executive added.
While certain executives remained anonymous to criticize what they see as a failure for the league, two MLS club presidents went on-the-record with Awful Announcing to defend the Apple deal.
“I think the move to Apple TV this year, to get away from MLS Season Pass, is a massive statement and a huge change of course for Apple in terms of what they signed up for initially,” Sporting KC President Jake Reid said. “I thought [the anonymous executives] were harsh, probably not statements I would agree with. But to each their own, I suppose.”
While there was a fair bit of negativity about the league’s broadcast deal, some of the anonymous executives praised MLS and Apple for agreeing to drop the Season Pass paywall.
“I love the fact that we’re taking off the paywall. I think that makes a massive difference,” one team exec told The Athletic. “It opens it up to a lot of people who probably aren’t even sports fans but who have Apple TV.”
Early returns were positive, insomuch as one can read into MLS’s internal viewership data, which cannot be compared to an accredited third-party measurement firm like Nielsen. The league is touting a 59% year-over-year viewership increase for its Opening Weekend matches.
Originally, MLS’s deal with Apple was a 10-year agreement set to run through the 2032 season. After reworking the deal this past offseason to address the paywall concerns, the agreement now expires after the 2028-29 season. The match windows, however, are something that many executives brought up as a “pain point” for the league.
“My issue is adjusting the game times. Our games should be at 12 p.m., 2 p.m. and 4 p.m., so that when the European games finish and people go home they can watch MLS,” one anonymous executive suggested.
New England Revolution President Brian Bilello pushed back on this sentiment, noting the league has been “very flexible” about start times, particularly for teams in cold-weather markets that need to begin matches earlier in the day. “We’ve got 2:30, 2:30, 4:30 … so I think the league is building in that flexibility, especially with the winter schedule, and we have to continue to have that.”
On the whole, it seems like team executives believe the partnership is at least moving in the right direction, even if some are unhappy that Apple doesn’t offer the league more exposure. Per Nielsen’s The Gauge data, Apple TV falls closer to apps like AMC+ than Peacock in terms of viewing time. Even without the Season Pass framework, MLS needs to figure out how to get more people to click into the Apple TV app.
Apple’s recent deal with Formula One could help that effort. The streamer’s first F1 race will air live this upcoming weekend, marking the second sports property in which Apple will wholly own U.S. broadcasting rights. If anything, the F1 deal should at least help improve Apple TV’s status as a destination for live sports.
Even still, MLS is fighting an uphill battle for attention, though there’s reason to be optimistic. The league will soon transition to a summer-to-spring calendar that better aligns with other domestic leagues around the world. Not only will the shift allow MLS clubs to be more competitive in the transfer market, but it will ensure its most important inventory — the postseason — isn’t competing directly with the NFL and college football. This summer’s World Cup should also be a boon for the league.
Given the changes MLS and Apple have made at the midway point of their deal, it’s fair to say the two sides didn’t get off to quite as good of a start as either one imagined. Luckily, they’ve both seemed to acknowledge that changes were necessary. Perhaps this season will be the start of a turnaround for the partnership.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.