Apple TV buys all MLS broadcast rights for 10 years

The built in streaming app interface on a lot of TVs (especially slightly older or less premium ones) is less than ideal, it's really just something to tick off for marketing. Whatever your price range I would recommend getting a streaming device to connect to your TV, and if you can afford it the AppleTV is the best one.

It's not a hassle at all, but shouldn't your password input be a one time hassle even if it is a hassle, how often are you having to input your password? I assume you live in a private residence and not grand central station where you have to wipe everything clean after you're done using it.

I have been a fan of AppleTV since before the MLS-Apple deal, I take my AppleTV with me everywhere from business trips to vacations, one reason being because it's already signed in on all the apps I use, so I just need to connect it to the WiFi and I'm set.

Edit: I can't comment on MacBook as a PC user, 99% of the time I use the app on an AppleTV and the other 1% on my phone or laptop.

Here's a review of the current AppleTV (they're rumored to be releasing a new one in months)




It's also has the best screensavers

 

I mean you're both right. The Apple TV app is kinda unfriendly and it takes a bunch of scrolling and clicking/tapping to get to your MLS match of interest, and you still have to scroll past labeled goal highlight videos which partially spoil the outcome. Also true that TV built-in software is complete ass (maybe the Android TV-based ones are slightly better) and you should get a separate device like Apple TV. Kinda bummed out that they didn't announce a new version of the hardware last week.

 

Apple TV works well with a Roku device. I don't think I've had to enter the password there since the day MLS Season Pass launched. Costs about $30; you don't need the high-end version that costs more. My advice is always to ignore the built-in TV software and hook up a Roku.

 

Yeah that's the same advice I was giving, get some streaming box instead of using TV software, Roku works great and Google also has an inexpensive one. But if you can afford it and want the best quality, AppleTV. But you want something where companies are refining a dedicated device for a very competitive market, not whoever is doing it on crap bare minimum hardware at some TV company to satisfy a marketing check mark.

 

Wait, did you just buy an Apple TV (4K) box? The word on the street is that they will still announce/release a new version before the end of 2025.

I don't think it's necessarily an issue of Apple TV (streaming service) not working well on other companies' platforms - the service UI has some wonky aspects generally, and most apps written for the TV's built-in software suck.

 

Yeah not the time to buy an AppleTV box if you can wait, maybe I should have been more clear about that instead of putting it in parenthesis "(they're rumored to be releasing a new one in months)"

So you already have an AppleTV box? If you have it plugged in via any functional HDMI cable and are using that instead of the apps that are on your TV, it really shouldn't matter what TV you have? Even the WiFi of your TV wouldn't matter as the box is doing that, really the only relevant TV stuff would be things like display resolution and sound quality which were not the original complaints. So then your AppleTV box is making you sign into the AppleTV app frequently? That is really bizarre if true...

 

Hiow old is your Apple TV box? I finally got rid of my original, which I bought in 2014. The performance and the user interface had really declined. I have 3 later Apple TV boxes to compare against, so the decline was obvious.

 

Isn’t there a match on Fox every Sunday?

Also, it takes $631 to get all of the premium NFL games. That’s a lot less than Season Pass.

No offense, but you have an outdated mentality. You think of cable or dish as “free” or at least free compared to Apple TV, but it isn’t.

 

So it's probably the newest Apple TV 4K with all the bells and whistles. If you haven't been using it, fire it up, get the OS update that landed this week, and get all of your streaming goodness through it instead of the TV set's built-in software.

 

I’m using a Roku TV and the Apple service works fine. My TV is 2021. My internet access is bizarrely through a telephone 5g network. There’s no cable of any kind in my neighborhood, so it’s 5g or copper telephone wires. I really miss fiber optic connectivity.

Go Quakesfans!!

 

I searched for soccer and football apps on my AppleTV box and found maybe 75 apps. Some are streaming channels (even club streaming like ManCity), a lot of football scores, and a lot of what look like video games. I didn’t even realize you could play video games on an AppleTV.

I was just surprised to find so much futbol content on AppleTV…

 

Probably because an iPhone app and its Apple TV counterpart can share most of their code, so it's not a ton of work upfront to create a tvOS version aside from the front end UI. I don't think Apple TV even has that large a market share, so this helps in terms of having well-functioning and updated third party apps.

 

Well, i was wondering how someone plays video games on the AppleTV, but i haven’t looked into it, so i suppose it must be pretty easy to play, and therefore, worthwhile for a developer to run a game on both platforms….

I even found an appleTV app for learning how to develop an appleTV app…

 

You can use the remote (good for simple games like Pac-Man or Crossy Road) or connect a video game controller via bluetooth... there's also screen mirroring with phones.

 

Some interesting info from Graham Ruthven for The Guardian:

…MLS Season Pass. While the league has been coy on viewership since saddling up with Apple TV two years ago, Don Garber recently put the average number of viewers per match at 120,000, considerably lower than the 343,000 average viewers MLS was reportedly getting per match on ESPN in 2022.​

https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...ge-mls-apple-streaming?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other​

Actually, I can’t believe Season Pass gets 120,000 viewers per game. It must include people swiping through the game icons in the UI. Also can’t believe ESPN was posting 2x those numbers in 2022.

- - - EDIT - - -
Oh, hubby thinks MLS is just taking the number of subscribers (2M ??) and dividing by the number of games (16 ??) in a match week.

 

Season ticketholders (and others) get free subscriptions, as well, so, if the Guardian report is correct, the number of viewers paying to watch games on Apple TV is vanishingly small, as I suspected.