Apple TV buys all MLS broadcast rights for 10 years

Poor danger and Danielle Slaton used to have that show where they’d talk about and analyze the previous game and I think that was the 2022 season when we hardly won any games. It was painful to watch. They’d have to walk a line between criticizing the team but not too hard and also to have to try to make the show interesting to watch. A very hard job.

 

Sure, it would be nice to have some version of this by making either a local or national deal to air local games in parallel with Apple TV. Kind of like what they have right now with KTVU+ having the tape delay rights, but figure out a model to air the games live. It would be nontrivial to figure that out though, since you are trading off Apple TV cannibalization with different RSN or network affiliates in each market, each with different fanbase sizes, ad rates, and determine whether it's worth all the trouble...

Maybe MLS and Apple (or whatever future streaming partner comes into play) should just distribute local game packages directly to cable and satellite providers, kind of like what MLB is doing with the teams orphaned by the demise of Main Street Sports/FanDuel/Bally/Diamond/Fox Sports Net.

 

CNBC Sport: MLS's Don Garber on World Cup, why Apple TV strategy didn't work

 

The point is to watch the video link when Garber admits his Apple TV mistake.

Just hit the yellow arrow in the top right corner.

 

Per the intro of the 27 minute video Garber says the league made a mistake putting their games behind a paywall. Gee, even a Luddite like me could (and did) predict that in advance. But the brilliant minds running the league did it anyway. Must really be bad if Garber is owning up to a mistake on his way out the door.

Now let’s discuss the Garber fetish for relocating clubs.

 

So the conversation started off (and credit to Alex Sherman - it wasn't your typical soflballs only interview) with Alex quoting Landon saying that the league wasn't yet mature enough to launch a paid streaming service only access deal. Alex said, "Agree or disagree" and Graber agreed. But then he defended it as a risk and said that they were just too early. Then went on to say that they're happy with where they are now, and named all of the other content you get with AppleTV, and the production quality and all of that.

Then Alex said - for the *next* media deal do you foresee doing a deal with multiple platforms. Graber said possibly but he doesn't know what the media landscape will look like, and the question would be is it multiple streaming platforms or does it include "linear TV", etc. He said he is a believer in streaming and sees streaming services like Amazon and Netflix getting progressively more into the game. Streaming has already surpassed linear TV in viewing time in the US, and viewers under 30 consume on demand content exclusively at a very high rate. Only 16% of them subscribe to linear TV and about 90% use streaming. So I think we can see where this is going.

 

The league televising local games in local markets, in combination with whatever streaming packages?

Either that or the league goes belly up in a decade or two. Because you cannot build broad interest with a paywall for a hyper niche product.

How come I can see this and MLS suits cannot?

 

MLS commissioner addresses Landon Donovan criticism

 

No discussion of local market options.

Sustainable fans are fans of their local clubs. That’s not growing through ad hoc national or international streaming and/or TV packages.

And televising every World Cup game won’t develop Quakes fans if they can’t watch their local team play without subscribing to a streaming service.

 

How would you suggest a local market package be structured? Apple TV+ is $99 / year so it's arguably pretty affordable even if you don't care about out-of-market games, F1, or any of the Apple TV shows.

 

Put away games on free local TV over the airwaves.

 

I’m watching England v Croatia on Channel 2 right now. Not complicated.

 

Free as in actually free OTA channels? I suppose in theory you could make that happen with say, FOX who already have a package of national games....and put them on local overflow channels like KTVU+ when the schedule clashes with NFL, MLB, primetime dramas, local news? And this is supposed to capture a large incremental audience?

 

It is supposed to make the product accessible to everyone.

It's not about Nielsen ratings. It's about planting seeds .

 

Maybe it would be simplest to offer some local (geofenced) matches available for free on Apple TV.

 

That’s not simple for kids (or anyone else) without access to Apple TV.

 

On what modern platform is the Apple TV app difficult to access? By that line of reasoning YouTube is also a steep hurdle.

 

Not every child has access to a computer or a cell phone.

Hundreds of thousands of students still can’t access online learning

https://hechingerreport.org/hundreds-of-thousands-of-students-still-cant-access-online-learning/