Apple TV buys all MLS broadcast rights for 10 years

Sorry for bringing this up here, but ESPN just emailed me that ESPN+ is going from $6.99 to $9.99 per month in a few weeks. I can upgrade to the Disney Bundle for $13.99 with ads or $19.99 without ads. Do any of you guys do the bundle with ads? How often do they show ads, is it like network TV, i.e. 3-4 interruptions per half-hour? Or what?

And what’s the latest on cutting the cord with U-verse? What are the best alternatives today and still get ESPN, CBS (for our Peacock subscription?), and HBO Max? If we saved enough money, maybe we would cave and get Paramount+. What am I forgetting?

 

I just switched my subscription to the $13.99 bundle a couple weeks ago. The ads/no-ads option only makes a difference on Hulu. In the TV/film content there are 90 seconds of ads when you start, and then ads are spliced in every 10-15 minutes. ESPN+ has ads no matter what subscription you have, but they are just the regular ads you get on any live sports TV when they go to commercial break. Disney+ has no ads currently.

 

Thanks, that helps me a lot to know. Even tho, i suspect those guys will increase the ad content soon. Streaming costs are just creeping up so fast. I’m even thinking of dropping Amazon Prime…

 

Consolidation among the streaming companies will guarantee prices continue to rise. It's simply the way monopolies respond to threats to their primacy. Thinking about the concentration of mass media among a very few corporations keeps me up at night sometimes...

 

Can't wait! The odds of this show being good are probably better than the odds of the Quakes making the playoffs (about 5%).

I think almost all the MLS playoff games will be on Fox/ESPN/ABC so I'll likely cancel ESPN+ around that time and never get it again.
For the next 10 years it will be Apple (assuming the price isn't ridiculous).

 

I am pretty sick and tired of all the franchises - LOTR, Harry Potter, etc. I think I have only seen 2 Marvel franchise films. I got really annoyed with Amazon Prime because they used to have a ton of independent soccer movies, and now they are all fee-based. We only watch soccer, with the occasional Tour de France or Olympics.

I only shop on Amazon when I can’t buy something locally, altho that problem is getting worse rather rapidly. I’ve discovered that local chains are only carrying the most common items in stock. E.g., a week ago I tried to buy a funnel and a fly shatter at Target and failed.

It’s just that our streaming bill is getting ridiculous. ANd I’m sick of sending Bezos into space.

 

The best change we ever made was ditching Comcast TV (We still use it for our internet), and getting the same bundle, but with Hulu Live + DVR. In total, that's about $80 a month and then we added on some sports packages, HBO, etc. Overall, we are saving about $100 a month over what we were spending on Comcast, as we had already been paying for Hulu, Disney+ and ESPN+ separately, so saved money there as well. We have AppleTVs on most TVs in the house, with a handful of Roku streaming sticks on the others. We went with local plus as they have the local channels available as well and all of the NBC Bay Area stuff.

 

How many remotes are required to run all of those "sticks".

 

I'm not really understanding the question. Each AppleTV and each Roku streaming stick has its own remote. Fortunately, all of them are perfectly capable of also controlling the TV also, so that remote goes in a drawer.

 

That's my setup too. Apple TV connected to the TV and I use the apple remote for everything. The TV remote is in the drawer and almost never comes out unless I need to change picture settings or something like that (which I rarely do).

 

Hmm, i need to figure out how to get my Apple TV remote to control my Samsung TVs... I didn’t know it could do that.

 

It's easier if you connect the Apple TV to the HDMI port. That will allow volume control on the TV. Power on/off is done with infrared I believe. Go to settings in Apple TV and make sure that feature is turned on.

 

If your Samsung tv is new enough you can download Apple tv App straight from the Samsung tv Apps section and use your Samsung remote to control it.

 

You can only connect an AppleTV to the HDMI port. Other connection options were obsoleted a few versions ago.

 

Hey thanks @Scott Rohde @scotto and @Beckham7 !! I had always been able to control the TV volume with my Apple TV remote, but now I can turn the TV off and on too. I had to enable HDMI-CEC (AnyNet+) on the Samsung TV, that’s what was missing.

 

"Where do I stream it?" is a common question and serious issue in the new media landscape

This MLS/Apple deal really stands out pic.twitter.com/wZupJoyhRr

— Adam Seaborn (@AHBSeaborn) August 11, 2022

 

That's a cool table, but it seems to me the rows are more important than the columns. If you put, say, Serie A and Bundesliga on Apple tv+ I'd be a lot more optimistic about this deal.

 

Ask again in 2 years, after AppleTV+ has the NFL and one or more of the Olympics, Champions League, Premiere League, or Bundesliga. As always, they are sitting on a boatload of cash and clearly have a long-term strategy to make sports a cornerstone. These are clearly the first of many moves. MLS is not a bad entry point as it allows them to beta test their multi-game user interface before adding in other leagues.

 

Really? Tell me more. I didn't even know they were working on a multi-game interface.

I did just notice they added a "start game from beginning" option for baseball games currently in progress. That right there is already surpasses ESPN+.

The one good feature of ESPN+ is they make it easy to flip between multiple games in progress or have them all up on screen at once (at least on Apple TV). It sounds like your saying Apple plans to do this as well? That would be awesome.

 

I am just being hopeful as good user interface design is one of their hallmarks. I think they will try to understand how soccer fans watch the sport and I trust that they will come up with creative solutions. What Paramount+ has done with Champions League games with their option of watching a single broadcast that cycles between games is an interesting solution. I'm hoping to see something even better from Apple.

The inability of NBC to figure out how to centralize all premiere league coverage in one place is a real issue. Every weekend, I'm having to ditch back and forth between Peacock and my regular TV service to find the games I want. It used to be even worse when the NBC Sports app was also in the mix. I don't understand why you can't simply authenticate Peacock with your TV credentials and just find everything there, even the games that are on USA network. They also don't seem to understand (at least consistently) that the pregame and postgame shows are part of the coverage that one might want to watch. NBC's olympic coverage is even worse. Trying to find what you want to watch is almost impossible. They still seem to think that most people want to watch their curated primetime choices for the "events of the day", most of which happened hours ago and any real olympics fan already knows what happened.

There is a huge opportunity for a new and better solution to all of this.

 

I'm pretty sure they offer a free trial so you can start with that.