Inter Miami CF forward Lionel Messi, 10, scores a goal in the first half against the New England Revolution at Gillette Stadium.
Paul Rutherford | Imagine Image via Reuters Connect
Major League Soccer will step onto a bigger stage next year as all its games will find a new home on Apple TV.
Starting with the 2026 season, MLS matches will be available to watch on: apple’‘s flagship streaming platform. It now includes Major League Baseball games as well as scripted series such as “Severance.”
The move marks a major shift for both the league and Apple’s media strategy, with the tech giant ending Season Pass, Apple’s separate subscription service for MLS games.
Apple and MLS have signed a 10-year media rights agreement starting in 2022 that will make Apple the exclusive worldwide home of the U.S. professional soccer league. However, Apple has launched an additional subscription season pass specifically for MLS games, rather than feature matches, on the upstart streaming service.
“This idea of being able to watch all the games around the world in one place with the push of a button was unprecedented. We really, really liked that concept of a season pass. People responded really well to it so it worked,” MLS deputy commissioner Gary Stephenson said in an interview.
Season passes start in 2023 for $14.99 per month ($12.99 with a separate monthly subscription to Apple TV). Apple does not provide subscriber metrics for its streaming services.
Stevenson said conversations began to move the league to Apple TV as Apple’s primary streaming platform grew.
“They came to us and said, ‘Let’s put it on Apple TV,’ and we said, ‘We’re all in,'” Stevenson said. “So this was good news for us.”
Stevenson didn’t go into details, but some terms and conditions have changed as part of the transition to Apple TV.
“But it wasn’t a wholesale renegotiation, because our focus was on distribution and how to make it a better, more accessible experience for our fans,” Stevenson said.
Since entering streaming gaming, Apple has systematically added sports to its platform, securing exclusivity in an increasingly fragmented sports viewing ecosystem.
Recently, Apple formula 1 has signed an exclusive five-year media rights deal that means all races will be streamed on Apple TV in the U.S. starting next year. CNBC previously reported that Apple pays about $140 million a year in F1 broadcast rights fees.
Apple is changing the current sports viewing experience. While live sports has a huge audience in pay-TV bundles, the rise of streaming has disrupted the market where consumers require multiple subscriptions to watch a single sport.
Eddie Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services, said at a recent event that the market is “going backwards” when it comes to sports viewership.
“It used to be that if you bought one subscription, a cable subscription, you got pretty much all of that service. Now there are so many different subscriptions that I think we need to fix that,” Cue said during a panel discussion in October.
There has been little information about the performance of season passes since MLS began its media rights deal with Apple, and there is some skepticism about its success.
However, MLS Commissioner Don Garber said in an interview with CNBC Sports last year that Apple Season Pass subscription numbers were higher than expected, but he did not provide specific numbers.
“We have more subscribers than we and Apple anticipated,” Gerber told CNBC at the time, adding that there would be more transparency at a later date.
Apple also hasn’t released numbers for Apple TV, but Cue reportedly said the platform has “well over 45 million viewers.”
After MLS completes its 30th season, the league’s reach will expand even further. The company has been working to capitalize on soccer’s growing popularity in the United States, especially in the lead-up to the World Cup, which will be held in North America next year.
Although the league pales in popularity compared to the NFL, NBA and other American professional sports that existed for decades before MLS, fandom has increased in recent years after global superstar Lionel Messi started playing for Inter Miami CF.
change clock
On Thursday, MLS made another big change, announcing that it would change its calendar to match the schedules of world soccer leagues.
The fall MLS postseason coincides with one of the busiest seasons in the United States, the start of the NFL, NBA and NHL seasons, and the heart of the recently highly rated MLB postseason.
This move will allow MLS teams to more seamlessly participate in the global player transfer window during the summer.
“By participating in the most active transfer window, the team’s ambitions for the season will be strengthened, rather than dashed,” the news release said.
Currently, MLS’ regular season schedule runs from February to October, followed by the playoffs and the championship game in December. Starting in the summer of 2027, MLS will adopt a new calendar.
