The state of MLS on TV: Apple and more

Showcasing what would turn out to be one of the best games in league history, MLS Cup garnered a combined audience of 2.16 million viewers across FOX and Univision, the largest audience ever for the final and up 38% from the previous year — good enough for the second-largest club soccer audience of the year behind the UEFA Champions League Final. With the season over, and the World Cup underway, MLS enters perhaps its biggest offseason yet with its new Apple rights deal starting in February and an entire production arm that has yet to be completed. This is the state of MLS TV:

Apple Details – Pricing

Apple has recently announced many of the new details regarding the MLS streaming TV package. “MLS Season Pass” will be available starting February 1^st on the Apple TV app for $14.99 per month of $99 per season. Apple TV+ subscribers will receive a discount at $12.99 and $79. Every live MLS regular-season match, the entire playoffs, and the Leagues Cup (MLS and Liga MX competition) are included in the package. All MLS season ticket holders will have access to MLS Season Pass, estimated to be 300,000-400,000 subscribers.

According to an MLS league document, several MLS games will be available for free through Apple TV. Currently, it is projected that six out of the 14 weekly matches will not be behind a paywall. That extrapolates to 210 out of 493 regular season matches — nearly 43% — available for free, the most in league history. This will include the entire “MLS is Back” opening weekend.

Importantly, MLS Season Pass will not be subject to blackouts, an anomaly in sports TV deals. Here is how the pricing compares to other streaming deals:

While competitive compared to American sports leagues, especially when they are the only package without local blackout restrictions, MLS Season Pass is equivalent to getting EPL and Champions League subscriptions — competitions that are more popular and have a higher level of play.

Apple Details – Viewing Experience

For the first time in MLS history, matches will take place on a consistent schedule — Saturdays and Wednesdays, with the occasional Sunday slot, at 7:30 pm local time. Pregame coverage will begin at 7:00 pm and there will be an MLS Season Pass exclusive whip-around show that will take the viewer game to game for highlights and analysis. Essentially, the MLS version of NFL Redzone. Fans will have the ability to watch any match from the start no matter when they sit down in front of their TV. In addition, MLS Season Pass viewers will be able to access their favorite team’s “channel” on the app. There they will have the ability to get more in-depth coverage, watch replays, highlight packages, and any team-produced content.

MLS matches will feature both English and Spanish broadcast teams, while there will also be a French broadcast team for any match involving a Canadian team. The current plan, according to a report in The Athletic, is for broadcasters to call games live on-site. This would represent a departure from past practices, with many teams and even national FOX broadcasters calling games from monitors. If desired, the viewer can also mute the broadcasters and have the home team’s radio broadcast fed onto the app.

At this moment, there has not been an announced group of broadcasters. The plan is for at least a dozen English and Spanish-language teams, with three French-language teams to cover the Canadian matches. The aforementioned The Athletic report states that more than 200 candidates have been interviewed thus far, with names like former US Men’s National Team members Taylor Twellman and Herculez Gomez and Univision’s Luis Omar Tapia and Diego Balado mentioned as possible headliners. However, the immediate plan for the start of the season in February is to go without commentary teams and instead interchange the play-by-play and color commentators to see which teams develop the best chemistry. There has been no announcement on who will anchor the studio coverage either. This includes the whiparound show and pregame, halftime, and postgame coverage, although they have said that studio coverage will be shot out of New York City at NEP’s Metropolis Studios in Harlem.

Regarding linear TV, MLS is currently in talks with previous linear TV partners (ESPN, FOX, Univision) about a simulcast arrangement. MLS is planning on putting one Saturday and one Sunday game simulcast on linear TV for the regular season with all playoff games, including the final, also to be simulcast — at least through 2026. There have been discussions about changing the MLS postseason formula from 13 games to 30, in part to increase that playoff game inventory. The only event currently planned to air exclusively on MLS Season Pass currently is the MLS All-Star Game.

Viewers may noticed some product placement as well, with all teams slated to have an Apple logo patch on the right sleeve. Coaches will have iPads on the bench, while referees will likely wear Apple Watches. Other product placement might be seen on VAR reviews or even during live action, as Apple are in discussions with advertisers on display ads, similar to their Friday Night Baseball games. The company has in the past stated their desire to grow their advertising business significantly in the coming years.

MLS Production Arm

When the deal was initially signed, MLS indicated that it was moving to an NFL model of TV production wherein everything was centralized and MLS owned the process end-to-end. They are currently far behind schedule, 9-12 months according to the report in The Athletic. In fact, the centralized production studio is out of the question for 2023 and instead MLS will use on-site production trucks. However, this is what ESPN and FOX used for their MLS setups, and they occasionally had struggles producing high level video and audio due to the difficulty in finding enough high quality trucks in a sports-heavy part of the calendar with NFL, CFB, MLB postseason, and even some NBA and NHL games getting the best trucks available. It’s something MLS has been criticized for previously.

For all that MLS wants to accomplish — 12 cameras in every stadium (nearly doubling the current total), multiple commentary channels, and 1080p video, amongst other technical improvements — there does not seem to be enough time. Three months away from the start of the season and they have yet to hire an executive producer, a role that plays a large role in managing game producers and directors. According to The Athletic, there is also a question over whether MLS will be able to find enough soccer knowledgeable producers and directors to put together such a comprehensive product package.

MLS is building a complete sports network from scratch and will likely start to feel the time crunch. It could mean cutting back on the expectations they initially set, at least in the beginning of the deal. However, as one source quoted in The Athletic put it, “whenever challenges come up, they just keep throwing more resources at it. And those problems go away pretty darn quickly.”