Since beginning its broadcast agreement with Apple in 2023, Major League Soccer has served as an interesting case study for the broader sports media industry. Can a league like MLS jump headfirst into streaming without alienating fans, many of whom still consume sports through a traditional pay TV bundle?
And just over two years into this experiment, it’s safe to say there’s been critics and supporters of the Apple deal. Some of those critics are coming from within MLS itself. But those inside the league office are still confident that the Apple partnership will prove a success, even if some in the business are skeptical.
For industry observers, perhaps the most frustrating aspect of MLS’s deal with Apple comes down to a complete absence of data. The two entities have not released any public subscriber counts, yet there has been a continued insistence from MLS that the deal is going well and things are moving in the right direction.
In an age when most leagues and broadcast partners are eager to issue press releases about any positive data that comes their way, the lack of numbers can cause fans to jump to their own conclusions about the fruits of the partnership.
Consider also that Apple TV+, the streaming platform the league lives on, accounts for less than one percent of all television viewing nationwide according to Nielsen — a mere fraction compared to its tech giant peers like YouTube and Netflix, and even behind services like Tubi by a significant margin — and the narrative becomes even more opaque.
But for MLS, the league’s approach to media is far broader than television viewing according to Seth Bacon, EVP of Media for MLS, who recently sat down with Awful Announcing to discuss the league’s overall media strategy, and why he thinks MLS is headed in the right direction with Apple.
“The growth is there and the health is there”
“When we did the deal, we evaluated a lot of things,” Bacon began. “And one of the most important things was to have a partner who put fans first. Apple absolutely puts fans first. That was critical to us. We want to make sure that we had something that is premium, and Apple is one of the most premium brands in the world. Right? We’re a premium product and we thought that was a really good fit.
“But we wanted someone with really massive reach to help bring us to new fans,” Bacon continued. “But we weren’t focused on that purely from a video standpoint. We’re focused on that from a reach of Apple in general. And if you think about how massive their reach is in our everyday lives — not Apple TV+, the premium subscription product, but Apple — they’re in more pockets with the iPhone than anyone, in the United States especially. They’re in people’s homes with their computers. They’re on every single connected TV that gets produced today. There’s Apple stores everywhere. They’re one of the biggest cloud sellers in the world. The App Store itself is an unbelievable marketing tool. And when we talk about how we market MLS, we use the App Store a lot. The App Store has hundreds of millions of people that come every month to download apps. And the ability of Apple to say, ‘Hey, if you like this, think about this.’
“That is the secret sauce. That is the reach and the scale of Apple and I think sometimes everyone, the entire industry, gets so focused on one metric that we lose sight of the broader picture of, ‘What is the possibility? What is the reach? And what is ultimately the opportunity to grow your fanbase, to grow your subscribers, and ultimately to grow your business?’ And that’s what attracted us to Apple.”
Whether MLS has actually leveraged Apple’s incredible reach is another question entirely. With a sprawling company like Apple, a broadcast deal with MLS can safely be described as trivial to the company’s bottom line. Ultimately, it’s up to Apple, not MLS, to promote the league on its wide-reaching platforms. And if there isn’t an appetite to do so, MLS can be left out of sight and out of mind, as many critics of the deal have suggested.
When confronted about the general lack of data about MLS’s performance on Apple TV+, Bacon was sympathetic to the public’s curiosity. “We understand that there are people who want to know. We want to know. We want to see how we’re doing,” the executive said. “We get really good looks at parts of it and know that we’re really happy with where we are. The growth is there and the health is there. And things like watch time and our average age are all going in the right direction.”
MLS Beyond Apple
This season, MLS has launched several initiatives directly designed to funnel new users back to Season Pass. The league now appears in the channel guides within Comcast and DirecTV’s pay TV offerings, and fans that purchase Season Pass can watch games directly within those platforms without needing to flip to Apple TV+. MLS also launched Sunday Night Soccer this season, a new standalone window game that airs in front of the Season Pass paywall on Apple TV+. In conjunction with that new package, the league has also introduced linear TV deals overseas.
Linear TV is another sore spot for MLS fans stateside. The league is limited to just 32 games across Fox and FS1 throughout the entire season. Only two of those games are allowed to feature the league’s biggest star, Lionel Messi. And as fans see MLS striking linear deals for Sunday Night Soccer with international partners, it begs the question: will a domestic deal follow?
“We’re extremely happy with the domestic linear partnerships we have,” Bacon said. “It’s sort of a first version of what we’re doing internationally right now. I know it’s a different match, but that was… purposeful and intentional as we thought about, ‘How are we going to make sure that we got ways to connect that bridge with people who are used to watching on linear to our digital experience.
“We were very confident going in. We have the youngest fanbase, most tech-savvy fanbase in all of sports. So it didn’t scare us at all, we knew that we would have a pretty easy transition. But there’s still people that we want to broaden the scope, bring in more people, and the linear broadcasts are the way to do that.”
Recently, some MLS clubs have begun striking re-air deals with local stations that allow games to be shown on traditional television 48 hours after they are played. It’s a small step, but is yet another way to funnel casual fans, or less tech-savvy fans, back to Season Pass.
Even more, MLS has launched countless other efforts this season. The league re-upped its partnership with T-Mobile to provide Season Pass to its customers for free. Apple TV+ finally released an Android app, so users without an Apple device can now watch MLS games on mobile. And on Monday, the league announced a new initiative to simulcast four games on the popular EA Sports FC Mobile game.
Singularly, these efforts are all relatively minor in scope. But collectively, the league sees each initiative as part of a very broad and intentional plan to attract more people to Season Pass.
And to the league’s credit, that effort has been clear and concerted. The question is whether or not it will be enough.
What does the future hold?
Following the 2027 season, Apple has the option to exit its 10-year, $250 million per year deal with MLS. A company like Apple will have no issue abandoning the deal if it’s not seeing returns. What then for MLS?
That’s a reality the league certainly does not want to confront, making these next two and a half seasons critical.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup in the United States, Canada, and Mexico should prove a huge opportunity to expose new audiences to the league. Capitalizing on those new eyeballs will be critical and, according to Bacon, the league’s plans for the quadrennial event are well underway.
Beyond that, it’ll be on MLS and MLS alone to continue growing its audience on a nontraditional platform for live sports.
No matter what happens, the industry is watching the success or failure of this deal with great interest. And either way, there will be plenty of lessons to learn.