MLS is continuing its efforts to make games more accessible for fans.
This season, the league debuted Sunday Night Soccer, a standalone window game designed to showcase the league’s best matchups weekly. The game is available behind the MLS Season Pass paywall on Apple TV+, a move designed to funnel more fans into the league’s subscription service. Now, MLS is expanding access to that game.
On Thursday, the league announced that Comcast’s Xfinity cable package subscribers will now receive Sunday Night Soccer for free as part of MLS’s partnership with the cable giant. Before the season, MLS and Comcast struck a deal to offer MLS games natively within Xfinity platforms, allowing viewers to purchase Season Pass and watch games without launching the Apple TV app. MLS games have also appeared in Xfinity’s channel guide throughout the season.
The announcement is simply the latest development in the league’s effort to increase accessibility. Recently, the league has struck linear TV deals for its Sunday Night Soccer package in international markets. Certain clubs are also offering re-airs of games on local over-the-air television 48 hours following the live match broadcast on MLS Season Pass. Earlier this month, MLS announced a partnership with the EA Sports FC Mobile app to simulcast select matches on the popular mobile game.
MLS media executive Seth Bacon recently spoke with Awful Announcing about these initiatives, suggesting they’re all part of a concerted effort to funnel fans back into Season Pass. The efficacy of that plan has yet to be seen. Most of the more aggressive initiatives, like Sunday Night Soccer, just started this season, so the jury is out if the league is converting more fans into subscribers.
Without much data to go off of, it’s hard to know.
Nevertheless, this is an excellent deal for Xfinity customers. For no extra cost, viewers interested in watching Sunday Night Soccer can now do it without needing an additional subscription.