Apple reportedly ‘caps the number’ of Inter Miami games Fox can air

Nearly two years ago, Major League Soccer was gifted a generational talent that could potentially lift the league to new heights.

When Lionel Messi signed with Inter Miami in the summer of 2023, it was a coup for the league. Just about one year prior, MLS reached a 10-year deal with Apple, one of the largest tech companies in the world, to exclusively air the league’s games. And with arguably the world’s biggest soccer superstar set to join, it was expected that subscriptions would be flying off the shelves.

That hasn’t really happened. And ever since, MLS has been trying to find ways to make its games more accessible to fans outside of the MLS Season Pass subscription on Apple TV. So far, that’s included getting games onto Comcast and DirecTV’s cable boxes this upcoming season, reintroducing its deal with T-Mobile users for free Season Pass subscriptions, and finally launching an Apple TV app on Android so non-iPhone users can watch games on their device.

All of these steps signal small, but incremental progress for the league. But one major complaint from MLS fans remains the lack of presence on linear television.

Fox is now entering Year 3 of a four-year deal with the league to broadcast 33 regular season games between the Fox broadcast channel and FS1. At the moment, this is the only way for fans to watch MLS games on linear television.

But it seems that the league’s primary broadcast partner, Apple, has taken steps to make sure that Fox (and the league) can’t capitalize on its biggest television draw: Lionel Messi and Inter Miami.

According to a report by Jonathan Tannenwald of The Philadelphia Inquirer on Monday, “Apple caps the number of Miami games Fox can air to push viewers toward the streaming platform.”

This season, just two Inter Miami games will air on linear television, and both will be on the FS1 cable channel rather than the free-to-air Fox broadcast channel. It’s the same number of Inter Miami games allotted to Fox during last MLS season.

Now, it makes sense that Apple would want Messi all for themselves, but airing just two Inter Miami games on linear television across a nine-month season seems like a complete dereliction of duty on the part of the league. Surely, airing a few more Inter Miami games on linear would help drive more people to subscribe to MLS Season Pass, not fewer. Apple’s decision seems very shortsighted, especially in the context of their struggle to attract subscribers.

Even worse, as Tannenwald points out, just 15 of the 33 games will air on Fox broadcast. And of those 15, 13 Fox games air from February through the first weekend of May — early parts of the regular season that are well before major playoff implications surface.

Who can blame casual soccer fans for not paying attention to the league when its most important player, and the most important part of its season, is largely tucked away on a streaming service?

This seems like another major league own goal from MLS.