Major League Soccer is trying to make good on its promise to make MLS Season Pass more accessible to fans during the 2025 season.
For the first time ever, MLS and Apple are making the all-in-one streaming service available for purchase on Xfinity and DirecTV, according to a report by Alex Silverman in Sports Business Journal. Previously, customers could only purchase MLS Season Pass through Apple TV. Additionally, T-Mobile customers will receive free access to Season Pass, similar to the league’s partnership with the mobile carrier during the 2023 season.
Customers that purchase MLS Season Pass through Xfinity or DirecTV will be able to access games directly through their pay TV provider, with matches included in the channel guide. This alone should give the league substantially more exposure than its first two years of the Apple deal, where games were tucked away exclusively on the Apple TV app (sans a small linear package with Fox and FS1).
Both Xfinity and DirecTV customers will receive a one-week free trial of MLS Season Pass beginning on Feb. 22. Additionally, Xfinity customers will be granted free access to MLS 360, the league’s whip-around show, all season long, with or without a Season Pass subscription.
Perhaps the biggest change for the upcoming season isn’t accessibility on traditional TV providers, but alterations MLS is making to its schedule.
Beginning Feb. 23, MLS will debut Sunday Night Soccer, a standalone window game that will highlight marquee matches each week. The game will be available for free to anyone with an Apple TV+ subscription. A subscription to Season Pass will not be required.
Sunday Night Soccer marks a sharp departure from the league’s previous strategy of standardizing match windows on Wednesday and Saturday nights. The move should offer more exposure to the league’s top teams at a lower barrier to entry.
Apple’s top broadcast team of play-by-play announcer Jake Zivin, analyst Taylor Twellman, and sideline reporter Andrew Wiebe, will handle broadcast duties for the new package of games.
In the past, Apple has aired some games in-front of the MLS Season Pass paywall. It’s unclear whether Sunday Night Soccer is totally replacing such matches, or if there will still be select Wednesday and Saturday games available without a subscription.
Either way, it’s clear that MLS — after posting less-than-stellar viewership figures for its most recent MLS Cup final — is trying to take meaningful steps to make its product more accessible.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.