DCUnited

Sky transformed English soccer. Will Apple’s $2.5bn deal do the same for MLS?

16-Jun-2022 09:00:03 | The Guardian

The league’s matches will now be broadcast behind a paywall on a streaming service. But that doesn’t mean fans will be driven away

One wonders if anyone at Major League Soccer had the famous 1984 commercial for the Apple Macintosh playing through their mind as the league penned a $2.5bn deal to stream its games on Apple TV for the next 10 years. Indeed, the image of a sledgehammer crashing into a giant TV screen is a rather apt one to illustrate what the league has done with its new deal.

MLS hasn’t completely turned its back on traditional TV – reports claim the league is still in negotiations with linear broadcasters to show some games – but there’s no denying the significance of the decision to work with Apple, the partner Don Garber wanted all along. “When we started out this process we had a logo on the whiteboard, and that logo was the Apple logo,” said the league commissioner.