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We’ve talked a lot about Baseball media rights this week. We’ve talked a lot about Apple TV this week. But we haven’t really scratched the surface on what a pure streaming play means for a major sport in America.

We can glimpse an answer from the MLS’ almost-exclusive deal with Apple TV.

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Apple TV and MLS: A weird marriage

To give you a quick run-down, a couple of years ago, the MLS was the first sport in American history to give away almost all of its media rights to a technology business.

The majority of games, including all the games that apathetic people wanna watch (Messi on Inter-Miami, anyone?) are behind a paywall in which you’ll have to pay ~90 bucks to stream all the games. Unless you’re a T-mobile customer.

DISCLAIMER: Ahmed is a T-Mobile customer (daddy pays). And he still haven’t watched a MLS game in the 2 years I’ve had the season pass.

Now, we’ve used the MLS/AppleTV deal as a punching bag for all our research for short-form video this week.

Which got us thinking….is this deal actually good for the MLS? Is it good for Apple TV?

The drawback to a pure streaming play

So it was reported this week across multiple media sites that ONE MLS executive (remains anonymous) said that this deal isn’t good for the MLS and that the league should get out of it.

Why?

This is because the league apparently has had trouble growing the sport since getting behind a paywall.

Makes sense on the surface. When you put an entire sport behind a paywall, instead of having games on sports channels that everyone might have access to, you actually get into the business of trying to convert people to buy a games package for the entire season.

After looking into this, our personal position on this deal is that it’s a great deal, but has a lot of problems that mainstream sports like the NBA and NFL might face in the future.

No one was willing to pay what Apple is paying for the MLS. It’s brought every MLS team safely into profitability. And that one executive should probably look at the check Apple is cutting to the league to remind themselves why this was the company they partnered with. But it’s coming with price tag of apathy from the general public.

But let’s talk about a few factors as to why it may or may not be a success

#1 Revenue Sharing clause with Apple

In addition to the 250 million dollars Apple sends towards the MLS for media rights, there’s also a clause that lays out that MLS will earn 50 cents on the dollar for every subscription sold once it’s past a certain threshold. That threshold hasn’t been met yet. We don’t know the hard numbers since Apple doesn’t disclose those figures. It’s been 2 years, and it’s safe to say that this means they haven’t had much success in drastically increasing the number of subscriptions…yet.

#2 MLS: 2nd highest attended league in the world

This is no surprise. MLS has always had a highly engaged fan base. Every mainstream sport in America was built in the stadiums and arenas. MLS is no different. It also has the added effect of being a cheaper sport to buy tickets for (although not that much cheaper). We haven’t taken a look at the numnber of families going to these events, but it may seem to be a factor given that MLS has the youngest and most diverse viewership in the US.

#3 MLS Cup TV Ratings down

Last year, MLS Cup TV ratings declined 47% from the previous year. Previous to that, 2023 MLS Cup ratings were down more than 50% from the year prior. The common thread? That’s exactly how long the MLS has been on Apple TV. There’s something to be said about random exposure here. If you have your games on widely watched network or sports channels, more than likely you’ll reach an audience that’s casual or even apathetic to your sport. Networks that host your games have sports shows based around your TV product, and that builds an accessible narrative. It’s not a surprise ratings are down drastically on Television since people don’t know the narrative.

Great deal in the short term…

The MLS-Apple TV deal is a weird one. On one hand, it’s keeping the league financially stable in ways no other broadcaster was willing to. On the other, it’s making it harder for casual fans to care. The numbers don’t lie—TV ratings are tanking, and subscriptions haven’t exactly exploded. This is the tradeoff. And it raises a bigger question for sports executives everywhere: Can a league thrive long-term if it prioritizes guaranteed revenue over widespread accessibility? Or does putting your sport behind a paywall risk losing the next generation of fans before they ever get a chance to care?

Have a great week!

Ahmed and Peter