Remember the report about Apple attempting to secure the rights to air Major League Baseball playoff games? Well, according to Yahoo Sports reporter Kendall Baker, the negotiations didn’t go in Apple’s favor. What’s more, Baker adds that Apple may also opt out of its existing deal to air two MLB games on Friday night. Recall that Apple announced its Friday Night Baseball programming back in March of 2022. Although the initial contract was slated to run for six years, Apple is reportedly taking advantage of an early opt out clause.
It’s important to note that negotiations are ongoing and that nothing is set in stone until we see an official announcement from MLB. All that said, Baker’s sources indicate that Apple’s foray into live baseball is coming to an end. In its place, Baker claims that NBC/Peacock will acquire the rights for Friday and Sunday MLB games along with select Wild Card matchups. Meanwhile, Netflix will reportedly secure the rights to the Home Run Derby, while ESPN may dole out an insane amount of cash for MLB.tv.
Apple’s sports programming leaves a lot to be desired
While other streaming sites are making concerted efforts to bolster their sports offerings, Apple curiously remains a non-factor. Its baseball experiment seemingly didn’t move the needle, and the company seems uninterested or unwilling to shell out the loads of cash necessary to secure the rights to sporting events that can actually attract a significant number of eyeballs. I think it’s fair to say that if Apple wants to attract sports fans, Friday Night Baseball simply can’t hold a candle to any NFL game. It’s why Netflix wasn’t shy about paying $150 million to air just two NFL games last season. Apple, meanwhile, is reportedly interested in securing the streaming rights to Formula 1 racing for around $120 million.
Apple has the cash to make a huge investment in live sports programming but is seemingly content to focus on more niche sports like F1 and Major League Soccer (MLS). Incidentally, Apple’s MLS deal was far from cheap. Originally inked back in 2022, the deal saw Apple agree to a $2.5 billion deal to air MLS matches for 10 years. Apple naturally hasn’t divulged a ton of information on MLS viewership, but the numbers aren’t even close to the same ballpark as MLB or NFL games.
“The Apple deal has grown,” MLS commissioner Don Garber said last month. “We’re averaging 120,000 unique viewers per match. That’s an increase of almost 50% compared to last year.” Compare that to the 30 million viewers who tuned in for each of Netflix’s NFL games. It also remains to be seen if Apple will experience a significant drop-off in MLS viewers once Lionel Messi retires.
Sports documentaries would help Apple’s sports offerings
To be fair, it’s not as if Apple has to get involved with live sports streaming. But more sports-related programming couldn’t hurt and would only strengthen its lineup. Live sports aside, sports documentaries and reality shows have also become immensely popular in recent years, and Apple is almost completely out of the loop in that regard.
As it stands now, Apple’s sports series offerings are extremely limited. Meanwhile, Netflix continues to churn out sports documentaries and beloved reality series at an impressive pace. From “Quarterback” and “Receiver” to the recently released “WWE: Unreal” series, Netflix’s sports offerings are not only more numerous than Apple’s, but inherently more interesting as well.
I’d love to see Apple license premium sports series from other companies, similar to how Netflix secured the rights to select episodes from ESPN’s award-winning “30 for 30” series. Alas, Apple seems content with building its Apple TV+ library from the ground up, so the odds of that happening are slim to none. At the end of the day, Apple doesn’t need more sports programming to keep Apple TV+ thriving, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt.
