I’m not a follower of MLS, but I am interested in this model for presenting a sports league. My interest is in a couple of things:
1. Pricing: NBA League Pass is $30/Month, which is about $180 for the season. This is the premium package (no ads, two simultaneous streams per game). Standard (with ads, one stream) is half that. Both black out local games and games on national networks. The NBA is more popular than MLS, but their package is more restricted. Also, Apple just paid a ton, but even without ads they don’t have to make that all back in subscription fees. Maybe $150/year (no ads)? Are their really enough US soccer fans willing to pay substantially more? 2. Coverage. For the most part, I don’t like the fractured coverage of MLB and NBA. I would rather TNT do all NBA games and ESPN do all MLB. I liked the days when one network did all NFL/NFC games and the other all AFL/AFC. Deals like Apple could bring that back. 4. “Journalistic” integrity. ESPN has always had this fiction of a wall separating their sports journalism from their sports partnerships. It is 75% BS, as is similar claims at other broadcast and cable networks. But not 100%. There is some sense in which the credibility of the sports department at each network provides some kind of brake on the most egregious dishonest hyping of the sports leagues the network is in partnership with. But will that be true at Apple? HBO used to present tennis, and still does boxing (though the latter may be more an illustration of the problem). If there are drug, sexual assault, financial, other scandals at MLS, how will Apple investigate, or even communicate, it? Would they even feel an obligation to pretend they were reporting on that, without a separate in house spirts department whose reputation they care about? Will Apple become the Fox News of MLS, functioning as a PR and propaganda arm, and nothing else? On Tue, 14 Jun 2022 at 1:30 PM Joe Hass <[email protected]> wrote: > *Every* match, without blackouts or restrictions, for $2 billion. > > > https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/06/apple-and-mls-to-present-all-mls-matches-for-10-years-beginning-in-2023/ > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "TVorNotTV" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CABru7%2Bccc9Y9iwfoVCmsJC-%2BaV5T6JaztnxBFoCh9pwNEoF8hg%40mail.gmail.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CABru7%2Bccc9Y9iwfoVCmsJC-%2BaV5T6JaztnxBFoCh9pwNEoF8hg%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- Sent from Gmail Mobile -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAKGtkYLbhk2eCt%3Ds98%2B8QBP%3D25fKDfdTb6xg2BWoFVqyFigMRw%40mail.gmail.com.
