WOODLAND HILLS, CA — Apple TV+ started its venture into live sports on Friday by airing two Major League Baseball games on the second day of the opening weekend of the 2022 season. “Friday Night Baseball,” which is produced by MLB Network will air certain games throughout the season, along with the pre and postgame coverage. This is a way for Apple to expand the content it offers like other competing streaming services have.
(Photo Credit: Apple)
Streaming MLB games on Apple TV+ is free and will not require a subscription for now. By making it free to watch, Apple can recruit new subscribers and promote some of their other products within the broadcast itself. The way that they are doing this is by having baseball trivia with Siri as well as displaying batters’ walk-up music, which promotes Apple Music.
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The games that were shown on the first night of “Friday Night Baseball” were the New York Mets versus the Washington Nationals as the National League game and the Houston Astros versus the Los Angeles Angels as the American League game. There were mixed reviews from fans about their MLB experience with Apple TV+. Apple will also have a broadcast that is a weekly preview of upcoming games and a daily recap of games that have already been played.
Apple TV+ launched in Nov. 2019 for $5 per month, and its main focus was offering TV shows and movies. The platform just won the Oscar for best picture for its movie “CODA,” a story about a hearing child who has two deaf parents.
Now that Apple has entered the live sports arena, it is intensifying its competition with streaming platforms like Amazon Prime Video, NBC’s Peacock, and Bally Sports App, which replaces FOX Sports Go. The latter platforms have all aired live sports already. There are also other streaming options for sports that include FuboTV, YouTube TV, Hulu Live TV, Sling TV, and ESPN+.
(Photo Credit: MLB Advanced Media)
Since “Friday Night Baseball” will be free on Apple TV+, many people will have access to it. The games will be blacked out on local cable channels and on MLB.TV, which allows subscribers to pay to stream out-of-market games. For fans who don’t have access to Apple TV+, it could be frustrating that they can’t see these games on services they already pay for like cable and MLB streaming. It also causes problems for bars that don’t have access to streaming platforms.
AUDIO
Jenilee reports on Apple TV+ streaming live MLB games
Only time will tell if Apple expands by airing a larger variety of sports from different leagues. Apple is one of the front runners to possibly land the rights to NFL Sunday Ticket. DirecTV’s rights are set to expire after the 2022-2023 NFL season.
It will be interesting to see if Women’s Sports Network tries to partner with Apple now that they are open to broadcasting live sports. Women’s Sports Network is a new network that is set to launch in the summer of 2022 and will stream only women’s sports 24/7. The network is looking for major streaming platforms to partner with.
Apple being in the mix of streaming services to develop a partnership with provides opportunities for all sports leagues to attract new audiences and grow their revenue even further.
By: Jenilee Borek
Contributions: CNBC, Tech Crunch, Sports Pro Media, iMore
Photo Credit: Apple, MLB Advanced Media
Audio: Jenilee Borek, CNBC
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