MLS Still Sees Apple Opportunity Despite Early Deal End
- MLS and Apple’s US$2.5bn deal to now end in 2029
- Bacon “bullish” about growing audience on Apple TV
Major League soccer (MLS) remains focused on working with Apple to “grow the scale of our audience together” after the pair agreed to cut short their global streaming deal.
News broke in November that the league and the technology giant would end their US$2.5 billion partnership after the 2028/29 season, meaning the union would conclude three-and-a-half years earlier than originally planned.
The deal was groundbreaking in that it marked the first time a major North American league placed almost its entire media inventory behind a single paywall.In doing so, MLS freed itself from the constraints of customary broadcast scheduling, where other sports might take priority, while gaining access to the innovation, scale and legitimacy that came with partnering with a company of Apple’s stature.
According to MLS executive vice president of media Seth Bacon, the league entered the agreement with the intention of becoming “the most broadly distributed league in the world”. He remains “bullish” about Apple’s ability to “drive awareness” of MLS and bring new audiences to matches during the remaining years of the partnership.
“The biggest thing we wont to scale is our audience together,” bacon told SportsPro. “That benefits everyone, whether it’s MLS, apple, our partners, or our fans.”
“We have a lot of momentum heading into the 26th season.We’re looking at how to take advantage of everything happening this year with the World Cup being here and the schedule change in the future. [Those are] going to drive a lot of possibility for us.”
Despite the agreement ending prematurely, Bacon added that the working relationship between MLS and Apple remained highly productive – a point reinforced by a meeting with the company instantly after his conversation with SportsPro.
“We’re talking with [Apple] about plans and execution more times than you could think in a day,” he continued. “That’s what great partners do, and that’s how you come up with great ideas together.”
Marketing lessons
Bacon revealed that one of the biggest learning curves for MLS du