Nine months after the announcement of the MLS-Apple TV deal, MLS Season Pass on Apple TV made its debut last weekend. Ahead of round two coming this week, we look back at both the good and the bad from Apple’s first run through of MLS coverage.
The Good
Streaming quality
MLS fans were promised an excellent 1080p broadcast experience and Apple delivered. After years of grainy footage from FOX and ESPN, it was not only refreshing to have an excellent, lag-free feed, but it truly felt like a brand new experience, seeing stadiums like Audi Field in Washington D.C. in their full glory for the first time. The difference was clear in the first game, where Apple’s 1080p was vastly superior in the Nashville-NYCFC game as compared to the FOX 720p broadcast. The presentation was equally impressive. The scorebug was simplistic but clean. The graphics popped. Overall, the broadcast felt like a major league effort, something that has been missing from MLS matches for most of their previous 27 years.
In addition, all the ancillary functions that were promised seemed to work well. All games had a Spanish broadcast option in addition to a home radio feed that could replace the national Apple TV announcers. Switching between them was flawless for the most part and the options provide a cool alternative in taking in a broadcast.
MLS given center stage
Before diving into the gameday experience, it should be noted that the MLS Season Pass has already been a major step up in content promotion. In the app there are season preview videos alongside short club histories, greatest rivalry moments, best MLS games in history, and more. While (understandably) still light on true original programming more akin to Drive to Survive or Welcome to Wrexham, the mere presence of this level of content seems to indicate a positive step in improving MLS’s storytelling capabilities.
In the original analysis of the Apple-MLS deal, there was a point of comparison between the Apple-MLS deal and the English Premier League’s pivotal 1991 Sky Sports deal, which promised to put the league front and center, completely changing the direction of the game in England. After week one, it is clear that Apple is giving MLS the stage it so desperately wanted — and needed. The one-stop shop to find all the games. The consistent time slots for games. Even the broadcasters received relatively high remarks and the studio coverage didn’t treat the viewer as a newcomer to the game, something that the Qatar FOX World Cup studio struggled with mightily. At no point was Apple’s willingness to display and empower MLS more evident than comparing the sets between Apple’s coverage of the Nashville-NYCFC game and FOX’s:
It is, of course, troubling that MLS’s only linear TV partner still won’t put in more than a nickel’s worth of effort into their coverage, even in the face of a new, more glamorous partner’s much more upscale effort. According to a report from The Athletic, Fox Sports will be sending all MLS commentators to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida to broadcast out of the Vista facilities instead of sending them to do games live on-site. While not unexpected from Fox given their poor historical record of soccer broadcasting, it remains a weak point in this deal that the linear coverage is drastically lower in quality to the streaming option.
Areas for improvement
MLS 360 whiparound show
While consistency and fixing the minor initial hiccups like the broadcast feed cutting out in one game, creating a spoiler-free navigation screen or fixing a subtitles mishap is important, the most crucial improvement point for MLS and Apple is fixing the MLS 360 whiparound show. The show in and of itself makes purchasing the MLS Season Pass worth it for die hard fans. For the first time, it becomes easy to follow all the other teams in the league in a digestable fashion in the NFL Redzone-esque setup.
However, it is far from a finished product. There were an agonizing amount of commercials — at times during goals! — for a sport that sells itself on being free flowing. The setup was also quite weird, with the hosts backs facing the viewer for some portions. Fewer commercials and less emphasis on the hosts both visually and audibly — cut to the game feed instead of having them talk over the announcers — could create a game changing product for MLS. It gives neutral fans the perfect way to stay engaged and watch the league as a whole, even when their team isn’t playing. The last piece of the puzzle would be to get the casual fan to tune in to the whiparound show, which is currently only available to MLS Season Pass subscribers. While there needs to be benefits for purchasing subscriptions, a refined MLS 360 is exactly the kind of highlights-only entertaining viewing experience – a la Atlanta United’s two goals in stoppage time to win the game – that could turn a casual fan’s head. A show that is as entertaining as the league it showcases. The only question is, should it live up to its potential, will it be enough to turn more casual fans into subscribers?
Concluding Thoughts
For the first time, an MLS broadcast feels like a proper professional athletics contest on a consistent, game-by-game basis. The viewing experience is closer to the Premier League’s level of presentation than ever before. On that basis alone, that makes week one an enormous success. Add in the fact that there are no blackouts and 40% of the high quality games will be shown with no paywall restrictions and year one is a home run for fans. Past year one though, and what will determine lasting success is how Apple and MLS can fix and popularize the whiparound show and if they can ensure that the storytelling off-the-field content blooms. And after week one, it seems like everyone involved is up for the challenge.
