Apple TV's MLS Season Pass subscriptions doubled since Messi's arrival in US | Hacker News Reader

Apple TV's MLS Season Pass subscriptions doubled since Messi's arrival in US

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64 pointsmgh272 comments

I wish MLB would take some notes one what a good streaming service looks like.

If you want to watch all the baseball games you need an MLB.tv subscription, a premium cable subscription, a Peacock subscription, a regional sports network subscription (it’s Bally Sports where I am), and an Apple TV subscription. Please give me an everything tier in MLB.tv! I’ll gladly pay more.

On top of that MLB.tv is brutal to watch because they have a lot of ad spots and only a few advertisers so you see the same ads over-and-over-and-over again.

For MLB that is a feature not a bug!

In my country rugby is declining and football (soccer) is increasing in popularity. I would imagine MLB has little growth opportunity in the USA, unlike soccer, so they have little incentive to improve the experience.

I think you're right but it's also a fascinating commentary on the times where a sport that's been quintessentially American (baseball) is probably at all time lows with popularity while highly international sports (F1, Soccer) are finally seeing growth here.

It's probably a complicated story. At least suburban kids play soccer rather than baseball/softball (or even American football) growing up these days. I imagine basketball is still pretty popular especially in cities. F1 vs. NASCAR? Don't really know the numbers--obviously that's a sport that most viewers never participated in.

Although I played it in college, rugby has always been at least something out of the mainstream in most places.

Rugby (which is actually a number of different sports: league, union, touch & sevens) is mainstream in many countries, but parents are less inclined to let their kids play a sport where concussions are rife. Rugby also does not have protective gear so there is less perception of protection (even though it is well accepted that the protective gear can make the problem worse).

Woman's rugby is increasing in popularity and represents a growth opportunity.

From my tenuous connections, rugby does seem to be a sport that has some popularity among women who want a more physical sport relative to alternatives. (Which I don't mean at all negatively.)

As you also say, a lot of the same brain injury concerns that apply to American football also apply to rugby to at least some degree--probably lower speed/less high impact but a lot less protective gear--and, at least at the high level of the men's sport, it's gotten faster with bigger players.

Baseball was getting less and less fun to watch. MLB is trying to fix it by speeding up the game, and basically penalizing people for turning every game into marathon low hit count affairs.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/07/basebal...

I think baseball is eventually on it's way out. 162 games is far too many for any game to be meaningful and the actual games have very few exciting moments.

To me, baseball is the sport that gets put on as the background noise in the bar when nothing else is on.

I think it's still pretty big worldwide. There might be fewer people at the games but it's still a massive industry.

Attendance depends heavily on the market. Dodgers fans fill the seats no matter the premium the owners put on the ticket.

Actually spot on. I went to the ballpark for the very first time with my teenager to watch the Giants play not once but twice. Though the view from the bleachers is not all that bad, I would kill to watch it in an immersive platform like the Apple Vision Pro. And that is where Apple TV + MLS pass comes in. They control the soup to nuts of that transmission. 4K streaming coupled with drone cameras, Messi Cam will make Vision Pro a very compelling device if You want to be present at a stadium without being there.

And things are worse if you're in Iowa:

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/sports/baseball/2021...

> Currently, six MLB teams are blacked out all across Iowa: the Chicago Cubs, St. Louis Cardinals, Chicago White Sox, Minnesota Twins, Kansas City Royals and Milwaukee Brewers. Those teams are not available to watch with an MLB.tv subscription or when they are often aired on national broadcasts. Some of those clubs are not available on Iowa’s main cable packages either.

Blackout rules really need to be called into question by the government. It's dumb that if I want to watch a game and I live within like 3 hours of the stadium, I have to actually go to the game or pirate a stream. The rules need to be refined to a small area within a a half hour's drive from a stadium, and that's it.

Blackouts these days aren’t about filling seats, it’s all about television rights. Regional sports networks buy exclusive broadcast rights to games for particular teams in some region and that results in a blackout.

In Hawaii, for example, most of the west coast baseball teams are often blacked out in MLB.tv because some broadcaster has picked up the rights for those teams. Nobody from Hawaii is going to fly to Seattle to see a game because of a blackout.

I do not see why the government would need to get involved in the transaction of leisure activities.

Any yet baseball has an anti-trust exemption. And twenty years ago, there were congressional hearings on the use of steroids in baseball.

While I agree with you in principle, the state has an interest in preventing anti-competitive activities, and what the GP described seems to fit.

It's not anticompetitive if it's literally not competing.

I watched some instagram video from MLB where players were mic’ed up - it was much more compelling than commentators.

It was more like twitch for baseball. I think that could be very compelling.

You can’t do that all the time because players like to trash talk and banter and much of that cannot go on air. A good announcer is really nice. You can follow the game hearing it in the next room without having to see it.

The NHL has similar issues. There are regional blackouts and it's a pain to figure out what you can watch, where to watch, and how much everything costs. It's just too much hassle for a lot of people vs an IPTV sub with everything for a couple hundred bucks a year.

If the NHL looked toward Apple during the next cycle, I would be ecstatic as long as they kept the local broadcasting crews. No blackouts, added content, and significantly higher streaming quality.

Sometimes I feel as if I need 10 different subscriptions to watch a single NHL season.

This is literally killing NHL for me.

I grew up playing hockey. I think NHL playoffs are some of the best, most intense sporting events.

However, it's so dang hard for me to consistently watch the NHL that I've kind of stopped caring.

I wish it hadn't come to this, but SportSurge and its mirrors have nearly every game from many different sources. I grew up watching games free over the air on CBC; I just can't stomach paying hundreds a year for what used to be free.

This is generally due to the ownership structure being different in MLB versus MLS. MLS is centrally owned so the league can easily make whatever deal it wants for broadcast rights. MLB isn't centrally owned and therefore the goals of the league are often in conflict with individual owners. The owner of the Yankees doesn't want MLB.tv to devalue the Yankees' investment in the YES (Yankee Entertainment and Sports) Network for example. That leads to complicated rights in which different entities own different pieces of the broadcast rights.

Once this system came into place, it becomes incredibly difficult to unwind because there are now hundreds of media contracts between dozens of different entities. They can't just introduce an all-inclusive MLB.tv without breaking a lot of those contracts and they can't just wait until those contracts expire because they all were signed independently and therefore have their own timeframes.

At least Manfred has been vocal that he agrees blackouts are a problem. It’s one of the only positives I can think of about him.

Part of the issue is due to how baseball has been broadcast historically on local networks. Teams like the Dodgers have very lucrative TV contracts with their local station. I imagine it’ll be somewhat of a legal and business mess for the MLB to negotiate an end to black outs with all those stations

I watched the last Dallas/Miami match on AppleTV because it was free. No MLS subscription required.

I do have to say — I watched one baseball game and one MLS game so far, and the commentators are 100% the worst. Constant conversation, constant drivel and often not about the game proceedings. They must’ve said “the best ever to play the game” about 1000x in 2 hours.

I won’t ever pay for sports from Apple just on that point.

This has been my “grumpy post of the day”.

As a long time MLS supporter (late 90's), I agree with you, however, every other aspect of the deal has been a significant improvement over the mix of ESPN+, FS1, ect.

Not having blackouts, greatly improved streaming quality, single subscription, the pre- and post-match shows, global audience, added content, etc have taken the league to another level - to a point where we are even seeing the changes at one of the lowest payrolled clubs in the league in Colorado. Additionally, Apple played a big role in Messi signing with an MLS club. (Side note: found this in his Instagram bio being followed by 482 million people.. apple.co/mlsmessi)

The main complaints I have seen are the commentary as well as lack of Android application. Other than those two items, people seem to be thrilled with the service so far.

100% this. I got MLB.tv free via T-mobile. It's not even worth the effort to figure out how to VPN out my AppleTV. I've watched 1 Mariners game this year, and it was because it was on Apple's Friday Night series.

Whaddya know, make it easy to consume content, and people consume it.

I’m curious if the commentators were English or American (or neither)?

From all over - it's a mix.

I feel this development holds true for commentators everywhere though, and I think they made great fun of this in the show Ted Lasso. I wish more streaming services would allow turning off commentary altogether. If I recall, NHL Game Center used to have this feature, along with the ability to switch video feeds which was also pretty cool. I'd have the main feed on while also streaming the view from right above each goal.

When I was a kid we used to turn off the tv audio and turn up the radio instead, because the commentary there was usually much better. It was often a little bit ahead but not by more than a second or two so it didn't really screw things up too much. These days with streaming though you can be minutes behind, which is especially evident during big tournaments like the World Cup when you can hear people yelling from their apartments at different times, depending on where they're streaming the game from.

I think the commentary does play a big part in enjoyment of these broadcasts. It also gives you the subconscious feeling of watching with a familiar friend every time.

One example is F1, where we watch the races with the "international" commentary (with David Croft) as opposed to the F1 official commentary. Nothing really wrong with F1's, but the familiarity of Crofty's voice adds to the enjoyment.

I bet Apple could add celebrity commentators to MLS if this continues to grow.

Were you watching in English? The Spanish commentators are significantly better. Of course that doesn’t help if you don’t speak it.

idk, sometimes its better when you can't understand the commentators. I don't always find them to be a value add.

Made me think of this: https://www.theguardian.com/football/these-football-times/20...

simpsons did it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjp1Zrvn8VQ

Still awesome for GOOOOOOAAAAAALLLLLLLLL. All the Spanish I need

FWIW, Apple provides both national and local feeds for audio for games. It's not a well-known fact as it's kind of hidden, but while watching, there is an option to change the audio feed.

The problem with Baseball is that games are so long and there's so much down-time (in between pitches, in between batters, in between innings) that commentators feel the need to fill the air with chatter, which I find to be annoying.

The Brits do soccer (football) play-by-play very well - it's often times 1 guy - not even a color commentator. It's done in a very monotone, factual and dry way, which is all I really need. So-and-so wins the ball in his own half, and passes the ball to such-and-such, who takes a shot from X yards, and it's saved by the opposition goalkeeper. Occasionally a small bit of relevant color commentary is thrown in for context by the main announcer (so-and-so wins the ball from his international teammate or academy teammate or former club mate; or such-and-such has scored X# goals this year). The color commentary is usually a former pro who gives insight into tactics or the seasonal narratives or the officiating or whatever.

Here in the USA the soccer commentators don't do that well, and blur the lines between play-by-play and color commentary - and to make matters worse, there's usually 2-3 of them in the booth at the same time. No thanks.

I'm generally pretty easy on the commentators in sports as I think it's an incredibly difficult job that isn't often recognized, but yes, Apple's soccer commentators are noticeably terrible. As an MLS fan I rarely like the American (as in from the US) soccer commentators in general but the ones Apple hired are so heavy handed yet clumsy.

Also- Messi isn't objectively the best ever to play the game, so that was odd how often it was stated lol

Messi is the best ever by far. Best season the one after he scored 91 goals

Just watch the Spanish broadcast. It's 1000 times better even if you don't understand the language. No Taylor Twattman there.

I did a trial of Apple TV+ and MLS Season Pass in May, which was about 2 months into the MLS season, and I cancelled within 20 minutes. The UX of the app is terrible. I didn't want to watch live matches but wanted to watch previous matches in the season but in order to do so I would have to find the match on the screen and then click on it and then scroll down and click a button to actually watch the match. That doesn't seem too bad except that on the thumbnail of the match they show the final score and then when you click into the match before you are able to actually watch the replay they show the final score. It took the whole purpose of being able to watch previous matches away. I am sticking to watching NWSL on Paramount+.

On AppleTV devices you can goto Settings > Apps > TV and then uncheck the "Show Sports Scores"

I believe that will prevent what you were talking about.

Interesting. I will check the settings on the app itself but I was watching on a Fire TV Stick

As an MLS fan that bought the season pass as soon as it was announced, I can't agree more. Honestly Apple should be embarrassed, because the biggest problem with MLS Season Pass is the app and user experience.

1) On my TV, I'm consistently logged out of the app between uses. Logging in is annoying. I've sat down to watch games, hit this issue, and decided to just watch something else. I suspect that the issue here is my 2016-era LG TV, but everyone else's apps work fine.

2) When the app is working, it stutters a lot. This happens both on my TV and iPad, so I don't think this is just an app issue.

3) I have an Andriod phone, so there's no native app. More annoying log in experiences and poor video watching UX.

4) .. but on my Mac, where a website would be fine, I'm forced to use the Apple TV app to watch a game, which creates a slow and weird experience for no reason.

I'm genuinely to the point that I might not bother to renew next year if they don't start to fix these issues. I sort of doubt they will, though, as several of these (say, not having an Android app) seem like deliberate decisions and have been issues with AppleTV+ for years.

I wanted to get tickets to see Messi when his team (Inter Miami) comes to my area (NYC).

This is a typical weekend NY Red Bulls game. Tickets are available for $10 : https://www.stubhub.com/new-york-red-bulls-harrison-tickets-...

This is the following weekend against Miami. Tickets start at more than $500 (~$650 with fees) : https://www.stubhub.com/new-york-red-bulls-harrison-tickets-...

Lionel Messi might be the biggest sport star in history. It's amazing what this man does for people.

True that. He's likeable too. That helps a lot.

Although I think the honor still goes Jordan.

Jordan is not a larger global star than Messi. If that isn't what you were claiming, apologies.

Muhammad Ali was pretty big too.

Of course, but not larger than Messi on a global scale - it's not even close.

In absolute numbers, sure. But for his biggest fights, up to two billion people would watch Muhammad Ali fight. As a percentage, today that would be more than three billion people.

My understanding is that the MLS deal with Apple is worldwide - aside from a small handful of countries anyone can subscribe.

It would be very interesting to get more info about the US vs non-US change in subscribers. The fact that they are saying that more than 50% of the viewers are choosing the Spanish audio feed suggests that much of the growth may not be in the US.

The United States has an estimated 57 million Spanish speakers, about 42 million being their native language - that's more than both Spain and Argentina. I'm unsure of how growth in Spanish broadcasting suggests it's not from within the United States.

You also currently have the Leagues Cup being broadcast on AppleTV which is a one month tournament of every LigaMX (Mexico) and MLS (USA) club with a $40-million prize pool.

My uneducated guess is that it's a mix of Leagues Cup, global superstars signing with MLS clubs, young stars such as Thiego Almada in Atlanta who just won a World Cup, and MLS beginning to overtake LigaMX in quality that is drawing more and more viewers recently - many of which are likely Spanish speaking.

I'd point toward tonight's quarter-final elimination match against LAFC and Monterrey as an example that is likely to draw a ton of Spanish commentary views.

Right, and lot of good insight there.

For some reason, headlines like these always make me think that soccer’s popularity is growing in communities where it hadn’t before. I imagine it is growing, but not at the rate I would incorrectly infer from the headline. Apple seems to be betting on that growth increasing.

Does every headline have to lie? Viewers is different than subscriptions...

From the article...

>On top of that, subscriptions to Apple TV's MLS Season Pass have more than doubled since the former Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain star started plying his trade in the US in July.

>That's according to Jorge Mas, one of Inter Miami's owners. Mas added that "Spanish language viewership on MLS Season Pass on Apple TV has surpassed over 50 percent for Messi matches and continues to rise," underscoring the player's popularity in the Spanish-speaking community. Apple CEO Tim Cook retweeted Mas' comments, indicating that Mas' claims are genuine (Apple's PR team has been drawing attention to the tweet as well).

1. 50% is not doubling 2. It says Spanish language 3. Viewers do not equal subscriptions 4. For Messi matches not all matches

There is no evidence on subscriptions doubling, SBJ says it went from 700,000 to 1 million but that includes free subscriptions for season ticket holders.

If you followed the source that is cited/linked in the quote you copied you would have found:

> The Messi Effect is real! Subscribers to #MLSSeasonPass on @AppleTV have more than doubled since Messi joined @InterMiamiCF. Also, Spanish language viewership on #MLSSeasonPass on @AppleTV has surpassed over 50% for Messi matches and continues to rise. How exciting for a truly global fan base!

https://twitter.com/Jorge__Mas/status/1689758782828556288

"Mas added" indicates that it's a new topic, not support for the previous topic.

MLS has the same problem basketball leagues have overseas. The NBA is where the best players in the world play and I can watch it on TV, why would I watch a local sports league? There is some hometown pride from the diehards but casuals would watch the NBA. Similarly in soccer, I don’t think it is feasible to expect the MLS to break out of their niche. The casuals are watching the Premier League. We are now just watching the MLS figure out how big the niche can get.

You underestimate the reach of Messi. I lived in Italy for a large part of my adult life and had messages from friends there commenting on the Inter Miami replay which was being broadcast in a pub they were at. I don't personally believe the NBA comparison works well as you have global stars playing in leagues around the world - not just isolated to the premier league. A simple example is Mbappe is in France, Halland in England, Vinicius in Spain, and the heavy ballon d'or favorite in America.

The Inter Miami Instagram account went from under a million followers to one of the most followed accounts in American sports - beating every NFL, NHL, and MLB team.

I also think you underestimate how many people from the United States follow MLS. For example, Atlanta Uniteds 2022 average attendance was the second highest average attendance across sports in North and Central America. The 2022 numbers would put it at 8th highest average attendance in the premier league. The recent LA Galaxy vs LAFC match had an attendance of over 82k fans. For comparison, the 2018 Arsenal vs Spurs match at Wembly was played in front of 83k.

Also, MLS sees the heaviest growth around the World Cup time period. Over the next four years you have massive tournaments being played in the United States from the 2023 Copa America to the World Cup.

> broadcast in a pub

One aspect of this deal eluding me is whether it is permissible to show these MLS games in sports bars.

The NFL enforces very strict licensing for public displays of its games.

I imagine smaller pubs in Italy couldn't care less about whether they are allowed to show MLS matches or not. If the HDMI cord works, it works.

Just an honest thought as I've heard it from now two different individuals at two different pubs.

EDIT: Just did some digging and it appears that MLS Season Pass is made available at over 300,000 restaurants and pubs in the United States alone through Direct TV.

https://www.directv.com/insider/directv-for-business-and-mls...

Like every other major broadcasted sport, it's not permissible, just extremely hard to enforce.

The sports leagues and networks sell specific packages for businesses.

For reference: DirectTV and Apple made MLS Season Pass available for streaming at commercial establishments.

https://www.directv.com/insider/directv-for-business-and-mls...

For me, I think the key difference is time of day (at least as a USA watcher).

European soccer is 5 hours ahead. By the time I'm settling in for the night, all of the European leagues are over.

Right now, I'm watching a lot of South American and Mexican teams. I have no idea who they are, but they fill a void while I browse on my laptop. MLS can easily fill that prime time/late night void.

People love going to mls games, they are cheap and accessible, and for the most part its very much an atmosphere of die hard soccer fans. They can’t go to manchester united games, but they can watch el tráfico and it gets intense. Fans get into fights with the opposition just like in Europe.

Kinda meaningless unless that also share a number. Did it go from 1 to 2 or 1 million to 2 million?

"more than doubled" could mean from 1 to 3 subscribers :P

The article clearly says: "The company hasn't disclosed how many subscribers the service has, though reports in July suggested the number was nearing 1 million before Messi's arrival. In any case, Apple is evidently pleased by Messi's impact on MLS Season Pass.". So it seems like 2 millions is closer to the truth than 3.

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