Lionel Messi, the greatest football player of all time, is scheduled to play his first Major League Soccer (MLS) game on Friday, July 21st, at 5 p.m. PDT / 8 p.m. EDT, when his Inter Miami CF squad hosts Cruz Azul in the Leagues Cup. Jorge Mas, the billionaire and managing owner of Inter Miami CF, believes Messi will entice millions of new subscribers to the Apple TV+ streaming service.
Apple has a 10-year deal with Major League Soccer (MLS) as the exclusive provider of every MLS game in the 2023 season through its MLS Season Pass subscription service. At $250 million per season, owning the rights to the MLS is a minor deal for Apple, but Messi and, importantly, the opportunity to experiment is invaluable.
Dave Lee for Bloomberg Opinion:
Last year, Apple agreed a $2.5 billion deal to acquire the global rights to broadcast the US’s Major League Soccer exclusively for 10 years, via a dedicated app that costs $14.99 per month or $49 for the season. Or, existing subscribers to Apple’s TV+ service can get a discount, which is what this is all about: Apple, along with rivals like Amazon, sees live sports as the gateway to long-term subscriber loyalty, reducing the rate at which viewers chop-and-change their streaming platform choices.
MacDailyNews Note: Adding MLS Season Pass currently, mid-season, is just $39.99 for Apple TV+ subscribers.
To keep Messi, the finest player of his generation, from the far greater riches on offer to play in Saudi Arabia, Apple reached an unprecedented deal that will see the World Cup winner earn an undisclosed cut from the growth in international subscriptions. Jorge Mas, Inter Miami’s billionaire owner, feels that boost could amount to around 2 million users.
That might seem like a small figure, but Antenna’s data suggest users who join because of sports are of greater long-term value: 17% of customers who subscribed to Apple TV+ in order to watch Friday Night Baseball were serial churners, compared with 39% of people who signed up to watch Stranger Things on Netflix. And Apple TV+ could use the additional subscribers — the service is expected to lose more than $5 billion in 2023 alone.
The flaw in that plan is that Messi alone won’t make MLS worth watching. For sure, viewing figures for his first game Friday will likely be record-breaking. Footage of his introduction at the stadium on Sunday attracted 3.5 billion views — and he wasn’t even playing…
Apple’s free rein over MLS gives the first sign of what a leading-edge technology company might achieve.
MacDailyNews Take: It cannot be overstated how huge Messi in the MLS will be for soccer in America, just as the promise that Apple Vision Pro will soon offer for the presentation of all sports cannot be overstated.
As we wrote in early June of the pending deal:
[This is] multiple times bigger than David Beckham joining LA Galaxy in 2007. (As part of his deal, Beckham received the option to purchase an MLS expansion team for $25 million after he finished his playing career, which he did: Inter Miami.)
Messi to Inter Miami [will] be an immeasurable boon to MLS, Apple TV+, MLS Season Pass, football (soccer) in America, and, of course, Inter Miami (currently dead last in the MLS Eastern Conference; funnily enough, the same spot LA Galaxy currently occupies in the Western Conference. It seems as if all of the stars are somehow aligned).
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