Apple TV+ bid for UK soccer streaming rights unlikely to proceed
Apple is no longer planning to take on the broadcast rights to the English Premier League, Eddy Cue has signaled, with a deal to bring the soccer league to its streaming service seemingly no longer on the pitch.
A Soccer Ball
There has been speculation that Apple was keen to sign a deal with the English Premier League, with expectations of a bid from the streaming service to take over after the current Sky Sports and BT Sport deal expires in 2025. Despite rumors Apple considered making a bid, comments from Apple SVP of Services Eddy Cue indicate otherwise.
The bids from broadcasters are expected to be in the region of 3 billion pounds ($3.8 billion) per season in total, with smaller limited packages also set to be offered by the league. However, Apple is more interested in an all-encompassing deal like it has for Major League Soccer on Apple TV+ than a piecemeal approach.
"I don't like the word exclusivity because that's important but not as important," said Cue according to The Sun. "What's important to us is global rights."
"We're a global company, we have a large number of customers in every country in the world, and it's not exciting for me to have something that one person can have but another can't."
Cue continued "Another matter is that we're throwing a significant amount of engineering and expertise into the MLS product, and I can't justify throwing what I think are the best engineers in the world on a small sub-set product. It has to be a partnership because our level of investment is significant."
Despite the strong indication in his language, Cue does stop short of claiming such a deal was completely off the table.
"I never say never without knowing all of the information," he added when pressed. "But in general we never sign any deal with any league in a specific country or a small subset of countries and I'd say it was highly unlikely we'd ever do that. I don't think we'd ever do that."
Cue further insists that an MLS style deal would've been more attractive to take on. "We wouldn't want to invest to do that because we're not a typical investor trying to fill in some gaps. MLS is our Number One thing and we want it to be a huge success."
In a rare interview in May, Cue explained about how Apple says no to "almost everything," and that to get to "yes," whatever's at offer needs to be something Apple is good at, and something consumers value and care about.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
If they can't get the English leagues on board because they want global rights, maybe just try for the World Cup?
Cue is saying that Apple wants global rights (as opposed to UK rights). If they can't get that, they are out. It would require the EPL be willing to coordinate global rights, so a larger deal could be negotiated all at once. So the Nordic Entertainment (nine countries) deal, for example, would have to somehow be synchronized with US deal, and so on.
In other words, it will never happen. Right now, the global overseas rights total are £5.05 billion. Apple would have to increase that significantly to unify just the North American and European rights, let alone the rest of the world.
It’s no wonder people try to find alternative, sometimes illegal options. If the premier league weren’t so greedy, it could bring much more revenue.
The sponsors came in (with the blessings of greedy clubs) and began charging ridiculous amounts for official poliester garments.
They were playing with fire from the outset.
Then came relentless format change to tournaments to monetise those to the hilt.
Now we live under the constant threat of a 'super league' too. More monetisation.
People have lost track of what made the game great in the first place.
Watching a Bayern Munich vs FC Barcelona game would quickly become a run of the mill scenario and lose its uniqueness if it were to happen in a programed manner four times a season.
There needs to be a push back into the concept of 'general interest' and protection given to cultural aspects of the game.
This isn't a sport that was created by big business. It's a sport that was taken hostage by big business and fans have been paying ransom fees ever since.
At least 25% of top league games should be open to free viewing by the public.
Football isn't the only sport to follow this path, however. Costs go up and need to be paid for somehow - in the better scenarios, the funds extracted from the interested public by the sport's governing body largely go towards improving the sport (fostering grass roots involvement, providing better training facilities, increasing the skill level of participants and generally lifting the entertainment value of regular events). But government regulation (or the threat of it) is usually required to get this to happen.