Apple TV+ serves MLS Sunday matches, expands Season Pass distribution partnerships

Apple is aiming to get more fans across the globe in on Major League Soccer programming and its MLS Season Pass offer. On Wednesday MLS and Apple held a press briefing and disclosed new efforts to deepen connections among consumers with the league and content, and to further expand access to more viewers across distribution endpoints and devices as part of the entities’ 10-year partnership.

It’s also looking to give Apple TV+ subscribers some value-add. Starting with the 2025 season Apple and MLS are introducing a new weekly Sunday night soccer match up that, in addition to MLS Season Pass, will be available on the Apple TV+ streaming service.

Apple started its partnership with MLS in 2022, offering subscriptions to MLS Season Pass available via Apple TV beginning with the 2023 season. In addition to the U.S., it offers Season Pass in more than 100 countries and regions. Now live Sunday night matchups will be part of the Apple TV+ subscription at no extra cost, running under the Sunday Night Soccer banner and featuring games against major rivals. It joins Apple’ TV+'s other marquee live sports night, Friday Night Baseball, featuring MLB games, which returns this year for its fourth season.

Alongside the third year of the Apple-MLS partnership, 2025 marks the 30th anniversary for Major League Soccer and the addition of MLS’ newest franchise, San Diego FC. The 2025 MLS season kicks off the weekend of February 22 and the inaugural live Sunday Night Soccer match will showcase the new franchise’s debut against reigning MLS Cup champions LA Galaxy on February 23. The game will also broadcast live in Times Square.

In addition to live games, Sunday Night Soccer from Apple will include dedicated pre- and postgame shows, enhanced production and studio programming and bespoke graphics in English and Spanish. MLS Season Pass costs $14.99 per month during the season, or $99 per month for the full season. Apple TV+ subscribers get a discounted rate of $12.99 per month or $79 per season.

During a virtual press briefing Wednesday, Seth Bacon, EVP of Media at MLS, said 2025 is all about investment and growth, including moving programming production to WWE facilities in Connecticut.

Royce Dickerson, executive producer of Live Sports for Apple TV, said during the briefing that it took a lot of phone calls between Apple, MLS and scheduling teams to get the Sunday matchup night across the line. Impetus for doing a new marquee night is, in part, about an effort to drive consistent and reoccurring appointment viewing.

“We’re happy to be able to get it done, mainly because we believe that having a standalone match will provide habitual viewing and tune-in,” Dickerson said.

Bringing another marquee sports night could be good for Apple TV+, which by some estimates lags well behind other major SVODs in terms of U.S. uptake.

And in a recent column on StreamTV Insider, Parks Associates’ Jennifer Kent pegged sports as a key differentiator to watch for in 2025, as platforms evolve the viewing experience and offer more interactive capabilities.

“Platforms will continue to battle it out over sports rights as well as other sports-centric exclusive and shoulder content with the goal of ultimately attracting and retaining these highly desirable viewers,” wrote Kent. “Ultimately, sports fans will be better served with a more organized and immersive fan-centric experience.”

This year Apple will introduce a feature that helps viewers navigate more easily across games, according to Dickerson. He described how at the end of a studio show or match, if viewers want to easily switch to another game there will be a “shelf” that pops up from the bottom of the screen, showing full games so fans can go seamlessly into the next match.

Executives on the call also discussed intentions to do more through other avenues, such as the free live broadcast from Times Square for the first match and mentioned “immersive video” efforts, though nothing specifically new to announce on the latter front.

“Our partnership with Apple has redefined how fans experience Major League Soccer, bringing the league to more people around the world than ever before,” said Don Garber, MLS’s commissioner, in a press announcement. “With the addition of Sunday Night Soccer, a new studio, and the debut of Onside: Major League Soccer on Apple TV+, 2025 will be our best season yet. We couldn’t be more excited about the future of our partnership with Apple.”

Expanding distribution, reach with partners

Another goal for Apple and MLS in 2025 is expanding partnerships and integrations with other distributors to extend the reach of the league and Apple’s MLS Season Pass. That includes a renewed partnership with T-Mobile and newly announced ones with DirecTV and Comcast’s Xfinity.

“We’re going to continue to try to make things easier for fans across the globe to access MLS content, and we want to continue to meet fans where they are” from a distribution standpoint, Dickerson said.

T-Mobile is bringing back its offer of complimentary access to MLS Season Pass for the entire season, available to all T-Mobile and Metro By T-Mobile customers, including business, with no blackout dates.

DirecTV residential customers, meanwhile, will be able to subscribe to Season Pass through the pay TV provider and can access games both through the satellite channel guide and through the Apple TV app.  And it’s making a free preview of the service available to all DirecTV residential and commercial satellite customers form February 22 through March 1. This expands on DirecTV’s exclusive rights to provide MLS Season Pass to commercial establishments, of which it counts a network of more than 300,000 sports bars, restaurants and more across the U.S.

Finally, Comcast is offering an integrated viewing experience for the soccer package, with all live matches available directly through the Xfinity interface and the ability for customers to sign up for Season Pass directly through the pay TV provider.

According to Dickerson, every live match will be incorporated throughout the viewing experience, including within the channel guide on Xfinity's X1 set-top box and the Xfinity Stream app, as well as the X1 Sports app and the Apple TV app. And for the first time Comcast and Apple are giving all Xfinity customers free access to MLS 360 programming throughout the season – marking the first time it’s been available without a Season Pass subscription. Like DirecTV, Xfinity is also offering a free preview of the package from kick off weekend until the beginning of March.

“Our goal is to expose MLS to the largest global audience,” Dickerson added, pointing to expanded availability of games across devices. 

Asked on the call by a reporter whether efforts to expand distribution reach was an indicator there hadn’t been robust reach during the first two years of the partnership. MLS’ Bacon suggested this wasn’t the case.

“We’ve seen growth in our audiences, we’ve seen growth in subscriptions. We’re bullish on what we’re building, and it’s how do you take something that’s performing really well and make it perform even better?” Bacon responded. “That’s what these new distribution partnerships are all about. MLS Season Pass is the product, and it lives on Apple TV, but we’re able to deliver that product through other end points.”

He said the distribution partnerships are about delivering the content and experience through different channels but that it’s all for the same aim, “which is the partnership we have with Apple and building this business of MLS Season Pass.”

It also plans to leverage and integrate the larger Apple ecosystem across news, podcasts, sports and music apps for consumers to engage with content.

Updates on the efforts follow news earlier this week that Apple and MLS will be moving all MLS Season Pass programming production to TKO Group-owned WWE facilities headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut under an expanded agreement with IMG.

Part of the goal, according to Bacon, is to invest in technology that can enable the company to do more and new things to deepen engagement fans and expand distribution and viewership of the league.

Leaning into social, digital platforms

MLS and Apple also intend to lean further into off-platform channels, like short-form and social video apps, to promote and distribute content related to the league.

Ignacio Garcia, SVP & Executive Producer of MLS Season Pass, told press that one major focus for 2025 is for VOD or non-live content it’s creating, which it has done in the past but previously kept specific to one platform.

“We are now thinking about a horizontal distribution across many different platforms, so partnering with our social media teams, whether it is meant to be for TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, owned [and] operated channels,” Garcia said. “We’re really trying to create different extras for those pieces, specifically for different platforms. So that will be a focus, how we can elevate the visibility of the content that we are already producing, maximizing to different social media and digital platforms.” 

It's also thinking about how it can attract other fans and viewers by developing new shows, such as mid-week shows and podcasts, he added.

Apple reports fiscal year 2025 first quarter results tomorrow, January 30.