Apple could televise 2022 Major League games

Major League Baseball has recently engaged in “serious” and “substantial” discussions with the Apple company regarding weekday broadcasting rights, specifically the Monday and Wednesday night package previously broadcast on ESPN.

If a deal is struck, Apple would presumably stream the games on Apple TV +, the company’s subscription streaming service that competes with Netflix, Hulu, Disney+ y Amazon Prime Video, among others. Apple, the world’s most valuable publicly traded company, recently achieved a market valuation of $ 3 trillion:

Although the move wouldn’t exactly represent something entirely new for MLB – regular-season games have been played on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter in recent seasons, and speculation that MLB might try to sell the games ESPN had stopped has been. Rampant since the new network deal was announced – it would reflect a changing landscape of sports media.

Amazon, a direct competitor to Apple in various fields, recently struck a deal with the NFL to steal Fox’s Thursday Night Football for a sum of $ 1 billion per season, and NBC has made many Premier football games. League are available exclusively on Peacock, its own streaming service.

MLB also operates its own highly successful streaming service, MLB.tv, which recorded a record 10 billion viewership minutes in 2021, according to an October press release. Neither Apple nor MLB have yet commented on the reported conversations.

Although the size and scope of a potential deal is unclear at this time, the package is unlikely to come close to the $ 1 billion mark that Amazon has agreed to pay the NFL:

While the roughly 60 MLB games that ESPN has released exceed the 18 NFL games that Amazon will receive, national viewing habits (and consequent streaming values) differ widely between sports.

For reference, according to SportsPro Media’s Tom Bassam, ESPN paid MLB $ 700 million annually for the right to a 90-game package and, beginning in 2022, will pay a $ 550 million annual fee to retain Sunday Night Baseball (approximately 30 games), as well as the Little League Classic, Opening Night Game, Home Run Derby, and all Wild Card series games (if the new CBA includes a 2020-like playoff format) or one of the two Wild Card games and eight additional regular season games (should the existing playoff format remain in place).

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Still, if a deal were to be struck, it would almost certainly represent a substantial cash injection for a league currently stalled in CBA negotiations that focus heavily on the share of revenue retained by owners and paid to players. . In any case, if such a deal comes to fruition, it is highly unlikely that it will be the last of its kind.

Rafael Martinez

I am fond of the King of Sports, especially the Boston Red Sox in MLB and in general all of Mexican baseball. This profession has given me the opportunity to cover major events such as the Caribbean Series, the LMB All Star, LMP (uninterrupted since 2009), signings of important players. I had the chance to attend the 2013 World Classic in Arizona, USA, albeit as a fan. Apart from this beautiful sport, I love basketball, where I have also narrated games and even an NBA friendly 10 years ago, but I carry baseball in my veins. Graduated in Communication Sciences from the Autonomous University of Sinaloa (UAS) , from which I graduated in 2011. I was born in Mazatlán, Sinaloa and started in the world of sports journalism in 2004 in the newspaper El Sol de Mazatlán, where I was a baseball columnist and reporter at the same time. In January 2009 I came to El Debate as a journalist reporter and it was almost six years (in the first stage), until in November 2014 I emigrated to the radio providing my services in Línea Directa-Grupo RSN. My cycle there ended in July 2019 and within days, El Debate gave me another opportunity to work and opened the doors for me again. That is how I came to Al Bat, where I have been since 2019 as a web journalist.

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