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Apple 'Ready to Spend Billions' on Live Sports Content Over Next Four Years

George Dawes said:
Wish they’d buy up all the uk soccer rights , teach sky a lesson

Cant watch most of the Liverpool games now ?
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Sky, BT, Amazon and BBC have the rights up to 2025.
BT has the Champions league until 2024.

The UK market is therefore tied up for several years. Would sign up to Apple TV though if they did get major rights to Premier and Champions League football as would be cheaper than signing up to several other subscription services. If it was just like Amazon's current deal which covers very little then wouldn't be worth it
 
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JD2015 said:
Sky, BT, Amazon and BBC have the rights up to 2025.
BT has the Champions league until 2024.

The UK market is therefore tied up for several years. Would sign up to Apple TV though if they did get major rights to Premier and Champions League football as would be cheaper than signing up to several other subscription services. If it was just like Amazon's current deal which covers very little then wouldn't be worth it
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I pray it happens ?????
 
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I hope not otherwise we'll have to sit through 45 minutes of "what's new with our streaming service" at the start of every iPhone and Mac product launch webcast.
 
This is a great graphic showing the top 100 most watched shows (not just sports) in America in 2021. All the darker-colored footballs (or egg-shaped handballs to others) are NFL broadcasts. Wow. The NFL 'owns' America. Baseball, Pro Basketball, Pro Hockey don't even make the list.

The AVERAGE game of American football gets 17 million viewers. (The Super Bowl gets over 100 million viewers)
Compare that to Premiere League Soccer which gets 0.4 million viewers on average.

In the United States, Apple is far better going after the NFL.

IMG_6906.JPG
 
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Amacfa said:
better than what it was.

Before if you wanted to watch hbo, you spent like $80–$100 with zero on demand.

Now you can pay $15 once, watch all the content, and cancel with zero obligations
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In the UK on NowTV it is £15 for a race weekend. Or you have to have Sky TV and then pay extra for sports and then again for F1. Basically, I just don't watch it live anymore. I can afford it, but it's so far off the mark for value it's comical.
 
TheOldChevy said:
They should go in two directions:
* Motorsport (from F1 to boat and plane racing, including the Women series and the electric series)
* Extreme sports (climbing, diving, skating...)

This would make Apple different, while providing the thrill.
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I don’t watch these, major US sports or soccer and I agree.

It doesn’t matter what channel/service main sports are on I’m still never going to be interested, but if I could watch quality extreme sports in 4K now that’s a different story and something I would at least make an effort to check it out and likely regularly watch.
 
This is a smart move if it happens. The majority of most watched programming is live sports with NFL as the obvious leader.
 
The trick here would be to do something slightly oblique. Going international has worked well for Apple in the past eg the iPod and iTunes were available worldwide much quicker than the competition. Cricket springs to mind as it’s massive in India, and watched in countries which all speak English to an extent, and the rights would be cheaper. I’d also look to them buying the rights to comedies and classic films (think black and white) to increase their catalogue.
 
I'll believe it when I see it. There has been great opportunities for Apple to spend a little of the hoard to buy the accumulated libraries of whole studios (WB, 20th Century Fox, etc) in the recent past. Rumors flew that they might. Then others actually acquired them (AT&T, Disney) and the stories say Apple didn't even bid.

That NFL Thursday Night Football deal was up for bidders and Apple could have bid. Did they? At all? And Amazon ended up with that one.

The MGM Film Studio was just up for sale. Did Apple bid for that one? No? Amazon acquired that library too, for less than 3X the Beats deal Apple did do.

The Universal Studios acquisition wasn't really that long ago, but not as recent as these others. Did Apple bid against Comcast for that one?

There's ongoing rumors that Sony/Columbia Pictures could be acquired. Is Apple interested? Are they trying at all for it?

NFL Sunday Ticket was previously up for bids in 2014. Various players showed legit interest. Was Apple in that bidding at all? AT&T apparently renewed it then for about $1.5B/yr so not exactly break Apple-type money. Did they bid?

Imagine AppleTV with the WB library, 20th Century Fox library (perhaps getting to keep regional Fox Sports channels/deals too?), MGM, Columbia, Universal and/or NFL Thursday Night football and (what was) Fox regional sports channels, etc. Most of the opportunities could have been purchased for small-to-middling chunks of the cash hoard and/or cheap debt. Was Apple at least in the bidding? What's different this time?
 
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Abazigal said:
I read somewhere recently about how the Apple Music team works with the AirPods team to optimise experiences and I think there is some merit in Apple acquiring sports content, but think the article doesn’t quite go deep enough into analysing just why Apple might want to do so.

In summary, Apple wouldn’t do it simply to boost TV+ subscriber numbers (because Apple isn’t the only company with big pockets, and a bidding war can get ugly very quickly). Rather, if Apple does bid for sports content, I suspect it’s because Apple thinks they can reinvent the manner in which sports is consumed.

Just like how Fitness+ adds value to an Apple Watch, sports could make sense when consumed in a VR / AR setting. Perhaps simulate actually been present at a live stadium, with the UI allowing for consumers to interact with these games in some novel manner.

When it comes to Apple, it often helps to think about how such acquisitions lend themselves to enabling new experiences. Rather than simply being solely for additional subscription / hardware revenue.
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Exactly.

Not that they would launch this out of the gate, but virtually attending events from the couch in your goggles is going to be a thing. At some point. Already starting to happen. Will it replace being at a concert/event? In some ways, yes. I’m other ways, no. But will it make streaming the concert/event a much more immersive exleriences? Undoubtedly. I believe THAT is what’s behind Apple’s AR/AR ambitions.
 
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One of the reasons I like Football is that they don't have games all the time. I would never have time to follow Basketball, Baseball, Hockey, Soccer. With Football, it is more or less focused with Sunday if you are just following one team. Also I love how playoffs work. Instead of doing up 7 games, it is 1 game and if you lose you are out. That makes it more real for the players and the fans and it is less of a time investment and having to sit thru more advertisements.
 
I'm so ready for Sunday Ticket to be off DirecTV. If you live in an area they service, you cannot just subscribe to the package. College students in the only other loophole.
 
HobeSoundDarryl said:
I'll believe it when I see it. There has been great opportunities for Apple to spend a little of the hoard to buy the accumulated libraries of whole studios (WB, 20th Century Fox, etc) in the recent past. Rumors flew that they might. Then others actually acquired them (AT&T, Disney) and the stories say Apple didn't even bid.

That NFL Thursday Night Football deal was up for bidders and Apple could have bid. Did they? At all? And Amazon ended up with that one.

The MGM Film Studio was just up for sale. Did Apple bid for that one? No? Amazon acquired that library too, for less than 3X the Beats deal Apple did do.

There's ongoing rumors that Sony/Columbia Pictures could be acquired. Is Apple interested? Are they trying at all for it?

Imagine AppleTV with the WB library, 20th Century Fox library (perhaps getting to keep regional Fox Sports channels/deals too?), MGM, Columbia and/or NFL Thursday Night football and (what was) Fox regional sports channels, etc. Most of the opportunities could have been purchased for small-to-middling chunks of the cash hoard and/or cheap debt. Was Apple at least in the bidding? What's different this time?
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I think acquiring studios is more of a long term strategy that involves a lot of investment and pivoting to market trends. I'm guessing they missed on a couple because either they felt it was too much for them or they were very uncertain of the risk involved

This specific strategy reminds me of a short term approach where maybe their goal is to get more users into their system as well as improve retention. It's without a doubt that AppleTV as a whole has been pretty lackluster outside of Apple echo chambers. People generally know about it, but it hasn't had the trending success that other platforms have yet
 
That’s what I like to hear. Steal Sunday Ticket and MLS for me please. Throw in Premier League too. I’d be more likely to pay for Sunday Ticket if I didn’t have to jump through all the hoops DTV has.
 
lazyrighteye said:
Exactly.

Not that they would launch this out of the gate, but virtually attending events from the couch in your goggles is going to be a thing. At some point. Already starting to happen. Will it replace being at a concert/event? In some ways, yes. I’m other ways, no. But will it make streaming the concert/event a much more immersive exleriences? Undoubtedly. I believe THAT is what’s behind Apple’s AR/AR ambitions.
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As someone who hasn't been to cinemas in ages, and who hates crowds and travelling, I would totally be on board this.
 
After the success of Ted Lasso season 1, who ever decided the direction in which Ted Lasso season 2 would go; as long as that team is incharge of programming, I don't see how Apple TV+ will succeed, no matter how much money gets pumped into it.

And I find it hard to believe 20 million people pay for the service.

For the amount of money thats being put in and the quality of production in Apple TV+, its really sad that they cant figure out what's entertaining and what's not. If someone at Apple in-charge of programming is reading this, here is a hint: Look at all the top shows on Netflix and understand what people are watching, rather than your idea of what people should watch.
 
GuilleA said:
But is it ready to spend billions on Siri and Apple Maps for the rest of the world? I don't give a **** about American football.
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No-one cares you don’t give a ****. Apple is an American made company and this is reference to an American sport, so gtfo
Seanm87 said:
Don't care for American sports, I just want them or Amazon to buy the premier league!
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So why are you here? This is specifically about American sports. No-one cares.
 
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HobeSoundDarryl said:
I'll believe it when I see it. There has been great opportunities for Apple to spend a little of the hoard to buy the accumulated libraries of whole studios (WB, 20th Century Fox, etc) in the recent past. Rumors flew that they might. Then others actually acquired them (AT&T, Disney) and the stories say Apple didn't even bid.

That NFL Thursday Night Football deal was up for bidders and Apple could have bid. Did they? At all? And Amazon ended up with that one.

The MGM Film Studio was just up for sale. Did Apple bid for that one? No? Amazon acquired that library too, for less than 3X the Beats deal Apple did do.

The Universal Studios acquisition wasn't really that long, but not as recent as these others. Did Apple bid against Comcast for that one?

There's ongoing rumors that Sony/Columbia Pictures could be acquired. Is Apple interested? Are they trying at all for it?

Imagine AppleTV with the WB library, 20th Century Fox library (perhaps getting to keep regional Fox Sports channels/deals too?), MGM, Columbia, Universal and/or NFL Thursday Night football and (what was) Fox regional sports channels, etc. Most of the opportunities could have been purchased for small-to-middling chunks of the cash hoard and/or cheap debt. Was Apple at least in the bidding? What's different this time?
Click to expand...
I don't think Apple is interested in acquiring a back catalogue for TV+. The way I view their streaming service, the intent is to use original content to get users to use the TV app, where they can then sell additional iTunes content and channels, deriving additional revenue. There is no logic in acquiring say, all the James Bond movies and giving them to users for free and killing any incentive to purchase those movies of their own.

The best way of covering Apple is to begin with Apple. Start with Apple, and then move outwards and analyse the industry that Apple operates in. Apple does a lot of things differently, and if all people are doing is simply comparing Apple to everyone else and then go “Hey, Apple isn’t following what everyone else is doing, so I don’t think whatever Apple is doing is going to work”, I think they go down the wrong path.
 
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