Massive news in Sports media this week, with a technology company buying the media rights to a professional sports league. My Venn Diagram of technology news, Sports TV rights, and sports in general is a perfect circle, so while there are definitely other things worth talking about over the past couple days, the Apple deal with Major League Soccer will dominate today.
MLS and Apple Reach Landmark Media Rights Deal
On Tuesday, news that Apple was purchasing the rights to Major League Soccer (MLS) was breaking. I chose to wait to talk about it since there were still many unknowns, and now we have details.
Typically media rights for sports leagues are negotiated at multiple levels. There are national deals that broadcast games to a large audience, usually the entire country. Local or regional deals that broadcast the majority of games for a local team in the local market. Lastly, leagues will negotiate deals with outside markets, usually different countries. Good examples of this are NHL, NBA, and NBA TV deals where each team has a local broadcaster, and the leagues have national broadcast partners, as well as international agreements.
The deal that Apple has struck with MLS is unlike any other sports media rights deal seen before, and completely blows up that model. The deal that MLS and Apple have agreed to replaces all of those agreements. Apple will stream every single MLS game through its Apple TV app, worldwide. Apple will pay a minimum of $2.5 Billion USD over 10 years for this deal. There will be no local broadcast, no separate national broadcast. There will be a single broadcast of each game. MLS will produce each game, including providing the play by play crew, and Apple will broadcast those games.
As stated, the games will be streamed through the Apple TV app. A limited number of games will be made available for free and as yet unknown number of other games will be available to subscribers to the Apple TV+ subscription service. But most of the games will be available through a new paid service that does not yet have a name. Viewers will pay a monthly or yearly fee for the ability to watch every MLS game. Viewers do not have to be a subscriber to Apple TV+ to use the MLS service, but they will need to use the Apple TV app to watch games. We do not know how much this will cost yet, those details will probably not be announced until early 2023.
Traditional broadcasters may still be able to air a number of games. MLS says it remains in negotiations with ESPN in the US about airing a number of games on that network, likely fewer than the 34 that will air this season. So the door does remain open to some games on traditional TV.
In Canada, Bell Media’s deal to broadcast games on CTV and TSN expires at the end of this year, and there is no word on if there will be any games on those channels next year, or if Apple TV+ will be the only way to watch MLS games in Canada going forward.
It is worth noting that Apple TV does not require Apple hardware anymore. Whilere there is a set top box called Apple TV, and Apple TV apps on every device sold by Apple, most smart TV platforms have Apple TV apps now, and there are apps available for Roku, Amazon Fire TV Sticks, and Chromecast with Google TV. Most people should have a way of accessing the Apple TV app today.
I could write 1000 more words about this, as it really does have the potential to dramatically change how professional sports leagues look at media deals in the future. I will be watching this very closely.
https://www.cbc.ca/sports/soccer/mls/mls-apple-streaming-partnership-1.6488232
Internet Explorer Reaches End of Life
You may be forgiven if you thought this happened a long time ago, and technically the headline isn’t even true, but Microsoft has ended support for Internet Explorer in most versions of Windows. While Microsoft launched the Edge browser way back in 2015, Internet Explorer was still included in Windows 10 for compatibility reasons. Internext Explorer was hidden from most users, but it was there. Now, the company has ended support for the browser in the consumer versions of Windows 10. Users who try to launch Internet Explorer in Windows 10 will now be prompted to instead use Microsoft Edge. The company says it plans to issue an update to Windows 10 in the future that will completely disable Internet Explorer altogether. However, it is worth noting that Internet Explorer is still supported on Windows 8.1, as well as in business versions of Windows like Windows 10’s long term service version for enterprises. So while the once dominant browser is now a thing of the past for most people (and likely was many years ago), for some users, it may kick around for a little while longer.
https://www.thurrott.com/cloud/268780/internet-explorer-11-retirement
YouTube Launches Official Way for Creators to Issue Corrections
Most of us have watched a YouTube video with an error in it. Usually the host mis-speaks, or misses something in their video. YouTube doesn’t let creators edit videos after the fact, and for most creators deleting and re-uploading a new video is a process that can significantly impact their ability to make money on that video. Now there is a solution from YouTube in the form of a card overlay on a video with the text “correction.” Viewers clicking on that card will be able to see information on a correction the creator wants to make about a video. This can be added to the video after the fact, but does not change the video contents nor does it require removing the video entirely.
While I’m sure there are probably better ways to do this, for a service at the scale of YouTube, this looks to be a decent, if imperfect solution.
https://www.androidpolice.com/youtube-corrections-feature-makes-changes-obvious/
Amid Crypto Crash, Crypto Companies Face A Tough Road
Coinbase, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, is laying off about 1100 staff, or about 14% of its workforce. This massive culling of staff comes as the price of Bitcoin and Etherium falls significantly from their all time highs. Coinbase has admitted that the company grew too much too quickly, and is not able to sustain itself at current levels.
The current fall of cryptocurrencies is likely not related to any one factor, but a multitude of factors. Rising interest rates and inflation are causing investors to look at their portfolios, and crypto appears to be one casualty. And Bitcoin continues the trend of having higher highs and lower lows than the rest of the overall market. We will see how many of the large crypto companies survive this time.
Disclosure: I previously worked for a company that is in the cryptocurrency business.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/14/23167219/coinbase-layoffs-crypto-winter-ceo-bitcoin-prices