The Real Reason Apple TV Is Ditching MLS (And What It Means For The League's Future)
With Apple TV ending its exclusive media rights deal with MLS three years early, Don Garber's legacy now hinges on the league's ability to grow following the 2026 World Cup.
Major League Soccer recently announced two strategic decisions that could fundamentally reshape the league’s competitive and commercial positioning.
First, the league announced that it will change its annual schedule to adopt a summer-to-spring calendar. By aligning its schedule with other international soccer leagues, MLS says it will optimize global transfer activity and maximize summer signings, while also helping star players miss fewer games due to FIFA scheduling conflicts.
Secondly, and more importantly, Apple TV and MLS also announced last week that they will be ending their exclusive media rights agreement three years early. As part of the early termination agreement, Apple TV has agreed to 1) remove its MLS Season Pass paywall, giving all Apple TV subscribers access to MLS content at no additional cost and 2) increase its total payment to MLS by $50 million from 2026 to 2029.
Everyone is saying this is great news, but I am not convinced that’s true. While MLS and Apple TV announced this as a mutual decision, the details tell a different story.
When MLS signed a 10-year, $2.5 billion exclusive media rights deal with Apple TV in 2022, Commissioner Don Garber called it “transformational.” Garber’s sales pitch was simple: With experts estimating that the majority of sports viewing would occur on streaming services by 2030, MLS could get ahead of the curve. Rather than dealing with the fragmented viewing environment consumers had grown accustomed to, MLS fans would be able to find all the league’s content in one place. And with $2.5 billion in media rights payments, plus revenue-sharing upside from MLS Season Pass sales, MLS owners would have more than enough money to invest in international talent.
This was a gamble, to say the least. Other sports leagues had dipped their toes into the streaming waters by signing smaller deals for exclusive events, but no major U.S. sports league was willing to commit all its inventory to a single streamer. That’s because it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that moving your games from widely accessible linear television to a paywalled service could reduce viewership long-term.