At Apple’s latest presentation, sport got ahead of technology. Tim Cook announced the entry of his company into sports broadcasting. The MLB baseball doubleheader on Fridays is the first step in live sports for the world’s largest technology company. A bet of 85 million dollars (77 million euros), which could be followed by others.
Before announcing the new Mac Studio, or updates to the iPhone SE and iPad Air, brand followers who regularly attend conferences where the brand’s CEO announces its new releases found that the sport took a leading role in the presentation of the contents of the company’s audiovisual platform, Apple TV +.
“We are always looking for new ways to give you more, and with that in mind, we have something exciting to share. Introducing Friday Night Baseball. Two games on Fridays that you can only see on Apple TV +. We are very excited about this, it will be the best way to watch baseball anywhere Apple TV + is available, ”announced the executive of the apple company.
Apple’s first landing in live sports includes the broadcast of those two weekly games not only in the United States, but in eight other countries (Canada, Australia, Brazil, Japan, Mexico, Puerto Rico, South Korea and the United Kingdom ) to be joined by others later, plus a pre/post show, and access to replays and classic matches for users in the US and Canada.
Although no official economic data has been given on the value of this package of matches, its value could be around 85 million dollars a year, according to estimates by the American magazine Forbes. It could not be the only movement of the apple company in the sector, since other media position it as interested in broadcasting the Sunday games of the NFL American football (NFL Sunday Ticket), a contract for which it would have to disburse more than a billion dollars, as detailed Front Office Sports.
Apple’s objective is none other than to attract users to its audiovisual platform, a secondary business for now for its annual accounts, since of the 365,817 million dollars (333,300 million euros) that it billed in 2021, only 10.5% It comes from its television service -grouped together with its irpods headphones, the Apple Watch and other products-, about 38,367 million dollars (35,000 million euros). The sales of its star phone, the iPhone, reported five times more: 191,973 million dollars (about 175,000 million euros), 52% of its income last year.
THE SPORTS OFFENSIVE OF THE TECHNOLOGIES The apple company has a clear example in another of the dominators of the technology sector that in recent years has entered with a strong commitment to sports to promote its audiovisual content platform: Amazon.
The e-commerce giant started by buying a 20-match English Premier League season package in 2018, then snapped up Champions League fixtures in Germany or Italy in subsequent years, and a year ago snapped up the matches. Thursdays of the American football NFL for just over 1,320 million dollars (1,200 million euros) per season.
THE SERIES ABOUT FERNANDO ALONSO AND PAU GASOL Jeff Bezos’s company has also carried out important work in the production of sports documentaries, which in Spain have included productions with LaLiga or series on referents such as Fernando Alonso, Pau Gasol, Diego Pablo Simeone, Sergio Ramos, Fernando Torres or Carolina Marín , as well as English clubs such as Manchester City or Tottenham Hotspur. Will Apple follow that path? For now, Tim Cook’s company has announced a documentary series on the American football New England Patriots, to be titled The Dynasty (The dinasty) and a documentary on Los Angeles Lakers basketball star Magic Johnson, titled They Call Me Magic (They call me magic).
In addition, one of the latest successes of Apple TV + is Ted Lassoa series about an American football coach who is hired by an English European football team despite having no experience in the sport.
It remains to be seen if the gigantic company with the bitten apple takes this information as a clue and decides to enter football in its recent commitment to sports broadcasting.
