Talk that Apple may reach some kind of Apple TV+ deal with the NFL hits the rumor mill with some regularity, but maybe now the time is right for live sports on the company’s streaming service, media analysts suggested this week.
A report from The Athletic observes that NFL must renew nearly all its media contract[s] was mentioned as a catalyst for a new deal with AAPL. These reports observe that the NFL’s Monday Night package will likely remain with ESPN, it may choose to negotiate rights to Thursday or Sunday night sessions. DirectTV is not expected to renew the latter…
Apple’s services chief Eddy Cue is a football fan and in 2019 spoke with Sports Illustrated to discuss the company’s approach to sports TV. Among other things, he… said Apple wants to augment sports content with interactive elements, notifications and games stats.
Consider Hudl Sportscode. This system uses video capture and analysis and ingests other useful data to provide sports teams and management with in-depth information concerning games in progress and the performance of individual athletes. This technology has been made use of for over a decade and is now used by over 150,000 teams. Given the tech is already Mac compatible it’s quite hard not to see some opportunity to augment sports shows with personalized augmented content. This would be nice to have on television, but even better when using AR glasses for a real deep view of the action.
MacDailyNews Take: Imagine how much better watching sports on TV could be with something like Apple AR smartglasses! Imagine a baseball game with the strike zone visible at all times, you’ll have verifiable proof that the ump is blind in real time. You’ll see offsides clearly in football (soccer) and even in American football. Shot-tracking for golf and hockey. Stats for basketball, swimming, rugby, track and field, etc. League standings, records, etc. displayed in front of your eyes just by asking Siri. The sky’s the limit!
Read more in the recommended full article.
Anyone else miss the good ole days when MacDailyNews had articles about the Mac?
Miss “the good old days” when Apple was struggling to stay alive? Nope.
Apple is a much bigger, much more diverse company and MDN has a lot more to cover now than just Macs.
No one wants to watch fake SJW-BLM “sports” any more.
Most of us still like football, baseball, and basketball. Goose-stepping competitions do not seem to have caught on.
All I care about is AAPL taking the damned Sunday Ticket package from AT&T/DirecTV so I can go into my AppleTV+ app and watch any game I want with tech I use and not be forced to own tech from 30 years ago to use it. Whilst I’d prefer not to pay $50+/month, I’d sure prefer to pay and have the option to watch any game on my AppleTV/Mac/iPad/iPad than to continue not to have that option.
As it stands I can see the CBS regional and national games on CBS All Access, err Paramount+, the NBC games using my antenna, and the Fox and ESPN games I can only watch on my phone because I can’t get a signal with Fox and MNF is inexplicably not available via the ESPN+ sub I get with my Hulu/Disney subscription.
You can flame me as much as you want but as a spectator sport American football is just a bit more interesting than paint drying. Way too many stoppages which then affect the continuity of the game.
If you want to see fast contact sport then watch soccer or rugby league (not to be confused with rugby union). Even on a boring day rugby union is way more interesting than NFL. At least all of these games are played in next to real time (injuries etc.) but NFL, sorry it’s mostly a “bash fest” with too many breaks between plays.
I assume Apple will place trans athletes front and center (or is that front and far left?).
I want all professional sports to die, and for the athletes to die penniless.
What if there was a new kind of sports league?
In this league, anyone who wanted to play could simply sign up on their phone, and the system would form teams based on the players’ home addresses. This could result in 10,000 teams, but that’s fine. The first games would happen in neighborhood parks. Each team plays a neighboring team. The winning team can optionally choose the best player from the losing team to join them. (But would have to discard a player if they had too many.). Every time a game is played, half the teams in the league are eliminated.
After the first seven rounds, you’d have about 78 formidable teams, consisting entirely of unknowns. At this point, things would get interesting enough for live TV coverage, professional stadiums, and paying the players. Play continues until you have a superbowl with two teams, each having a 12 game winning streak!
Probably won’t be able to afford them but suddenly realised while reading the above that now that my hearing isn’t what it was and so much tv now prioritising atmosphere over verbal clarity, Apple glasses could one presumes, provide subtitles to a viewer without having to impose it on others. I can sure see an awful lot of minority use cases becoming extremely useful with technology of this nature.
Because nothing speaks credibility like “WWE”!
Sports are not the ‘entertainment’ they used to be.
I just hear more of the crap I’m trying to forget about.
That’s not entertaining, that’s preaching…