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.