Apple’s “Friday Night Baseball” games will be available to anyone with internet access across devices where Apple TV+ can be found, including on the Apple TV app on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV 4K and HD, and on tv.apple.com along with smart TVs, gaming consoles, and cable set-top boxes. “Friday Night Baseball” will be available on Apple TV+ in the United States, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Japan, Mexico, Puerto Rico, South Korea, and the United Kingdom, and for a limited time, without the need for a subscription.
Apple’s first foray into live sports starts on Friday with the broadcast of two Major League Baseball games on Apple TV+.
The broadcast will include several on-screen tie-ins with Apple products, including on-screen graphics highlighting batter walk-up music available on Apple Music and baseball trivia with Siri.
The “Friday Night Baseball” free live sports launch highlights the company’s strategy of marketing its streaming service to potential subscribers. The broadcast’s promotion of other Apple services also underscores what looks to be a deep production-based partnership with MLB.
The broadcast is also a test of whether Apple’s strategy to offer TV+ on non-Apple platforms, like the web, other set-top boxes, or gaming consoles, can significantly boost its audience.
Apple and pro baseball share a long history: MLB released one of the first apps for the iPhone back in 2008.
MacDailyNews Take: That MLB app was, and remains, one of the best sports apps ever made.
The people running MLBAM [MLB Advanced Media] get it, as evidenced by, among many other things, the MLB.com At Bat app which we’ve long praised. – MacDailyNews, March 20, 2015
MacDailyNews Note: The “Friday Night Baseball” doubleheader on Apple TV+ premieres on Friday, April 8th with:
• New York Mets vs. Washington Nationals, live from Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., beginning at 7:00 p.m. ET
• Houston Astros vs. Los Angeles Angels, live from Angel Stadium in Anaheim, California, beginning at 9:30 p.m. ET
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Until today Apple TV+ was among a few streaming services not having content, discriminating policies towards their customers based on their residency.
By launching “Friday Night Baseball” Apple will embrace such policies.
By providing exclusive content to Apple TV+ subscribers of 9 countries, means that Apple TV+ subscribers in 165 countries (where Apple TV+ is marketed) are left out.
What I can’t ignore is the fact that Apple will pay $85 million annually to bring “Friday Night Baseball” to the streaming service. What it effectively means to me and the majority of Apple TV+ subscribers is that Apple TV+ content budget will lack $85 million annually. Will it be one or two less TV series to be produced or smaller budget for the rest I can’t tell. To my knowledge, Apple TV+ has a single budget, otherwise we would have already seen different content produced based on regions. An argument can be made that this annual $85 million comes out of TV+ budget and the success of “Friday Night Baseball” will bring subscriber growth in selected demographics, thus making “Friday Night Baseball” to pay for itself or even help to finance other projects. I don’t know and I am not sure that even Luca Maestri can give a good answer.
Apple donated the software to run the S.A.B.R.E organization (Bill James statistical society) many, many years ago. Very happy to see this association with MLB. I pay for the annual MLB.com service, the best bargain in streaming sports by a long shot so it does nothing for me personally. Great to see Apple muscle it’s way into this space.
Come to think of it, handling “trivia” is perfect for Siri. Beyond that, it’s a coin-flip, with frustration.
Siri free for about 2 yrs. Life is better.