New York Yankees’ Giancarlo Stanton #27 is greeted by teammate Aaron Judge #99 after hitting a two-run homer in the first inning during the game between the New York Yankees and Washington Nationals at Nationals Park on Thursday, July 23 2020 in Washington, DC.
Alex Trautwig | Major League Baseball | Getty Images
The most anticipated sporting match on TV this Friday will not be on TV.
It is streamed on Apple TV+.
Apple’s streaming service has exclusive rights to the Red Sox playing the Yankees on Friday. The game captured attention not only because the Yankees are likely playoff-bound and face their arch-rival, but also because their star hitter Aaron Judge is closing in on the American League home run record and could break it on Friday. .
It’s a major test of Apple’s ambition to become a live sports service and whether high-profile games can boost Apple’s subscriber base or serve other business purposes, such as that make Apple products more valuable to current users. Apple’s baseball shows don’t follow a single team, instead opting for one or two marquee games each Friday night. But while there have been high-profile games and big stars this year, this Friday will see the biggest star on baseball’s most valuable team chasing a decades-old record.
Sports broadcasts can be a powerful tool to attract users to new services. For example, when Amazon Prime aired Thursday Night Football last week, it attracted the most new Prime signups over a three-hour period in the company’s history, surpassing major shopping days such as Black Friday. Friday, according to a memo seen by CNBC.
That said, professional football still attracts a lot more to the United States than baseball. (Nielsen says 13 million people watched Amazon’s NFL broadcast last week; 400,000 viewers is a good night for the YES Network, according to the New York Daily News. Amazon is a co-owner of YES.)
When Apple started streaming MLB earlier this year, it said the games were free “for a limited time,” but it hasn’t started charging for access to baseball games yet. Currently, users only need an Apple ID – an account – but don’t need to pay $5 a month for Apple TV+. Even though the service is free, some users have expressed frustration that the games are not on their normal channel with their normal streamers.
Expectations for Friday’s game are so high that the Yankees’ local YES channel tried unsuccessfully to snatch the broadcast from Apple, The New York Post reported Thursday.
Apple has never revealed subscriber or viewership numbers for any of its shows or shows on Apple TV+. It took a quality over quantity approach and focused on awards as a key metric for judging the success of its scripted shows.
Breaking away from its historical preferences, has created Apple TV+ apps for several non-Apple platforms, including Roku, Amazon’s Fire TV, Google TV and game consoles, allowing its shows to reach a wider market .
In addition to baseball, Apple also has an agreement with Major League Soccer to exclusively broadcast its games. But the NFL remains the biggest sports streaming prize. As CNBC previously reported, Apple has bid for NFL Sunday Ticket, an out-of-market NFL game rights package, in competition with Amazon and ESPN parent Disney.
Apple declined to comment on viewership numbers.
