Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Audio / Video
  3. News

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Apple reportedly had 2 million subscribers to MLS Season Pass in 2023

By
Lionel Messi seen on a promo for MLS Season Pass on a TV.
Phil Nickinson / Digital Trends

We’re in the era of streaming sports exclusives. NFL Sunday Ticket is on YouTube and YouTube TV. Peacock has the English Premier League. Paramount+ has the Championship League. And we’re on the eve of the 2024 MLS season, whose matches can all be had on MLS Season Pass on Apple TV.

Apple is notoriously tight-lipped when it comes to any sort of numbers, whether it’s hardware or viewership But Alex Silverman at the Sports Business Journal cites two unnamed sources “with knowledge of the numbers” as saying that MLS Season Pass finished the 2023 season with more than 2 million subscribers.

Recommended Videos

It’s a little hard to put those numbers in any sort of context, though analytics firm Antenna estimated approximately the same sort of numbers for NFL Sunday Ticket by the end of September 2023. And complicating matters even more is that it includes paid subscribers, whether they watched at full price from the first match, or got in on a prorated deal further into the season. It also includes comped subscriptions, which MLS season ticket-holders receive. And T-Mobile subscribers also were able to watch for free. (We’ve been told that no such deal is in place yet for T-Mobile in 2024.)

Boosting the back half of the 2023 MLS season — and certainly a draw going into the 2024 campaign — was Inter Miami’s signing of Lionel Messi, who immediately found his image front and center on MLS Season Pass and it remains so today. Messi arrived in time to appear in (and win) the Leagues Cup, but wasn’t able to lift Inter Miami to a playoff run.

Every game for every team is available on MLS Season Pass, with no blackouts. Some games also are available on linear television.

MLS Season Pass subscriptions for the 2024 season are available now. It costs $15 a month or $99 for the season if you don’t also subscribe to Apple TV+, or $13/$79 if you do. MLS Season Pass is available in the Apple TV app on most major streaming platforms, on Apple devices, and in a web browser.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Phil Nickinson
Phil Nickinson
Section Editor, Audio/Video
Phil spent the 2000s making newspapers with the Pensacola (Fla.) News Journal, the 2010s with Android Central and then the…
You Asked: QLED and mini-LED burn-in, missing HDR, and Apple TV and HDMI 2.1
You Asked Ep 32 Feature

Can QLED and mini-LED TVs get burn-in? How can you solve the problem of not getting HDR from the YouTube app on Apple TV 4K? Speaking of Apple TV 4K, does it benefit from HDMI 2.1? And is using a computer monitor instead of a smart TV a good way to avoid privacy issues?

Can LED/LCD TVs Get Burn-In & More | You Asked Ep. 32
Apple TV and HDMI 2.1

Read more
Let’s discuss an Apple TV 4K with a camera
An actual picture of an Apple TV, with a camera lens added by Photoshop's generative AI feature.

This Apple TV with a camera is not real — it's a product of a real Apple TV 4K and Photoshop. And that's likely as close as you'll get to one. Phil Nickinson / Digital Trends

Here’s a not-so-secret secret about tech companies: They discuss all the things all of the time. Good ideas. Bad ideas. Good ideas that turn out to be bad. Bad ideas that, surprisingly, turn out to be good.

Read more
Apple (and Messi) offering a monthlong trial of MLS Season Pass
A Lionel Messi promo for MLS Season Pass on Apple TV.

If you're a soccer fan who hasn't yet taken advantage of MLS Season Pass on Apple TV, now's the time. Apple — and Lionel Messi — are offering a free one-month trial to the service that gets you every MLS game this season and then some. There are no blackouts, no out-of-market messes, just every minute of every game.

The deal takes you to (and through) Messi's Instagram account, where you'll do the ol' link in bio trick. Which, conveniently, takes you to this link.

Read more