Apple senior vice president of Services, Eddy Cue has practically ruled out buying a share of broadcasting rights to the Premier League as they apparently want “global rights” similar to their deal with Major League Soccer.
In the summer of 2022, Apple made their first dive into the waters of live football broadcasting, signing a lengthy deal with Major League Soccer.
The intriguing 10-year partnership deal of Apple is to display all MLS games all over the globe.
This partnership deal has been lauded as a “historic first for a major professional sports league”.
Apple have over the years been linked with offers to buy Premier League and Champions League rights.
However, Eddy Cue section of Apple’s leadership team have revealed they would only want deals in exact manner like the one they have with the MLS.
Cue expressed that he doesn’t like the word exclusivity due to the fact that it is paramount but not as paramount as the global marketing rights are to apple.
Eddy Cue boasts that Apple are a global brand with worldwide acclaim
The 58-year-old said confidently that the technology giant are a worldwide brand, with customers spread across every country.
He said: “We’re a global company, we have customers in every country in the world, a large number of customers, and it’s not exciting for me to have something that you can have but you can’t have”.
The assertion of the American basically signifies that Apple don’t want to own rights to some matches but entire games and they want to display it to the entire world.
Eddy Cue also noted the work that has been done by the American multinational technology company in projecting the MLS.
The 58-year-old said: “We’ve done some things like MLS 360 (providing live look-ins from every match), we’ve done the multi-viewing of games, which is again very difficult to do in other environments. And this is nothing.”
The senior vice president of Services of Apple also revealed the angle the technology giant are looking at such deals from.
He stated: “We’re all in on this as an investment point of view, so it doesn’t work unless it’s something significant.”
Eddy Cue also highlighted that their main priority is the partnership with the MLS and they want it to be a massive success.
The American said: “This (MLS deal) is our number one thing, and we want it to be a huge success.”
Apple has ruled out buying Premier League rights
Additionally, he expressed that if they are to embark on another project aside from the MLS, it’s not “because it would be number two but because it would be another number one”.
Eddy Cue joined Apple in 1989 and was instrumental in the production of the Apple online store in 1998, the iTunes Store in 2003, and the App Store in 2008.
The 58-year-old also played an instrumental role in developing Apple’s award-winning iLife suite of applications.
It was disclosed in April that Apple were looking to acquire Premier League streaming rights but it is uncertain their next line of action following the statements made by Eddy Cue.
The kind of deal Technology giant, Apple has with Major League Soccer
Both parties got into a partnership on the 14th of June, 2022 and these are what the partnership entails.
The partnership will allow fans to watch the entire MLS, Leagues Cup, select MLS NEXT Pro and MLS NEXT matches in the Apple TV app.
The exclusive partnership which runs from 2023 till 2032 offers fans the chance to watch the complete MLS games by subscribing to a new MLS streaming service that will be available on the Apple TV app.
This service provided by the technology giant will include game replays, highlights, analysis and other top programming.
According to Apple, some MLS and Leagues Cup games will be available at no extra cost to Apple TV+ subscribers.
A limited number of matches will be available for free on the Apple Television platform.
Access to the new MLS streaming service will be added as an addition to the MLS full-season ticket packages.
The content of Major League Soccer available on the Apple TV app will be on all devices where the app is accessible, including iPhone and iPad.
The major pushback and their hesitation in not taking any possible Premier League deal is because they want to get rights which enable them to cover the entire Premier League matches and not selected matches.
With Major League Soccer, Apple basically cover all the games and they show it globally to their teeming audience.
