It has never been a better time—or a worse time—to be a sports fan, according to Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services.
“It’s never been a better time, because, let’s face it, every sport in the world is available in some fashion or another to watch—that wasn’t the case not that many years back,” Cue said on stage at the Autosport Business Exchange NYC conference on Wednesday.
“The problem though, is we all know we can all watch everything, but it’s very hard to find. You have to sign up for 1,200 subscriptions around them.”
“And if you’re traveling, you’re screwed,” he continued. “It’s not a great experience for customers.”
As sports leagues transition away from traditional broadcasting into the age of streaming, the media rights deals they’ve made with preexisting platforms has resulted in a patchwork of viewing plans. There are various stipulations of these deals—Apple TV airs Major League Baseball games on Friday nights, for example, while MLB.TV airs all match-ups, but has blackouts that only permit subscribers to watch out-of-market games. That requires purchasing multiple subscriptions so die-hard fans never miss a game.
These complexities have come at the expense of the consumer, who now pays an average of $88 per month to watch sports on streaming platforms versus $64 per month for those not watching sports, according to tech research firm InterDigital. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll published last month found about half of respondents who follow sports were at least “somewhat” dissatisfied with the cost of streaming and cable services. About 30% resort to password sharing of some kind to increase access to other streaming platforms.
Cue suggested that with the streaming fragmentation having a notable impact on the fan’s viewing experience, changes would be needed to keep the estimated $2.65 trillion sports industry growing.
“If we want people to watch games, and we want all of sports to grow, some of these things need to be fixed,” he said.
Changes to sports streaming
Cue warns that for U.S. Leagues like the NFL, changes to streaming aren’t going to happen anytime soon. According to a Forbes analysis, in order to watch every football game during the 18-week regular season, it would cost fans more than $750. The games span across 10 different networks and platforms.
“But that doesn’t mean that a league or a sport could[n’t] demand its partners to work together, for example, to provide a better experience,” Cue said.
The Apple exec said leagues could eliminate blackouts, have more streaming bundles, and ask media partners to make accessible features that allow multitasking streams to show games happening simultaneously, even those on different platforms. Apple TV, for its own part, does not black out Major League Soccer matches based on a user’s locations. (The streaming service has a 10-year deal with MLS and airs all games on the app.)
Even when sports are locked into media-rights deals, there needs to be a focus on the user experience of watching the stream, Cue said. He claimed Apple has superior quality to other streaming services because it doesn’t compress its picture and has cameras installed at unique angles, including having an iPhone secured to a foul pole at a Major League ballpark.
Apple did not respond to Coins2Day’s request for comment.
“Let’s put the sports fan front and center,” Cue said. “That’s the customer, that’s the fan. That’s who we’re trying to address.”