Apple, MLB in serious talks on an exclusive streaming deal

Apple, MLB in serious talks on an exclusive streaming deal

Apple might partner with MLB to live stream matches

Tech giant Apple has had an at length discussion about carrying Major League Baseball (MLB) games on their streaming platform from next season onwards. If the deal is closed between them, it would represent a significant milestone in the sports broadcasting industry since Apple has always been looked upon as a potential stop for major sports TV rights.

One of Apple’s top rival companies and another market leader, Amazon, has also already carved out an important piece of real estate in this space. Notably, the Jeff Bezos-founded company is set to become the exclusive home of NFL “Thursday Night Football” in the fall.

Talking about the number, a potential MLB-Apple deal would not be anywhere close to the magnitude of the NFL and Amazon as the latter is for more than a billion dollars per year. However, both Apple and MLB would be the entree for the technology behemoth into the coverage of top live sports as the space has been previously dominated by players such as ESPN, Fox Sports, NBC and CBS.

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Adding to this, the MLB games on Apple+ are also highly possible for next season, after the players and the owners have to agree to a new collective bargaining agreement. The owners are currently in the process of locking out the players.

On a conference call officially announcing the new “Sunday Night Baseball” crew, David Cone had said: “he expects to continue calling around 50 Yankee games for the YES Network. In a normal 162-game season, he usually did 70-90 games.” 

Twitter reactions on possible MLB-Apple streaming deal

Soon after the news of a likely deal between MLB and Apple came out in the public, there were plenty of comments all over social media. Here are some of the top tweets:

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