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?

Messi in Miami is huge for Apple and MLS Season Pass

By

That headline right there? It may well be the understatement of the year. Forget Apple Vision Pro. Forget the new iPhone 15 this fall. Forget new Macs and AirPods.

Lionel Messi will play for Inter Miami.

Recommended Videos

And now that the greatest living football (soccer!) player in the world is headed to the U.S. and Major League Soccer, Apple’s MLS Season Pass subscription is about to land what is sure to be a pretty big bump in subscribers.

Inter Miami on MLS Season Pass.
Phil Nickinson/Digital Trends

Just how many more MLS Season Pass subscriptions will there be with the move? We likely won’t know. Apple doesn’t give numbers. Neither does MLS. But this much is certain: If you want to watch all the Inter Miami matches you want, you’re going to need MLS Season Pass. Apple knows it. MLS knows it. And Messi knows it. And just before the transfer was made official (or as official as it gets until Messi steps on the pitch in South Florida), The Athletic reported that “MLS and Apple have discussed offering Messi a share of the revenue generated by new subscribers to MLS Season Pass.” That’s one player out of about 870 or so who make up the 29 teams’ 30-player rosters, assuming others don’t get any sort of the same deal.

Related

For its part, MLS released a statement, saying: “We are pleased that Lionel Messi has stated that he intends to join Inter Miami and Major League Soccer this summer. Although work remains to finalize a formal agreement, we look forward to welcoming one of the greatest soccer players of all time to our League.”

This is the sort of thing we haven’t really seen in the streaming era. You could maybe make the argument that NBA League Pass is in the same sort of ballpark (excuse the mixed sports metaphor) with some of its superstars. But even then, we’re talking about a different sort of dominance with Messi — who, by the way, is coming off  the storybook 2022 FIFA World Cup championship with the Argentina national team. But because soccer (football!) simply doesn’t have the same sort of television coverage in the U.S. that the NBA, NFL, or Major League Baseball enjoy, there’s just not as much of a chance for anyone and everyone to watch a single team.

For that, it’s back to MLS Season Pass. And the timing really couldn’t be better. The 2023 MLS Season has reached the halfway mark, and as such, MLS Season Pass is down to $49 for the rest of the season. That’s half off the full-season price this year. And while there’s no guarantee just how long Messi will play in MLS (David Beckham spent two years of his five-year contract with the L.A. Galaxy on loan from AC Milan in Italy), any amount of time is good for MLS — and good for Apple. And that’s obviously even more true going into the 2024 season.

So if you’ve yet to check it out, it’s time. MLS Season Pass is available in the Apple TV app across all major platforms. And if you’re watching on Apple TV hardware, you’ll be able to reap the benefit of Apple’s new multiview implementation, so you can watch more than just Messi on match days.

But why would you want to?

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…
What is Apple TV+? Pricing, features, how to get it, and more
The Apple TV+ home screen with an image from Invasion.

Since its launch in November of 2019, Apple TV+ has elbowed its way on to the playing field of streaming services from Netflix and Amazon Prime Video to Disney+, Max, Hulu, and a plethora of others to become, for many, a go-to option for movies, TV series, and sports. Since then the ad-free service has amassed an estimated 25 million subscribers globally, with many more than that reportedly cashing in on the company's penchant for free promotional subscriptions after you buy a new Apple device like an iPhone or MacBook.

What sets Apple TV+ apart from the rest of the herd is that it's the only service that offers exclusively original content and only its own original content; meaning no seasons of Rick and Morty or Friends licensed from their respective networks and no blockbuster flicks from other studios, but you can get those elsewhere. This may or may not be a bad thing, as so far Apple has done a pretty good job at making some of the most compelling original content out there, including award-winning series such as Ted Lasso, The Morning Show, and Severance to some of the best sci-fi series around, like Silo and Invasion, as well as live sports from Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer.

Read more
Six things we’ve learned so far from MLS Season Pass on Apple TV
MLS Season Pass on Apple TV.

There's light at the end of the tunnel that is the 2023 MLS season. And that tunnel looks different than in previous years, for so many reasons. Chief among them is that domestic streaming rights shifted from ESPN+ to MLS Season Pass on Apple TV. That's a big deal, not because ESPN+ was doing a particularly bad job, but because it made it simple to watch every match.

But the metaphorical reality distortion field that surrounds Apple also happens to, at times, be true. It's evident in the products, and it's also apparent in the services.

Read more
Apple discounts MLS Season pass for the rest of the season
Lionel Messi on MLS Season Pass.

If you're a fan of Major League Soccer who somehow hasn't yet ponied up for MLS Season Pass, now's the time to take another look. The service, which is exclusively on the Apple TV app across all streaming platforms, has been discounted again for the rest of the 2023 season.

You can now get access to every MLS game — no blackouts, by the way — for just $15 a month, or $29 for the rest of the season. And if you're already a subscriber of Apple TV+ (that's Apple's own premium streaming service where you can watch things like Ted Lasso and Hijack), you'll get everything for $13 a month or $25 for the rest of the season.

Read more