Apple teams up Ted Lasso with MLS

It used to be Oscars, but the hotter trend among streaming companies right now is to compete for sporting trophies, in order to differentiate their content and lure new subscribers

In the latest move, Apple and Major League Soccer in the US have agreed a broadcasting rights package thought to be worth $2.5bn over 10 years.

From 2023, all live fixtures will air on a dedicated MLS streaming service available on the Apple TV app. Moving the league’s live broadcasts to streaming will allow MLS to expand its appeal overseas as opposed to “being the North American version of the global game,” MLS commissioner Don Garber said.

It also represents a different strategy from the English Premier League, which has split rights between different broadcasters, including Amazon’s streaming service. “No fragmentation, no frustration — just the flexibility to sign up for one convenient service that gives you everything MLS,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice-president of services.

Apple is a latecomer to the streaming party, but the deal follows it striking an agreement with Major League Baseball to broadcast Friday night games. “Sports clearly represents the next battleground for ownership of the living room among the big tech companies”, said Paolo Pescatore, tech and media analyst for PP Foresight.

ESPN, Disney’s sports platform, is set to lose MLS rights and the House of Mouse also appears to have suffered a setback in India, where it has won television broadcast rights to cricket’s Indian Premier League, but is losing its existing streaming rights — outbid by Viacom18, a joint venture between Reliance Industries, Paramount and a James Murdoch investor group. Its Indian streaming unit Disney Plus Hotstar, with 40mn subscribers, has been an engine of growth for Disney Plus, thanks largely to the IPL.

“For a company that talks about streaming being their number one priority, spending $600mn a year for linear television . . . feels very difficult to digest”, said Rich Greenfield, analyst at LightShed. “[Disney] is clearly going to lose [streaming] subscribers”. 

But Disney had to weigh giving a foothold to a new streaming competitor against curbing its costs. Its Hotstar streaming subscribers pay only 76 cents a month compared to the $8 US customers are charged. The potential prize did not justify bidding an exorbitant amount for the digital rights, analysts had warned.

The Internet of (Five) Things

1. US defence contractor in NSO talks
L3Harris is in talks to buy the hacking technology behind Pegasus, the military-grade spyware developed by Israel’s NSO Group, a high-stakes manoeuvre that would place in American hands a tool that Washington has condemned for enabling transnational repression. Under the proposal, L3Harris, a top-10 US defence contractor, would acquire the code behind Pegasus as well as NSO’s engineers.

2. Nothing gets backing for transparent back
A consumer-electronics start-up called Nothing has secured financing of more than $200mn to launch its debut smartphone, in the first attempt for several years by a newcomer to crack a market dominated by Apple and Samsung. Nothing partially unveiled the design of its first smartphone, called Phone (1) on Wednesday, showing a transparent back.

3. Getting the drop on Drop servicing
Drop servicing involves the reselling of digital services, such as marketing, copywriting and creative work. Individuals act as internet “middlemen”, outsourcing clients’ projects to freelancers online and making their profits on the mark-up. Yasemin Craggs Mersinoglu looks at the growth of this digital twist on subcontracting.

4. Goodbye Internet Explorer, as Gates snubs crypto
After more than a quarter of a century of web browsing, “Internet Explorer (IE) is officially retired and out of support as of today,” said Microsoft. Bill Gates had introduced it in 1995. On Tuesday, he told Techcrunch he preferred companies that made products rather than cryptocurrency and NFT investments, which were “100 per cent based on greater fool theory”.

5. WorldCom’s fall has lessons for today
Twenty years ago next week, a massive accounting scandal hit a leading US growth company, drove it into bankruptcy and spurred tighter accounting and securities laws that still shape America today. With the US currently tipping into another tech-driven bear market, WorldCom’s $104bn bankruptcy (still the third-largest in US history) contains important warnings, writes Brooke Masters.

Tech tools — Skarper on a bike

Six-time Olympic and 11-time World Champion track cyclist Sir Chris Hoy (pictured) is a backer of Skarper, which was unveiled today, and he may have won more medals if he’d had this electric assistance added to his conventional bike. Developed by a London start-up, Skarper is an ultralight, clip-on motor technology, transforming any bike into an eBike with no modification required to the frame or wheels, according to its makers. Bikeradar got to try it out and was impressed. I’m less enamoured with the price and delivery date — around £1,000 and 2023.