Apple are reportedly close to agreeing a deal with FIFA that would see the tech company win the worldwide television rights for the new, revised Club World Cup competition.
The New York Times report that this landmark deal could be worth more than $1billion as Apple look to take their next step into the world of live sports.
But what would the deal mean and does this mean Apple have their eyes on Premier League rights? We take a closer look.
What would the Club World Cup deal look like?
Should this deal go through, it would likely see FIFA’s revamped Club World Cup be available to subscribers of Apple TV+. Apple are believed to be paying $1billion for the rights to show it, but this is dramatically down from the $4billion that FIFA originally hoped to raise.
At this stage is it not clear if Apple will include any free-to-air rights, something which is concerning some FIFA executives, according to the NYT report.
The tournament itself is due to be expanded to 32 teams and would take place in the USA between June 15 and July 13, 2025. It is due to feature 12 teams from Europe, based on UEFA’s four-year ranking, plus a varying number of teams from FIFA’s other potential organisations.
Apple’s existing sporting rights
Should Apple close out a deal here, it would be their third set of live sport streaming rights. They followed up an initial deal to stream Major League Baseball with with a ten-year agreement for the global sporting rights to Major League Soccer in 2022, which was worth $2.5billion and features Lionel Messi front and centre of their slick marketing efforts.
Live sports have built traction for streaming services in recent years, with Amazon Prime streaming Thursday night NFL games since 2022, while Peacock streamed a NFL playoff game last year. Netflix have traditionally focused on sports documentaries, but have signed a multibillion deal with the WWE and will be streaming Mike Tyson’s boxing match against YouTube star Jake Paul this summer.
In the UK, Amazon have streamed Premier League rights since the 2019/20 season, but their deal ends in 2025.
Would this deal be good for football?
As you’d expect, there are several perspectives here. Apple will argue that their slick marketing and branding machine will give this new tournament more exposure and drum up interest significantly.
On the other side of the coin, the Club World Cup has traditionally be a fringe tournament in the UK and if the whole competition is paywalled, only fans of the teams competing and football die-hards would be likely to put their hands in their pockets and pay out for it.
What is does do however, is raise more questions about the future of football streaming rights and what Apple’s next move may be.
What next?
With Apple increasing their sports portfolio, the next logical question to ask here is whether or not they are going to bid for Premier League rights in the future.
The latest domestic Premier League TV deal was announced at the end of last year and saw Sky Sports and TNT Sports seal rights for four seasons between 2025 and 2029, with Amazon missing out this time.
DAZN backed out of the bidding, but have made it clear they want to win these rights in the future, with Disney and Apple both also rumoured to be biding their time.
This sets up a potentially fascinating round of bidding when the next round of rights are up for grabs in three year’s time, as these tech disruptors will also no doubt push to end the 3pm blackout rule.
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