The team’s inaugural season coincided with the start of MLS’ 10-year, $2.5 billion contract with Apple to exclusively stream the vast majority of the league’s matches, and a subscription beyond an Apple TV+ account is required to access that package ($14.99 monthly or $99 for the season, with a discount for Apple TV+ customers). That includes all the league’s regular-season and postseason matches, plus plenty of ancillary programming, and Apple does a fine job in showcasing MLS.

But how many people actually see the coverage is a key question.

City SC’s game last weekend was an Apple TV+ exclusive. So will be its contest Saturday (9:30 p.m. St. Louis time in San Diego), although that one also is being made available to Apple TV+ customers who do not purchase the “MLS Season Pass” package, as is the case with select games across the league throughout the season.

There again are a handful of MLS matches being shown on over-the-air and cable TV (Fox, FS1) this year, but City SC — and the league — in large part are out of view for most Americans. Apple and the league refuse to release subscriber figures or viewership numbers for specific games, although MLS commissioner Don Garber has said subscriptions are ahead of projections but did not say if he was referring to paid subscriptions only or if that includes free access offered to some fans. He added that is an Apple decision to withhold those numbers from the public, although more “transparency” will be coming.

A different approach

While all the major American sports are continuing to increase the use of streaming to show their product, MLS is the first of those to go to such a streaming-intensive business model.

Garber, in an interview with CNBC in December, said 75% of MLS viewers are under age 45, people accustomed to accessing programming through computers, smartphones and other such devices and accustomed to watching international soccer via streaming.

“We have the youngest audience of the five major (U.S. pro sports) leagues,” he said. “Our fans said to us, ‘We’re watching most soccer from a streaming service.’ So we’re delivering them” that way.

But this leads to MLS missing out on developing new fans among the masses who don’t purchase Apple’s streaming service, folks who might run across a game and become interested if it was on a platform they have.

Garber, in an interview with Front Office Sports tied to last week’s kickoff to the MLS season, cited Apple’s worldwide distribution as a key factor in the league’s decision to partner so heavily with that company.

Apple “gives us an opportunity to have a global offering,” he said.

“No blackouts, whether you’re in Munich or Miami or San Diego or Sao Paulo, you are watching an MLS game in 4K, whatever device — an Android device, an Apple device — on a streaming television. ... In our view, it is the future of consumption.”

The arrival last summer of international superstar Messi, to the Inter Miami franchise, has vaulted the league’s appeal not only in his native Argentina but also in Europe, where he has shined, and Apple cashes in with its global availability.

“That’s important to us; we have players from 79 different countries,” Garber said. “... It allows us to touch very directly (overseas) fans of MLS.”

But what about those who don’t want to pay extra for Apple — or are not tech-savvy enough to access streaming? The complaints about the Apple deal aren’t with its performance. Apple gives MLS far more coverage than it would receive under a conventional TV arrangement, with numerous shows devoted to the league, solid broadcasters and of course carrying every match in English and Spanish.

“That level of production and that level of appeal and that level of accessibility is something that we’re banking on to help grow our fan base,” Garber told Front Office Sports.

This season, Apple has released an app for Android, making the package available through Google Play instead of requiring web viewing. Apple also is offering the package directly through Xfinity and DirecTV for the first time, and it is available for free to customers of T-Mobile and Metro by T-Mobile as well as MLS teams’ season-ticket holders.

It also has added a weekly Sunday night game this season, which features native St. Louisan Taylor Twellman on commentary, that is available to all Apple TV+ customers and not just those buying the full soccer package.

But no matter how attractive, the Apple coverage is being presented to a limited audience in the United States — where all but three of its 30 teams are based.

‘Regular’ TV’s tiny slice

In the U.S., MLS tosses out a smidgen of games to show on “regular” TV in addition to Apple’s streaming. Fox (KTVI, Channel 2 locally) has a 15-game offering, and cable’s FS1 has 19. Three City matches are in that package, all at home — March 30 (vs. Austin) and June 14 (vs. LA Galaxy) on Fox and May 14 (vs. Kansas City) on FS1. In total, only 34 of the league’s 510 matches (7%) are set to be available via Fox or FS1, and only one with Messi’s Inter Miami team (Sept. 24 vs. Orlando City on FS1).

Seth Bacon, the league’s executive vice president of media, said at a preseason news conference that the league had a vision when it jumped so heavily into streaming. Other sports are increasingly paddling in the streaming waters, but have done so with a far less bold programming commitment.

“If we were a little early, we wanted to have some of those linear (over-the-air and cable TV) windows that still offered that broad linear distribution to noncore fans, to general sports fans,” Bacon said. “To attract them, to expose them to what’s happening with the league, and to get them curious and more engaged.”

That does not appear to be happening, at least according to viewership results in St. Louis for the few City games appearing on conventional TV and nationally for the MLS title game last season.

City SC appeared on Fox or FS1 seven times across its first two seasons. The first year the four matches (including a playoff contest) were seen in an average of 2.1% of the market, according to viewership-tracking firm Nielsen. The three telecasts last season dipped to an average of 1.1%. Because of Apple’s refusal to reveal its viewership figures, it is unknown what percentage of the market watch via that package. But it is evident that City SC has not drawn a lot of curiosity seekers in its rare forays onto more mainstream platforms.

At the national level, Fox and its Spanish-language outlet Fox Sports Deportes aired the MLS championship match the last two seasons and its combined audience fell by 47% from 2023 to 2024, drawing 468,000 viewers last year after being at 890,000 in 2023. There was a caveat, as the college football season was extended last year and the soccer contest was up against the Southeastern Conference championship game instead of the Army-Navy contest the previous season. Still, the decline is significant.