Apple’s advertising empire is extending into its Apple TV service.
It’s pitching advertisers on its Major League Soccer programming, which kicks off in February.
People familiar with the plans say packages start at a price of $4 million-a-season.
Apple’s advertising empire is set to expand beyond the App Store when Apple TV begins broadcasting Major League Soccer for ten seasons beginning February 2023 — a global deal that is costing Apple $250 million per season.
In a first for the company, Apple is selling traditional TV commercials against its telecasts of MLS games, as well as other sponsorship integrations like digital billboards that appear during programming, people familiar with the matter told Insider.
Apple has been negotiating season-long sponsorship packages with the MLS’ official sponsors this fall, sources said. The league’s current corporate partners include Adidas, AT&T, Coca-Cola, and Procter & Gamble. These discussions have been led by Apple’s top advertising sales executives including Todd Teresi, VP of advertising platforms, and Winston Crawford, ad platforms senior director of business management.
People familiar with the matter said there are three tiers of sponsorship up for grabs next season, with the most expensive priced at $4 million for the largest number of prominent placements and integrations. The next tier comes at $3 million and the last tier was described by one person familiar as more “a la carte,” in which advertisers can cherry-pick a smaller number of specific placements.
The review period for official sponsors ends on November 7, when Apple will begin offering packages to the wider advertising marketplace, a person familiar with the matter said.
Apple and MLS didn’t respond to requests for comment. Bloomberg reported on Friday some details of Apple’s advertising plans.
The Apple TV app will host an exclusive MLS streaming service, and Apple TV+ customers and MLS season ticket holders will be able to access it for free. A handful of games will also be made available for free to all viewers.
The MLS 2022 regular season, aired on ABC and ESPN, averaged around 343,000 viewers, according to Nielsen. Apple’s sales team is forecasting a similar audience number for 2023, a person who had received the pitch said.
Apple is pushing harder into areas like streaming and advertising as it looks to become less dependent on hardware sales, and one key initiative is making a bigger splash in sports.
Besides its MLS deal, Apple TV airs Major League Baseball on Friday nights, though the MLB currently sells the ads for these broadcasts itself and is expected to do so again next season, a person familiar with the matter said. Apple is reportedly bidding against Amazon for NFL’s Sunday Ticket, and is expected to make a play for NBA broadcasting rights when they come up for renewal.
“Sports clearly represents the next battleground for ownership of the living room among the big tech companies,” said PP Foresight tech and media analyst Paolo Pescatore.
If Apple were to get the rights to sell ads against more sports content, it would be a major lift for its growing and high-margin ad business, which Evercore ISI expects to bring in $5 billion this year. Today, that business is mostly focused on search ads in the App Store, as well as ads within its News and Stocks apps. Digiday reported last month that Apple was holding exploratory discussions with agencies about monetizing its original video content.
If Apple can extend ads across more of its services, such as TV, Maps, and Podcasts, Evercore ISI forecasts that business could reach $30 billion in revenue in four years.
As a point of comparison, Amazon Advertising, seen as a rival to Google and Meta, brought in $31 billion in 2021.