Sports dramedy Ted Lasso has been one of Apple TV Plus’ most popular originals.
James Martin/CNET
Apple TV Plus will offer two live baseball games on Friday nights, Apple said Tuesday. These games will be the first live sports on Apple’s streaming service, which so far has stuck to on-demand original series and movies. The news came at Apple’s product event, which also revealed upgrades to its iPhone SE, iPads and other hardware.
Under the moniker Friday Night Baseball, Apple TV Plus will stream two exclusive Major League Baseball games, as well as pre- and postgame shows weekly as soon as the regular season begins.
This year’s regular season has already been marred by cancellations of early games because of a labor dispute lockout. A week ago, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred canceled the first week of regular season games, after the league and the players’ association saw their latest deadline to reach a deal pass without an agreement.
Apple TV Plus is the gadget giant’s $5-a-month subscription video streaming service featuring Apple’s original TV shows and movies, competing with Netflix, Disney Plus, HBO Max and others. Unlike its main competitors, it doesn’t have the scale of a vast library. So far, Apple TV Plus has pitched itself as a low-priced option for a slimmer library of prestige shows and movies made with big budgets like award-winning sports dramedy Ted Lasso, Oscar-nominee CODA and sci-fi thriller Severance.
Netflix, the world’s dominant streaming video with 221 million members worldwide, abstains from live sports. But many of its main streaming competitors have included live sports, trying to stake a claim to sports fans’ attention as more types of programming shift to streaming. Amazon Prime Video, NBCUniversal’s Peacock, Paramount Plus and HBO Max have included live sports, to various degrees.
Tuesday’s event is Apple’s first of the year. The company’s fall iPhone event is typically its most anticipated because its flagship phone is Apple’s biggest moneymaker, but its spring events can set the tone for the tech giant’s year.
With a multibillion-dollar budget to rope in some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, Apple TV Plus was the first to step into the so-called “streaming wars,” a period when media giants and tech titans launched a flood of new streaming services to take on Netflix. This competition — pitting rookies like Apple TV Plus, HBO Max, Disney Plus and Peacock against heavyweights like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video — has spurred corporations to pour billions of dollars into their hope of shaping the future of television. For you, it means more services to sort through — and pay for — as you figure out where to watch movies and shows online.
–CNET’s Ian Sherr contributed to this article.
Watch this: MLB Games Coming to Apple TV in Friday Night Baseball
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