Rapids TV Now As Easy as Apple Pie

Huge news out of MLS today as the long-awaited deal for TV rights for 2023 and beyond was announced.  The league signed a 10-year $2.5 billion deal with Apple to be the home of all MLS league matches and Leagues Cup matches for the next decade.  There's a lot to unpack here and we'll get to the details but the most important thing for Rapids fans is this.  NO LOCAL BLACKOUTS!  That's right, the long local nightmare is over.  Starting next season you'll be able to see the Rapids in Colorado without having to find...creative ways around the Altitude-Comcast/DISH impasse.

So, lets go over the basics:

• Apple will be creating a "MLS Channel" (official name is not yet announced, so we'll call it MLSC for now) in the AppleTV ecosystem.  This channel will show literally every league match, every Leagues Cup match, pregame, halftime, and postgame shows, a whip-around show during games (more on that later), along with highlight shows and other content.
• The league is still negotiating with ESPN and Univision to air games on their cable channels.  It sounds like slightly less than they currently do (more like 20-25 than the current 30 or so per season).  Those games will also be available through MLSC.
• There will be no more local broadcasts.  No games on Altitude at all (or Root Sports, or FOX Sports or any of the other regional sports channels across the country).
• The ESPN+ deal ends at the end of this season and will not be renewed.
• MLSC games will be available in English and Spanish, and some (mostly the Montreal matches) in French.  Portuguese is coming by 2025.
• You will not need a AppleTV+ subscription to get MLSC.  MLSC will be a separate subscription from AppleTV+ accessed through AppleTV.
• If you have AppleTV+ and do not get MLSC you will get some of the MLS content as part of your subscription but not all of it.
• If you have neither AppleTV+ or MLSC you will be able to watch a free game through AppleTV.  My guess is that these will be the same games ESPN/Univision are broadcasting.
• MLS full-season ticket holders will get a MLSC subscription as part of their season ticket deal.  The whole Apple MLS package will be free for season-ticket holders.

So those are the big points.  Essentially if you want to watch MLS, you're going to need to get MLSC.

One question I know we all have as Rapids fans is "who's calling these games?".  Well, that's the possible bad news in this deal.  MLS will be doing the production for these games in-house and they will be using a single commentary team for the games, instead of a local set of commentators for each team.  The plan is to hire about 10-14 teams of commentators to do all the games.  Who those commentators are is unknown.  So we are looking at the possibility of losing Richard Fleming's and Marcelo Balboa's call if they aren't hired by the league to work on MLSC.  (Balboa will still be coaching for the Rapids and presumably doing his Univision work)

The league has said that after the national pregame and postgame shows that if the team's want to do a local pre/post game they can, so maybe the Rapids can keep Fleming around with that being one of his responsibilities.  Also viewers will have the option to choose the local radio broadcast over the national feed from MLS, so you can get Connor Cape and maybe they can work Fleming/'Celo into the radio work?

The other significant change from this is that the league will be moving to a stricter scheduling plan.  All games will be on Wednesday or Saturday nights after about 6pm local time.  The only time games will be moved from those windows are for stadium availability issues or if ESPN/Univision needs a game in a different time slot for their channel schedule.  That's where the whip-around show I mentioned above comes in.  Each game day MLSC will have a show that will jump from game to game based on what's going on with live look-ins and reporting.  By having all the games in the same window this gives plenty of content over the 6 or so hours it will take to cover the early starts on the East Coast to the late finishes on the West Coast.  So no more (or significantly reduced) Sunday games, mid-afternoon Saturday games, or random Friday or Tuesday night games.

The two sets of games involving MLS teams that won't be on MLSC will be the U.S. Open Cup which will still be on ESPN+, and the CONCACAF Champions League which will be on FOX.  But as Rapids fans its not like we have to worry about those matches.  ;)

So what this comes down to is that starting next season you'll need a MLSC subscription through AppleTV to watch the Rapids, but you'll be able to watch every game, no matter where you are, and everything else in MLS too.  And if you're a season-ticket holder you'll get it for free.