Apple TV isn’t ready for Apple’s sports strategy (Macworld/Jason Snell)
Apple has made TV streaming deals with Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer and is rumored to be negotiating with multiple other leagues, including the NFL and the Dutch Eredivisie (first-division soccer). Clearly, Apple thinks that live sports are a way to get people who have avoided embracing streaming TV to finally make the jump. (Amazon feels the same, which is why it bought the NFL’s Thursday Night Football package.)
I think it’s a smart strategy. An old boss of mine often shared the adage that in order for your product to be bought, it must first be considered. (Yes, he used to sell advertising for a living.) Lots of tech-savvy people embraced streaming long ago, and Netflix has managed to put its apps on almost every electronic device manufactured in the last ten years, but there remains a very large audience–older and not as tech-savvy–who are comfortable watching cable TV but decidedly uncomfortable finding Apple TV or Prime Video.
Sports are a great motivator to get many of them to learn. The big issue is that I’m not sure Apple’s TV platform is ready for them to arrive.
