Told you so...
When penning this regular saunter through the news and nuances of sports technology, we occasionally muse on what the future might look like. These musings are meant more as gentle “what ifs” than steadfast predictions, but it seems our Ramble from July 2023 was particularly prescient...
“Streaming technologies have disrupted the way traditional media businesses operate, brought new players to the market and attracted interest from different tech sectors…Yet perhaps the biggest disruption could come from a sector yet to get involved in a “real” sense. Imagine if Electronic Arts decide to get involved. They already have a strong foothold in both footballs (American and real 😊) through their different EA Sports games and with a reach of over 650 million through their player network they have one hell of an audience to tap into…perhaps an aggregated sports / gaming service provided by EA, not limited to territory or device is the answer. Over to you EA!”
EA were clearly listening. Earlier this month, the industry was buzzing at the announcement of a new partnership between Major League Soccer (MLS), Apple TV and EA Sports. The groundbreaking deal will see four of the US League’s regular season games being streamed live within EA Sports FC Mobile via the in-game FCM TV portal, in what will be the first global sports broadcasts by the renowned gaming company.
Parking all desire to say we told you so (again), let’s look at what this deal means for the different parties involved. For EA Sports it’s a chance to offer more immersive in-game experiences and build on moves like the acquisition of sports data tracking business, TRACAB Technologies and the launch of their EA Sports App in collaboration with LaLiga as they strive to become the world’s leading interactive sports platform. If successful, it may also alert other sports rights holders to the opportunity and see the likes of Ligue 1, Serie A and NHL come knocking.
For Apple, it’s a much-needed chance to push subscriptions for their MLS Season Pass. The reported 10 year, $2.5bn deal was a bet on their ability to leverage the growth in soccer’s popularity in the US, the upcoming World Cup in the Americas and the arrival of global superstar Lionel Messi to sell subscriptions both in the US and overseas. Viewing figures in the US have been positive at over 1m per week but word is it hasn’t impacted international sales as they’d hoped. Apple have successfully leveraged Messi to grow subscribers, getting the GOAT to promote the season pass on his socials – no big hardship as he is entitled to a cut of international subscriptions – and now are hoping the EA Sports tie up will do the same.
By watching the MLS matches, within FC Mobile, gamers get currency they can use in-game and one month’s free trial of MLS Season Pass. With EA wanting fans to stay in-game and Apple/MLS wanting them to jump ship, it will be interesting to see who comes out on top in this conflicting battle of incentives.
For MLS, the motives around the deal are less clear. The collaboration can be seen as a positive illustration of their ongoing commitment to innovation, and how technology can be leveraged to engage younger, tech-savvy audiences. The league see themselves as disruptors, as people willing to take a risk and the rights deal with Apple was certainly that. Pivoting to the streaming platform, at a time when other leagues are gaining traction on linear channels, opens up a wider global audience but it’s success banks on fans being willing to subscribe to another channel.
Perhaps then the new EA Sports collaboration could be taken as a sign that their groundbreaking deal with Apple TV isn’t working as MLS wanted it to. Back in January, when the league launched their new primetime Sunday Night Soccer product, it was heralded as part of an enhanced programming offering for 2025. However, when it subsequently was used to secure overseas broadcast deals with established linear channels, this new product, created outside the parameters of the original Apple deal, starts to look more like a carefully constructed opportunity to achieve the international reach they’re not getting through Apple TV.
Against the same backdrop, recent media platform deals with OneFootball and Footballco could be seen as either clever moves to expand their digital reach or as moves to plug the gap that Apple has created.
The actual broadcast element of this partnership is worth noting too. Getting a live streaming into a game will be a challenge but luckily there are precedents in music for them to follow. Since 2019, metaverse games like Fortnite and Roblox have hosted in-game performances from stars such as David Guetta, Travis Scott, Ariana Grande and Lil Nas X (ask your kids), via carefully crafted avatars, some live, some not. Earlier this year, Fortnite went one step further, with the first live broadcast in-game, bringing players a live stream of Snoop Dog performing in Times Square. From a technical standpoint, the real-time integration of the stream via Fortnite’s Unreal Engine to create a seamless experience was impressive and a good example for EA and other game publishers. As was the synchronisation of visual elements in-game with the live action. However, the stream was only about 15 minutes long, compared to the 90 minutes plus needed for a full football match so the challenges for EA, Apple and MLS in maintaining picture quality, the stability/latency of the stream and therefore the seamless fan experience will be far greater.
This brings us to the final party involved. The fans. The thought of logging into a game to watch the matches will not be for some but there is clearly a big addressable audience in terms of fans who are gamers. A YouGov survey from 2023 showed that 1/3 of gamers claimed to be sports fans, with 27% following football. With EA boasting 100m players in-game each month, some crude maths shows that MLS has around 30m potential fans to go after. As a relatively new property, the league has benefited from the very modern phenomena of fans coming from gaming rather than the other way around. James Ruth, Former MLS Director of Properties stated back in 2019 that “Sixty-five percent of avid MLS fans highlight FIFA as a driver of their interest in soccer”. This belief has underpinned their investment into eMLS, their esports property built around…yes, you’ve guessed it…what is now, EA Sports FC.
For this new breed of fan, that is more rooted in the digital world, combining the real with the virtual in one platform, to provide a unified experience may well be more appealing. It could provide the answer to the increasingly fragmented media landscape they’re forced to navigate to engage with sport in the way they want. Perhaps this combined experience could work the other way too. Perhaps we could see the virtual built into more other established platforms centred on broadcast material – Netflix, for example, has the rights to the Football Manager Mobile game and has dabbled in sports content. If they were to partner with a rights holder, and combine their mix of live, curated and interactive content, they could leverage their 300m+ global reach to provide an integrated, and hugely valuable, sports platform akin to what EA Sports is trying to achieve. Integrated experiences are definitely where we’re headed, it’ll just be down to who hosts them. Over to you Netflix!