TV+ Live Expanding into exciting new entertainment arenas

Both serious Apple investors and casual fans can agree that Apple TV+ has been a mixed bag thus far.

EXPANDING INTO LIVE SPORT

Despite investing billions of dollars into original programming, Apple is yet to compete with the likes of Disney+, Amazon Prime, and Netflix, offering just a handful of original TV shows and movies compared to their catalogs of thousands of shows.

And Apple knew it: until recently, the company had been refunding those who subscribed to the service in the form of $4.99 monthly credits. Now, as Apple begins to ramp up work on the service and introduce more content, the company is considering new arenas to enter into. One of those is live sport, and following on from the success of Amazon Prime, which has in recent years secured the rights to key games like Wimbledon and the Premier League.

In the United Kingdom alone, where sports content is huge, Amazon gained almost 650,000 new subscribers after adding international rugby and football games to its service.

Now, Apple appears to be following the same trajectory, keen to replicate the success of Amazon in the United States. According to one report from Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, Apple is on an “aggressive hunt” for live sports content deals that could allow the firm to stream key games and fixtures on its Apple TV+ streaming service.

According to Ives, Apple decided to not buy a movie studio such as MGM, which was eventually snapped up by Amazon, which proves it sees live sports programming as a key part of its future success. Apple had been widely tipped to acquire the James Bond hitmaker to bolster its catalog and had reportedly offered more than $400 million to acquire streaming rights for the new No Time to Die film alone, but the company eventually sold out to Amazon and will continue theatrical releases of movies.