Apple’s making a big play for football fans this year as starting this week: every MLS playoff match will be available to all Apple TV subscribers – even those who don’t pay extra for the MLS Season Pass.
It’s a surprising but smart move from Apple to widen the goalposts for casual fans as the league heads into its most exciting stretch of the year.
As reported by Sports Business Journalnormally, you’d need the MLS Season Pass add-on to stream matches but Apple is opening up the entire playoff slate to its regular Apple TV subscribers at no additional cost. That means that anyone with a standard Apple TV+ plan can tune in to the Wild Card clashes, Round One best-of-three series, and every knockout round leading up to MLS Cup on December 6.
It’s the first time Apple has made this much playoff action available outside of the Season Pass, following a small test run earlier in the regular season.
The postseason kicks off Wednesday with Wild Card showdowns – Chicago Fire vs Orlando City in the East and Portland Timbers vs Real Salt Lake in the West. Then, the best-of-three Round One begins Friday, featuring the league’s biggest names: Lionel Messi, Son Heung-Min, and Thomas Müller.
Beyond Apple TV, select playoff games will also stream through Fox Sports (FS1 and Fox Deportes) in the US and TSN/RDS in Canada, while Fox’s main network will carry the MLS Cup Final.
Apple clearly wants to turn the MLS Season Pass experiment into a wider gateway for global football fans and it’s not a bad idea.
And honestly, free playoff matches featuring Messi, Müller, and Son? That’s not a bad way to spend a weekend.
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