When Apple inked a contract with Major League Baseball to present an exclusive Friday Night Baseball doubleheader, it received mixed reactions from fans. The move was made in an effort to innovate as streaming television is on the rise; in fact, it recently eclipsed more than 50% of total television viewership, according to Nielsen Media Research. While the technology company offered its games for free during a preponderance of last season, this year consumers have had to pay to watch their teams. The fact that the games are not televised anywhere else means that fans either need to pay the price, go to a commercial venue with a distribution deal or listen to the game on the radio.
Those who have been watching the broadcasts had negative sentiments about last year’s broadcast team, but things seem to be going smoother the second time around as the OTT streaming provider has found commentary teams more appealing and cohesive with audiences. Combined with some of the most sharp and superb cameras in the sport, more fans are beginning to favor the Apple TV+ broadcasts. For others though, they are simply not compelled to watch the product, including New York Yankees fan and ESPN Radio host Jake Asman.
“Who’s watching this game tonight?,” Asman said on ESPN New York 98.7 Friday morning. “Who’s downloading Apple TV+ to watch the fourth-place Red Sox and the fifth-place, sitting in last, 60-61 New York Yankees? This could get ugly.”
Dan Graca, who was co-hosting with Asman as they filled in for Dan Rothenberg and Rick DiPietro, surmised that most Yankees and Mets fans already had Apple TV+ because of previous exclusive games featuring their teams. Surprisingly enough, Graca soon found that he was the only one in the studio with the subscription-based service. Even show producer RJ Santillo, who has seven streaming services, decided to neglect both Peacock and Apple TV+.
“You’ve got to draw the line somewhere,” Santillo said, “and for me it was Apple [TV]+.”
Asman, who recently departed ESPN 97.5 Houston, used to have Apple TV+ but decided to drop the service after a suboptimal third season of Ted Lasso. Even after trying to watch The Morning Show, Asman found that he slowly became less interested and eventually decided to stop using the service altogether. Apple recently reported its quarterly earnings, during which it announced that it eclipsed 1 billion paid subscribers across its variety of services, which also includes music streaming, cloud storage and news outlets.
“My two experiences watching these Apple TV shows [are] they start strong and then they end up being awful,” Asman said. “I’m out on Apple TV; I will not be downloading this tonight to watch Yankees-Red Sox. I just don’t have it in me. I’ll be watching the [New York] Giants instead. I’ll watch preseason football over Yankees-Red Sox.”
Graca understood that the Yankees have struggled in recent months, falling to last place in the American League East division and under .500 at the latest point of a season since 1995. Even so, he wanted to know whether or not Asman would feel more compelled to watch the game if it was more relevant in terms of a playoff hunt.
“They keep raising the prices,” Asman replied, “and Netflix is now raising their prices too. All these streaming services, ‘Oh, you cut the cord; you stream with us,’ and all the prices; all they do is keep increasing. I end up paying more money than I ever was for cable.”
“At some point, we’re just going to go right back to the full cable package,” ESPN radio producer Ray Santiago added, “and we’ll start the cycle all over again.”
