What you need to know
- Apple is looking to expand its coverage of live sports on Apple TV.
- The company is reportedly in talks with the Pac-12 network.
- Partnering with the network would bring dozens of sports to its streaming platform.
Apple is looking to continue to build a presence in the live sports area, according to a new report from Sports Business Journal.
While digital media companies like Apple, Amazon, and Google were mostly absent in prior negotiations for the rights to stream live sports, Pac-12 Networks President Mark Shuken says things may be changing.
"This is what they're telling us ... several of them have come to us and said that they want to be in this space."
According to the report, "the most intriguing conversations have come with Apple." Executives have told conference and school officials that they see live sports as a potential way to differentiate itself from its competitors.
"During one meeting, Apple executives told the Pac-12's school presidents that it was only interested in the conference's primary media rights package, not a digital one. ESPN and Fox currently hold the rights to the conference's main package, paying a combined $250 million per year on average to the conference."
Shuken says that Apple expressed interest in learning more about the rights and the business to see if they would be a good partner when the next media rights deal begins in the fall of 2024.
"They said that they are very interested in learning more about the rights and learning more about the business to determine whether or not they'd be a viable partner in 2024 ... they said that, on the surface, we look like a good partner to investigate."
Pac-12 is a collegiate athletic conference that participates in twenty four sports at the NCAA Division I level. Partnering with the conference would bring live coverage from dozens of sports to Apple's streaming platform.
