While its closest rivals are only interested in generative artificial intelligence, Apple is launching into… live sports results. The iPhone manufacturer is launching a mobile application on Wednesday that aims to fill a void in a sports and entertainment industry whose transformation is clearly not over.
Laconically called Sports, the application is coming to the iPhone only, which may seem surprising for a company which in recent years has invested massively in televised sport, via its Apple TV platform. It will require a bit of tinkering on the part of its users, particularly in terms of alerts pushed to the phone’s locked screen. It joins a whole battery of other sports applications, such as the official applications of sports leagues and media, in addition to those created by Apple itself.
It provides quick, live information that can be consulted at a glance on the scores of past and current matches, the time of upcoming matches, and the performance in general and live of teams and players. players from around ten professional leagues from all over the world. This includes the main North American major leagues, and some European soccer leagues.
Apple’s goal is to make its Sports application a central point of live sports information for all leagues that are interested. For example, the Canadian Football League, which is slow to take any digital direction, could take a first step in this direction by possibly joining the ranks of such an application.
On the condition of having among its partners a company whose specialty is to collect data during its games. Because it is not the leagues themselves that manage their digital data, but third-party companies. And there are many.
Bringing all these companies together to create a single application was the biggest challenge behind this application, noted in a conference with some media the senior vice president of services for Apple, Eddy Cue.
Live sport is transforming
The latter led the project personally because, he says, there was a lack of a simple and quick way for even slightly connected sports fans to follow all their favorite teams at once.
For Apple, it’s a small gesture that says a lot about what’s going on behind the scenes in the sports and entertainment industry. Digital platforms have recently discovered a big appetite for live events, and sports provide them on a daily basis. In a report on the state of the media in 2023, the firm Deloitte calculated that of the US$50 billion they invested in video content last year, US$6 billion went into the acquisition of rights for live sports. It’s a peak.
Furthermore, while traditional television broadcasters struggle to increase their advertising revenues and see their number of subscribers decline, digital giants have other ways to make this type of investment profitable.
Apple’s Sports application will also display by default the odds for each team to facilitate online sports betting, an increasingly central phenomenon in the world of professional sport. It will not be possible to bet directly in the application, but this opens new marketing opportunities both for Apple and for companies in this sector.
However, the platforms’ interest in sport has led to an overbidding of competing and expensive services, which consumers like less and less. In a report on the state of media in 2023, Deloitte concludes that the key to success for these platforms will be to have the most comprehensive content offering. “It will take two or three rounds of broadcast rights negotiations before the future of live sports becomes clear,” Deloitte wrote in its report. “For platforms playing the long game, the key will be to integrate social media, sports betting, garage leagues and any other digital engagement tools. »
Eddy Cue and Apple seem to have gotten the message.