Final week, we shared a report from the Monetary Occasions about how Apple was planning to parlay its blockbuster success with F1: The Film into an entire Components One sports activities streaming bundle. Now, it appears to be like just like the deal could also be Apple’s to lose.
The US broadcast rights to the Components 1 franchise, which have been held by Disney’s ESPN since 2018, will probably be again on the public sale block subsequent 12 months, and Apple is predicted to be one of many bidders on the desk. Nevertheless, a brand new report from Enterprise Insider signifies that Apple has pulled into the lead with a bid that ESPN has determined is just too wealthy for its blood.
Apple has submitted a bid price no less than $150 million a 12 months to stream the races beginning in 2026. And ESPN isn’t going to attempt to match or beat that, in accordance with a supply aware of negotiations.
Peter Kafka, Enterprise Insider
“Barring a last-minute change, it appears to be like like Apple […] can have a 3rd sports activities streaming providing subsequent 12 months,” Enterprise Insider’s Peter Kafka concludes.
The $150 million quantity was first reported final week by Puck’s Dylan Byers, who additionally famous that it was “far above the $85 million to $90 million that ESPN is at the moment paying every year, and much past what ESPN provided to counter.”
“I’m additionally reliably advised that Apple and ESPN are the one suitors on the desk,” Byers added. That final half is a bit shocking, as Amazon and Netflix are generally within the fray for such offers, and Netflix has helped to lift the profile of Components 1 racing amongst US audiences by means of its Drive to Survive documentary sequence.
That docuseries and Apple’s big-budget F1 movie have attracted youthful American audiences to the game, which has in flip pushed up the worth of broadcast and streaming rights. Nonetheless, Apple’s $150 million bid put it at practically double what ESPN had been paying. That’s per 12 months, though it’s not clear simply but how lengthy the deal will run for.
It might be exhausting for Liberty Media, which owns the Components 1 franchise within the US, to show down a proposal like that, however as Byers factors out, it’s not so simple as that. Apple might be able to supply extra money, however can it present the identical attain?
Do you are taking extra money from a brand new streamer like Apple TV+ and threat alienating informal followers who don’t wish to pay for the subscription, or take much less cash however preserve the attain and advertising and marketing energy of ESPN throughout linear and digital?
Dylan Byers, Puck
Whereas Main League Soccer (MLS) inked a good larger unique cope with Apple two years in the past — $2.5 billion over ten years — to create MLS Season Go, Byers calls it “an imperfect comparability,” as that concerned worldwide rights to the North American League “that lives within the shadow of its European counterparts.” By comparability, this Components 1 deal would see Apple choosing up “a small slice of a significant international sport.”
To place it one other manner, MLS Season Go is a make-or-break deal for Main League Soccer, as the one strategy to watch the game is thru Apple’s platform. This Components 1 deal would contain solely the streaming rights within the US, and wouldn’t contact the league’s subscription streaming platform, F1 TV, or the plethora of European broadcasters.
Nevertheless, the US is the place Components 1 is hoping to develop its fan base, as Liberty Media CEO Derek Chang shared at a JP Morgan convention in Might. Liberty is hoping Apple is the corporate that may assist it accomplish that. Brad Pitt and F1: The Film have been an enormous step in that path — sufficient to make us marvel if this was Apple’s plan from the beginning. That might be fairly the lengthy recreation, contemplating it signed the cope with Pitt over three years in the past, however it additionally looks like attention-grabbing timing that this got here the identical 12 months ESPN’s four-season deal was prolonged into 2025.