Major League Soccer announced a deal Tuesday with Fox Sports, giving the league a continued presence on traditional TV over the next four years in addition to its 10-year streaming pact with Apple.
Fox will have exclusive English and Spanish language linear broadcast rights to 34 regular-season games annually under the new agreement (close to one per week during the season), with at least 15 of those airing on the company’s broadcast network. It will also show eight playoff games and the MLS Cup each season.
“There is no soccer league in the world better positioned for growth and with Fox’s unrivaled reach we are fired up to be a part of it,” Fox Sports CEO and executive producer Eric Shanks said in a statement.
Fox will also air 16 games of the Leagues Cup—which pits MLS teams against Liga MX counterparts—while TelevisaUnivision will show 21 Leagues Cup matches, including the final. Bell Media has additional regular season, playoff and Leagues Cup inventory in Canada.
All MLS and Leagues Cup games will be shown on Apple’s new Season Pass service. MLS will produce each of the games, offering a world feed to its broadcast partners, as part of its $2.5 billion partnership with the tech giant.
“As part of that agreement with Apple we discussed the idea and they agreed and in fact endorsed the idea of us doing some selected linear agreements so that we could continue to show our product to fans who either haven’t seen it or are in the process of becoming streamers and aren’t yet,” MLS deputy commissioner Gary Stevenson said in an interview. “We wanted to make sure that as this transition is happening, we still had exposure.”
These deals with Fox will expire at the end of 2026, after Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. host that year’s World Cup. Financial details were not disclosed.
“The reason Fox was the right partner is because their schedule could really complement what we’re trying to accomplish,” Stevenson said. “So there are some economics involved, but we’re more focused on the fit and the schedule and the distribution than anything else.”
Under MLS’ previous deals, Fox, ESPN and Univision combined to pay roughly $90 million annually, though that package included national team games as well.
MLS officials said the full match schedule for 2023 will be released later this month.
“These broadcast industry leaders continue to demonstrate their deep commitment to MLS and soccer,” MLS commissioner Don Garber said in a statement. “Our linear agreements, along with our partnership with Apple, are the culmination of a series of collaborative discussions to provide our fans with the most expansive and accessible lineup of programming MLS and our sport in the U.S. and Canada have ever seen.”
