Apple is going towards sports with even greater vigour. The tech company released Apple Sports, a free iPhone app that provides live betting odds, important data, and real-time score updates, last week.
Users will have access to live statistics from various leagues, including the NBA, NHL, and MLS, upon launch, as reported by CNN Business. The app, which offers real-time data for both men’s and women’s NCAA basketball, is being released ahead of March Madness and is Apple’s first sports app. Over time, more leagues will be added, such as the MLB and NFL.
Eddy Cue, senior vice president of services at Apple, who oversaw the development of the app and was personally involved in its design, stated, “We created Apple Sports to give sports fans what they want — an app that delivers incredibly fast access to scores and stats.”
The app, which will launch without advertisements, is Apple’s latest venture into the multibillion-dollar sports industry, where tech companies have recently entered to compete with established media companies that have long held the lucrative broadcast rights. Additionally, it poses a danger to disrupt the mobile sports app market, which has long been dominated by ESPN and other companies’ advertising-supported apps.
Apple TV+ is a streaming service that the company has recently partnered with a number of sports leagues, including the MLB and MLS, to stream games. A major competitor in the tech and streaming sectors, Amazon, has begun to broadcast “Thursday Night Football” and an NFL game on Black Friday exclusively.
Apple Sports can notify users of the location of a game, but it won’t stream games directly within the app; instead, it will send users to the appropriate app in order to watch the action.
In an effort to grow a paying customer base for their streaming services, tech and media corporations are paying more attention to sports rights. According to Nielsen, the NFL playoffs and Super Bowl broke attendance records in recent months, while NBCUniversal’s exclusive Peacock broadcast of a wild card game resulted in the largest single day of streaming ever.
