Apple May Bid for English Premier League Streaming Rights
By on January 4th, 2012

Lately, rumors of a future Apple TV have been all over the place. A week ago,  a new  rumor  suggested that Apple might launch a 32-inch and 37-inch TV next year. Like that wasn’t enough, another report suggested that  Apple is expected to use its custom-built chips like in the iPhone and iPad for its rumored TV. Like I said before, that rumor might actually turn out to be true since Apple is already using custom-built chips known as the A5 processor in the iPhone 4S and iPad 2.

Now, The Daily Mail (via  MacRumors)  claims that Apple maybe interested in bidding for the rights to stream English Premier League (EPL) football matches.  The EPL is the top football league in England, and one of the premiere football leagues in the world. In fact, the bidding in television rights is expected to generate billions of dollars in revenue for the teams and league. Apple in the past has added live sports content to its $99 Apple TV since fall of 2010. The device currently offers access to MLB, NBA, and NHL.

The Premier League is seen as the type of premium content that will help establish Apple TV in the UK and boost iPad sales, while the iTunes subscription service infrastructure is already in place.

The involvement of Apple – and their great multimedia rivals Google are also expected to make similar soundings – would give the PL a hugely competitive market at a time when the price of other TV sports rights are in decline.

If this rumor turns out to be true and Apple wins the bid, I hope the company’s next target will be towards acquiring rights for streaming cricket.

Tags: ,
Author: Parth Dhebar
Parth Dhebar is a 18 year-old entrepreneur. He is the founder of Simple Reviews, a blog focused on reviewing iPhone and iPad applications. Parth is a recognized name in the industry, known for covering Apple news. He is an editor at Techie-Buzz covering news on Apple. You can follow him on Twitter @pdparticle.

Parth Dhebar has written and can be contacted at parth@techie-buzz.com.
  • http://www.moshblog.me.uk Mosh

    Good grief. So to be able to see live streamed matches, you’d have to buy a device? When I have a perfectly suitable computer (non-Apple, I’m proud to say) sat here already which is fine for streaming pretty much everything else? That seems ridiculous, or an I misunderstanding the story?

    The only positive thing about Apple getting something like this is that at least they’re not part of Murdoch’s evil empire. Mind, that’s not much of a plus point. Trading one evil for another.

    As things currently stand, Premier League clubs (in fact, I believe now all Football League clubs) have their matches streamed on audio via their own websites but these sites are run by a single company. I’d have thought the PL/FA would have preferred to keep everything tied together in this one package but at the end of the day the single most important voice in football is that of the person with the most money. Sadly.

    On the other hand, I’m all with your wishes that they get the cricket. Anything to get it away from the flipping TV so they can put something less dull on instead ;)

 
Copyright 2006-2012 Techie Buzz. All Rights Reserved. Our content may not be reproduced on other websites. Content Delivery by MaxCDN