MLS Season Pass dropped, opening league up to all Apple TV subscribers

Major League Soccer’s controversial experiment with a separate Apple TV Season Pass is being shelved. 

According to ESPN, MLS matches will no longer require a Season Pass beginning in 2026. Instead, all regular-season games, the Leagues Cup, the MLS All-Star Game, Campeones Cup, and the MLS Cup Playoffs will be included with a standard Apple TV subscription. The standalone Season Pass will wrap up after the 2025 campaign.

The shift follows a gradual move in that direction and, perhaps, more importantly, an acknowledgement that the season pass was slowing the growth of Major League Soccer when compared to the English Premier League, which sits on basic cable.

For the 2025 playoffs, MLS announced that matches would be accessible to all Apple TV subscribers, and more than 200 regular-season games, including every Sunday Night Soccer fixture. That experiment reportedly brought a surge in viewership, and when you have the world’s most famous player, in Lionel Messi, plying his trade where only a few could witness his majesty, the paywall was an inhibitor to growth and eyeballs.

The paywall costs fans $14.99 per month or $99 for the season.

Commissioner Don Garber said in October: “Apple will ultimately decide what the distribution will be. We’re finishing up year three and having it on Apple TV so that it’s distributed to a broader audience during our playoffs I think is a positive. And we’ll take a step back with Apple and figure out what the future distribution is.”

The move seems to align with that thinking. Apple and MLS may see greater long-term value in accessibility over exclusivity, especially as the league pushes to attract casual fans in a crowded sports market.

MLS will join Formula 1 as part of Apple TV’s expanding sports line-up, after the platform secured exclusive U.S. broadcast rights for F1 starting in 2026.

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