Apple Takes a Swing at Broadcast Rights for The Open
Mike Cox
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It’s a given that Apple remains on the hunt for new ways to expand its live sports streaming ambitions, and a new report suggests that its next target may be The Open Championship — the oldest and one of the most prestigious golf tournaments in the world.
According to The Guardian, Apple appears to be courting the R&A, which organizes the event and serves as one of the governing bodies of golf worldwide.
So far, those have only been “preliminary discussions,” as the US rights for The Open are still held by NBC, and aren’t set to expire until 2028. Still, it never hurts to get your name in there early, and Apple has reportedly expressed interest in putting in a bid when the rights do come up.
NBC has held those live rights since 2017, when it beat out ESPN for a twelve-year deal. It shares those rights with Versant, the media company behind the Golf Channel.
Unsurprisingly, R&A is being noncommittal at this point. In a statement to The Guardian, it lauded its partnership with NBC and Versant, implying that the US rights are still theirs to lose.
We have an excellent partnership with NBC and Versant which has delivered significant benefits for The Open, the AIG Women’s Open and our other championships and international matches […] As we look ahead to the next US media cycle for the R&A’s rights, we expect to enter discussions with our incumbent partners NBC and Versant in due course. We will also continue to monitor the evolving broadcast landscape and the wider interest in our rights.
R&A spokesman to The Guardian
We’re likely still a year away from these discussions gaining any real traction, but we also wouldn’t count Apple out just yet, as its deep pockets and streaming reach have a habit of making sports franchises take notice.
After years of futile attempts to secure NFL rights and a fledgling partnership with MLB for Friday Night Baseball, Apple scored its first big sports deal in 2022 when it signed a 10-year exclusive partnership to bring the entire MLS experience to Apple TV.
It then followed that up last year with the US rights to Formula 1 racing and surprised everyone by tearing down the MLS paywall. As part of a pivotal shift to align the league with European schedules by 2027, Apple agreed to shorten the overall length of the deal while dropping its own opt-out clause, eliminating the standalone season pass and making it free for all Apple TV subscribers alongside F1 racing.
It’s far too early to say how Apple would handle The Open in the event it did secure the US rights. However, the recent MLS pivot makes it increasingly obvious that Apple never wanted a fragmented, standalone Season Pass model in the first place. As a single tournament, it’s almost guaranteed Apple would roll The Open directly into the standard Apple TV subscription as another massive prestige play to draw in core subscribers rather than nickel-and-diming golf fans.
Of course, getting those rights is another matter entirely. Before Apple came along, Major League Soccer had been fragmented, with individual teams negotiating regional television rights. The move to Apple was as much about moving to a consolidated model to match European club leagues — a commitment Apple recently doubled down on by backing MLS’s shift to a European calendar schedule, proving it isn’t afraid to restructure massive deals to achieve a broader vision.
When it came to obtaining Formula 1 rights, there’s little doubt that Apple’s blockbuster F1 film gave it massive leverage by generating significant new interest in the sport among younger US audiences, although it also didn’t hurt that Apple was willing to put twice as much money on the table as ESPN, which had previously held the US rights.
It’s an open question what Apple can bring to the table to woo R&A for rights to The Open, as golf is already a very popular sport in the US. It’s also likely to be battling the usual players like Netflix and Amazon, the latter of which it’s often lost to in its NFL streaming rights bids.
[The information provided in this article has NOT been confirmed by Apple and may be speculation. Provided details may not be factual. Take all rumors, tech or otherwise, with a grain of salt.]
