Apple’s ‘Friday Night Baseball’ Finally Goes Live | Technology, Availability, and Everything You Need to Know

Last week, Apple unveiled its schedule for its first big push into live sports — Friday Night Baseball on Apple TV+, and now it’s sharing more details on all the other programming that will accompany each Friday’s double-header.

While the first games won’t be broadcast until tomorrow night when the New York Mets meet the Washington Nationals at 7:00 p.m. and the Houston Astros meet the Los Angeles Angels at 9:30 p.m., Apple is launching other pre-game content starting today.

Apple’s Friday Night Baseball lineup began appearing in the “Sports” section of Apple’s TV app yesterday, along with a highlighted collection of related movies, such as Major League, Moneyball, and A League of their Own.

However, even before tomorrow night’s opening pitch, fans can warm up with a wide range of new exclusive content, from history-making MLB games and highlights to profiles on current teams and players.

There’s also the “All MLB, All Day” live channel, offering ongoing analysis, highlights, and daily coverage of all things baseball.

Each Thursday, starting today, Apple will also be offering Countdown to First Pitch, a program that will preview the week’s roster of upcoming games, not just on Apple TV+ but across the entire MLB. Similarly, an MLB Daily Recap will be available every morning to offer highlights from across the league. Lastly, MLB Big Inning will be available every weeknight as a “whip-around show featuring live look-ins and in-game highlights.”

The Friday Night Games

Of course, the most significant part of Apple’s Friday Night Baseball is going to happen on Friday nights, when Apple TV+ will feature two marquee games throughout the entire regular season — and it’s offering the first half of the season to anybody with internet access, whether they subscribe to Apple TV+ or not.

Even better, the games will not be subject to local broadcast blackout restrictions — something that even MLB.tv subscribers haven’t been able to enjoy without resorting to using a VPN.

It’s hard to overstate how big of a deal this is; MLB’s blackout restrictions have been the bane of the league for years. It’s the main reason why, as a Toronto Blue Jays fan, I could never bring myself to pay for a subscription. For years, live Jays games were blacked out in all of Canada. That was lifted for a short time in 2014, but MLB clamped down again in 2020.

Granted, Apple TV+ is only broadcasting two games per week, but the fact that Apple has managed to negotiate a blackout-free arrangement with MLB somehow is, to put it mildly, groundbreaking.

Apple has also announced the broadcast team for tomorrow’s first pair of games, which includes Melanie Newman (play-by-play), Chris Young (analyst), Hannah Keyser (analyst), and Brooke Fletcher (reporter) calling the New York Mets at the Washington Nationals at 7 p.m. This will be followed by Stephen Nelson (play-by-play), Hunter Pence (analyst), Katie Nolan (analyst), and Heidi Watney (reporter) to call the Houston Astros at the Los Angeles Angels game at 9:30 p.m. Broadcasters will be rotated for each set of games. New Friday Night Baseball broadcaster assignments will be announced each week.

Live pre- and post-game coverage will be hosted by Lauren Gardner, who will be joined by a rotating group of analysts and former MLB players, including Carlos Peña, Cliff Floyd, and Yonder Alonso.

Technology

The games themselves are being produced jointly between MLB Network’s production team and Apple. They will use the most advanced state-of-the-art cameras, including high-speed Phantoms and the high-resolution Megalodon. It will also feature 5.1 sound that supports Apple’s Spatial Audio features for an even more immersive experience.

Apple has also cooked up a new on-screen experience that will incorporate new graphics that offer probabilities-based forecasts of different outcomes and highlights and live look-ins from around the league incorporated right into the broadcast. It’s also tying in with Apple’s other services to provide on-screen callouts about batters’ walk-up songs from Apple Music and baseball trivia powered by Siri. In what Apple notes is “a first for MLB games,” it will also offer rules analysis and interpretation from former MLB umpire Brian Gorman.

Availability

Friday Night Baseball games will be available in the United States, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Japan, Mexico, Puerto Rico, South Korea, and the United Kingdom, wherever the Apple TV+ app can be found, from Apple’s devices to smart TVs, game consoles, and even on the web at tv.apple.com.