Considering MLS Season Pass? Lionel Messi Has a Gift for You

If you’ve been thinking of signing up for Apple’s MLS Season Pass, now is the perfect time to check it out. Apple is introducing an exclusive one-month trial promotion, made possible by the endorsement of the legendary Lionel Messi.

Although we saw news of a free trial offer earlier this month, that one only went out to select customers — mostly previous subscribers, from what we could tell. It was also only available in the United States. Apple also offered a free taste of the service last weekend, allowing all 14 matches played on Saturday and Sunday to be watched without a subscription.

By comparison, anyone can sign up for this one by following the link on Lionel Messi’s Instagram page. It’s a bit of a marketing play, to be sure, and you’ll have to visit Messi’s profile to get the short link since clickable links aren’t allowed in Instagram posts.

While this latest promotion is for new subscribers only, it appears to be on offer in every region where Apple MLS Season Pass is available. That’s a nice change from last year’s free trial, which was limited to subscribers in the US and Canada.

The promotion is good for a one-month trial of MLS Season Pass starting from the day it’s redeemed. After that, the subscription will automatically renew at whatever the normal monthly price is for your region. You also have until April 5 to take advantage of it, which means you can delay pulling the trigger if there’s nothing on the schedule you want to watch over the next few days.

Thanks to its multi-billion-dollar MLS deal, Apple will be the exclusive home of MLS matches and related coverage for at least the next nine years. This includes the matches themselves, free of the blackouts common to many other sports streaming services. That means you’ll be able to watch every game, no matter where you’re located or where the teams are playing. The broadcast quality has also been lauded as excellent since it streams in full 60fps HD quality at exceptionally high bitrates, so you won’t miss any of the action. Apple TV 4K users can even put up to four games on their screen at once.

If you just want to try MLS Season Pass for a month and don’t plan to continue paying for it, you can cancel it as easily as any other Apple subscription. However, if you think you’ll stick around for the whole season, you’ll be better off switching to the “annual” subscription for the full season.

In the US, MLS Season Pass costs $14.99/month as a standalone subscription or $12.99/month if you also subscribe to Apple TV+. If you plan to watch from April until early December, when the MLS Cup final airs, those prices work out to just under $120 and $104, respectively. However, you can sign up for the entire season for $99 on its own or $79 with Apple TV+.

Last year, Apple dropped the subscription price in June to $49 for the entire second half of the season. There’s no word on whether Apple will do that again this year, but that’s the point at which the monthly subscription becomes the cheaper option for the remaining six months of the season.