Not Sold on Apple’s MLS Season Pass? Here’s a One-Month Free Trial

Earlier this year, Apple launched MLS Season Pass, the first major sports streaming service to appear on Apple TV+, promising to make it “the exclusive destination to watch every single live MLS match.”

While that was quite a coup for the company — it signed a 10-year, $2.5 billion deal with MLS for the privilege of becoming the home for Major League Soccer — Apple has its work cut out for it in appealing to a wider audience.

Priced at $99/season (or $79/season for those who already have an Apple TV+ subscription), it’s a no-brainer for hardcore MLS fans — the type of folks who want to enjoy every match they can find the time to watch. Even so, that’s not a bad deal for more casual fans either, and Apple is doing everything it can to convince those who may be on the fence to take a closer look at the service.

Early on, Apple began offering the MLS 360 live whip-around show for free to Apple TV+ subscribers, presumably trying to give them a taste of what MLS Season Pass offers and hopefully encourage them to sign up for the full experience.

Now, Apple is sweetening the pot even more with a one-month free trial of MLS Season Pass. Best of all, it’s available to both new and returning subscribers.

This means that even if you tried an MLS Season Pass monthly subscription and cancelled it, Apple is happy to welcome you back with another one-month trial in the hope that you’ll stick around this time.

Like most of Apple’s free trials, you can cancel after your first month and pay nothing, but the catch with this one is that if you do choose to continue, you’ll be stuck on the pricier monthly plan, as it will renew at $14.99/month ($12.99/month for Apple TV+ subscribers). However, that’s not as bad as it sounds when you do the math; the regular season games end on October 21, and the playoffs are expected to wrap up with the MLS Cup championship match on December 9.

The one-month free trial is currently available only via a special promotional code available from Apple’s website, not by signing up directly. Further, although Apple says in the fine print that it’s “valid only where MLS Season Pass (monthly subscription) is available,” as of this writing the code only appears to be valid in the US store.

It’s also notable that the code is valid until October 31, 2023. This could provide an opportunity for folks to jump in later if they just want to enjoy the playoffs. While the schedule means you’ll still have to pay for at least one month if you want to make it all the way to the MLS Cup, that’s still considerably more affordable than the entire MLS Season Pass.

Apple also adds in the fine print that it’s “not a sponsor of this promotion,” which implies that MLS may be spearheading this one. Neither Apple nor MLS has released any numbers on MLS Season Pass subscribers or what the service’s viewership is like, so it’s hard to say how well the service is doing. Some have suggested that this free trial suggests that it hasn’t been doing as well as anticipated, but it may be too early to jump to that conclusion. While it’s probably not wildly successful, there’s no reason that Apple and MLS wouldn’t want to make a good thing even better by attracting more subscribers.

This one-month promotion isn’t the only way to get a deal on MLS Season Pass; shortly after the service launched, T-Mobile announced it would be bundling the service with its higher-end plans, including Magenta Max and its more recent Go5G Plus plans.

Even though Apple and MLS have loudly promised that MLS Season Pass delivers every match with no blackouts, some potential subscribers have been burned by other sports streaming services in the past. For example, other leagues like MLB are infamous for still blacking out local games even for top-tier subscribers, making a direct subscription to those apps and services arguably pointless compared to simply going with ESPN or local cable broadcasts. Other MLS fans are nervous that the quality of the programming or the coverage may not justify the asking price. In both those cases, the one-month free trial may be enough to convince a few more people to pull the trigger and give MLS Season Pass a shot.