If you expected a big sports rights announcement to come out of Apple’s WWDC presentation this afternoon, you must be sorely disappointed.
Yes, Apple still is talking with the NFL about Sunday Ticket rights and MLS about its available rights. It is unlikely to get Big Ten rights, as the story above mentioned. But none of those negotiations are close enough to merit a mention in today’s presentation.
Outside of a quick mention of its Friday night MLB deal, the only time sports content was mentioned today was during a discussion around Apple News. Apple will make highlights, scores, schedules and standings available to the iPhone’s lock screen through what it is calling “My Sports.” I will be most interested to see how much this free service affects traffic to sports apps that already provide this service. This has the potential to negate the need to go to ESPN and see scores, which is almost the only reason I use my ESPN app.
