Apple has announced that the Apple TV broadcast of Saturday night’s LA Galaxy and Houston Dynamo FC Major League Soccer match will be captured completely by its iPhone 17 Pro smartphone.
In what Apple is calling the first professional sports event shot completely on iPhone, the latest flagship will provide all the footage for this weekend’s live stream. Why should viewers care about this? If the cameras are approaching the ability to replicate the quality of larger purpose-made TV cameras then we won’t notice any difference.
However, Apple says the iPhone’s smaller form factor will offer “dynamic new perspectives that bring viewers closer to the action.” This suggests a stylistic switch that might offer interesting new ways for viewers to experience the game.
Apple has trialed this before via its Friday Night Baseball rights and as part of its MLS Cup coverage last season, but never for a full game. As well as the stylistic departures, we can also expect the company to go hard on the cinematic shots possible via the trio of 48-megapixel cameras showed within the iPhone 17 Pro‘s compact body.
The company also references the pro-level video features like Apple Log 2, which is an advanced video colour profile that debuted on the new handset. It offers a wider colour space, which is designed to ensure richer captured footage.
Apple says: “iPhone 17 Pro will capture live footage throughout the match, including team warmups on the pitch, player introductions, in-net goal angles, and the atmosphere inside the stadium. With cameras positioned throughout the venue, the broadcast will deliver the pristine video quality fans expect, alongside dynamic new perspectives that bring viewers closer to the action, made possible by the small form factor of iPhone.”
The Galaxy vs Dynamo fixture kicks off at 7:30PM PT time, which is a little late for fans in the UK to watch live. That’s 3:30AM in Blighty. However, all games are available on demand after the fact.
The MLS Season Pass now comes with a standard Apple TV subscription and is no longer an add-on. This might be an interesting moment to sample a little MLS action. It’s pretty good, to be fair. Last weekend an FC Dallas forward scored an injury-time winner and then shotgunned a beer lobbed at him by rival fans. It was pretty awesome.
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