How to watch Union games in the Apple MLS Season Pass streaming package

The new Major League Soccer streaming package on Apple’s platforms, MLS Season Pass, is now available for fans to purchase. Here are answers to all the big questions about watching Union games, what devices you can watch on, what else is in the package, and more.

$14.99 per month or $99.99 for the year. If you already have Apple TV+, you can get it for $12.99 per month or $79.99 for the year.

If you’re a T-Mobile or Metro cell phone customer, you’re in luck: you can get MLS Season Pass free through the T-Mobile Tuesdays app, until March 14. Click here for more details and instructions.

Yes. If you’re a full season ticket-holder for the Union or any other MLS team, you get a free subscription. And you can share it with up to five other people with Apple accounts through the sharing function on Apple devices.

Yes. Apple is paying MLS at least $250 million a year for the next 10 years for the global broadcast rights to every game in the league, plus games in the Leagues Cup tournament where MLS teams will play teams from Mexico’s Liga MX. The package also has Union reserve team games in the MLS Next Pro league, and some Union youth academy team games.

» READ MORE: We know what MLS wants from Apple. What does Apple want from MLS?

The biggest deal in this deal — as Apple’s famed Ted Lasso character might say — is that there are no local TV broadcasts of MLS games anymore. That means no more Union games on PHL17, or the New York teams on MSG and YES Network, and so on across the country.

Apple’s streaming platform will be the exclusive home of almost every regular-season game, except for a limited number of national TV games on Fox channels. Fox’s broadcast network will have 15 regular-season games in English this year and FS1 will have 19. Fox Deportes will have them all in Spanish.

The Union have three games on TV this year: May 17 vs. D.C. United (FS1), July 2 at Atlanta United (Fox29), and Sept. 3 vs. the New York Red Bulls (FS1).

Univision’s channels will also have some Leagues Cup games.

Notably, national TV games aren’t exclusive to those networks. They’re also streamed on Apple’s platform, and the announcers are different there. So if you don’t like Fox’s announcers for a given game, you can see who’s calling it on the Apple broadcast, or vice versa.

The Union have a weekly half-hour magazine show on PHL17, Thursday nights at 9 p.m. Called “Union Insider,” it has highlights, analysis, interviews, and a preview of each week’s upcoming game.

A lot of stuff: highlights, full-game replays, lots of famous playoff games, features on each team’s history, drone tours of stadiums, and content produced by the teams throughout the year.

Once you’re set up with the subscription and pick your favorite team, it will jump to the front of the list of teams when you scroll down the home page. Make sure you have the latest operating system on your device, too.

There’s also a live whiparound show on game nights, “MLS 360,″ with real-time highlights and look-ins as many games go on at the same time.

» READ MORE: Behind the scenes at Apple and MLS’ studios, where every Saturday is ‘like the Olympics’

Yes. The plan for this year is for an average of six games leaguewide each week to be available free of charge. That should average out to 14 or so games for each team this year. Early in the season, the free games were announced a few weeks in advance on a rolling basis. Now they are announced one week out. And there won’t necesarily be six games free every week, but it should be around that most weeks.

Also of note, if you have the main Apple TV+ package, you get the MLS 360 whip-around show included for no extra charge. For everything else except the free games, you have to pay for MLS Season Pass. Apple TV+ costs $6.99 per month, and there are many free trial and combo deals with other Apple products.

» READ MORE: MLS announces a limited TV package to go with its big Apple streaming deal

You have to create an Apple account first. If you have any Apple device — an iPhone, iPad, an Apple TV, an Apple Watch, or a Mac computer — you already have an account. Open up the Apple TV app on your device (except for a watch), then scroll down on the home page and look for the “MLS Season Pass” section. That’s the official name of the MLS streaming package.

If you don’t see it, the next step depends on your device. If you have an Apple TV device, go to the Sports tab. If you have another kind of device connected to your TV, there might be a Sports tab, or you can see if there’s a search box.

If you’re starting from an iPhone, iPad or Mac computer and you don’t see MLS Season Pass on the home page, use the search box.

You can also go through the Apple News app. Tap on the “Following” icon, and you’ll get a big menu of options. Go to “Sports,” and you’ll see “My Sports.” Go there, and you’ll see a way to add teams and leagues to follow. You can pick the Union or other teams in MLS, or the league as a whole. And you can follow other soccer leagues and teams, including the NWSL, if you want to.

Once you’ve picked your favorite teams and leagues, they should show up on your Apple TV app home page on a regular basis. MLS games should show up on the “Up Next” list, which is near the top. And on the Apple News app, you’ll have a customized scoreboard with icons to click on that will take you to broadcasts on game days.

» READ MORE: MLS and Apple announce the price of their new streaming package

Yes. Games will be on 97.5 The Fanatic this year, as long as there aren’t scheduling conflicts with Sixers or Flyers games. When there are, Union game broadcasts will be on The Fanatic’s website and mobile app.

Dave Leno will continue as the Union’s radio play-by-play voice, with former Union player Sheanon Williams as the lead analyst. Other contributors will include former Union player Sébastien Le Toux, longtime MLS broadcaster Jonathan Yardley, Philadelphia-based CBS NWSL broadcaster Lisa Roman, and the Union’s head of content Adam Cann.

» READ MORE: 97.5 The Fanatic is the new home of Union game radio broadcasts

No. That’s one of the big selling points for the Apple deal: there are no blackouts anywhere in the world. You can watch games on devices at home, or if you’re down the Shore, or if you’re traveling across the country, or beyond.

» READ MORE: Union to kick off 2023 at home vs. Columbus in February, and host LAFC in September

Yes, if you have an Apple device, for whatever teams and leagues you pick as favorites in the app. If you get an alert on your phone or tablet, tapping on it will take you straight to the broadcast. Apple TVs also have alerts that you can click on with the device’s remote. (This also works for sports on other streaming apps, like Temple basketball games on ESPN’s app or NWSL games on Paramount+.)

» READ MORE: Apple TV becomes the new home of Major League Soccer with a 10-year deal for every game

The full list, according to MLS and Apple, is: Samsung, LG, Panasonic, Sony, TCL, VIZIO, and other smart TVs; Amazon Fire TV and Roku devices; PlayStation and Xbox gaming consoles; Chromecast with Google TV; and Comcast Xfinity.

Yes, the X1 box has the app. Once you have your account set up, push the big “Xfinity” button, then navigate to “Apps.” Then open the Apple TV app and log in with your Apple account.

Doing that will put games on your TV if you don’t have an Apple TV box. Go to the Sports tab, navigate to Soccer, and you should see Union games on a game day. Also, you can say “Soccer”or “Philadelphia Union” as a voice command on a remote with that feature.

» READ MORE: MLS and Apple unveil production details of their game and studio show broadcasts

You probably noticed that’s not listed above. While Apple TV works with Google’s Chromecast streaming device, there’s no Apple TV app for Android phones or tablets. But you can watch games through the device’s web browser at tv.apple.com. That address also works if you want to watch games on a computer.

Note that you can’t set favorite teams through the web browser. That said, if you have a Mac computer with the Apple News app, you can set favorites there by clicking on the My Sports icon.

There are a lot of them. All regular-season, playoff and Leagues Cup games will have broadcasts in English and Spanish, and games with MLS’s three Canadian teams will also have broadcasts in French.

Some of the big names hired include play-by-play callers Max Bretos, Jenn Hildreth, Ramses Sandoval and Pablo Ramírez; analysts Taylor Twellman, Brian Dunseth and Eduardo Biscayart; and whiparound show host Liam McHugh.

» READ MORE: After decades at Univision, broadcaster Pablo Ramírez starts a new era with MLS and Apple

Five of the analysts hired have Philly ties. Former Union captain Maurice Edu, former Union local TV analyst Danny Higginbotham, and longtime Philadelphia resident Lori Lindsey are English-language game analysts; long-ago Union striker Carlos Ruiz is a Spanish-language game analyst; and Union all-time leading scorer Sébastien Le Toux is a French-language game analyst.

All games will be called from inside stadiums this year, which is good news for soccer fans fed up with games called off monitors.

You’ll also be able to sync the home team’s radio broadcast with the live video if there is one. There reportedly are plans to add the away team’s radio broadcast, but that’s not ready yet.

Every game night will include pregame, halftime and postgame studio coverage in English and Spanish.

Some veteran MLS broadcasters who’ve called games locally and nationally since MLS launched in 1996 were not hired. They include the Union’s JP Dellacamera, D.C. United’s Dave Johnson, and the Los Angeles Galaxy’s Joe Tutino.

» READ MORE: Ex-Union players Sébastien Le Toux, Maurice Edu to call MLS games on Apple’s streaming platform

The pregame show is called MLS Countdown, and there are up to four editions of it on a game night. The first is at 7 p.m. ET, half an hour leading into what will usually be a large number of 7:30 kickoffs.

Almost every game this year starts at 7:30 p.m. in the local time where it’s played. So there is a pregame show each hour. The ones for the Central, Mountain and Pacific time zones are 20 minutes, starting at 10 minutes past the hour. For example, the MLS Countdown show for the the 8:30 p.m. ET games starts at 8:10 p.m.

There is one big postgame show, MLS Wrap-Up, at the end of the full night — which means 12:30 a.m. to 1 a.m. ET. It is available for replay if you can’t watch it live.

» READ MORE: Former Union TV analyst Danny Higginbotham joins Apple MLS broadcasts

There are promises of a lot, but we’ll see what actually happens,.

Yes, there are plans for ads and events with players and coaches.

This article will be updated with more questions and answers in the coming weeks as we see how everything really works.