A professional Major League Soccer game was broadcast on May 23 using nothing but iPhones. It was the first time in major sports history that a professional game was shot entirely with smartphones.
The game took place at Dignity Health Sports Park in Los Angeles, where the LA Galaxy hosted the Houston Dynamo. Fifteen iPhone 17 Pro Max devices were placed at various positions around the field. Eight of them used the phone's built-in lenses. The other seven were connected to large external zoom lenses, the kind that are standard equipment at professional sports venues.
According to CNET, the external lenses closely resembled the Fujinon Duvo 25-1000 Cinema Box Lens, which launched at a price of $265,000. Apple declined to say how much the lenses used in the broadcast actually cost. The footage was then processed through Blackmagic video processing software. A consumer version of that software is available through the Blackmagic Camera iOS app.
One of the key advantages the iPhone setup offered was placement. Large broadcast cameras cannot fit in every corner of a stadium. The iPhones could.
"Those bench cameras you saw, we can't get cameras that close, usually. What we'll do is, we'll shoot across the field to get reaction shots," said Seth Bacon, executive vice president of Media for Major League Soccer. "The kind of compactness of the iPhone and being able to put it right there is a big, big step forward for us."
For viewers watching on Apple TV, the goal was that none of this would be noticeable. Royce Dickerson, executive producer of live sports at Apple, said the quality held up against traditional broadcast equipment.
"Our native [iPhone 17 Pro Max] lenses, the quality that they're able to produce is just as good as that from a traditional broadcast," Dickerson said. "You won't be able to tell the difference between the native lens cameras and the cameras with the zoom lens on them."
Bacon noted that the iPhone setup actually used two or three more cameras than a typical MLS broadcast. The extra positions were made possible by the phones' small size. One was placed directly behind the goal, an angle that would be difficult or impossible to capture with standard broadcast equipment.
The microphones on the sideline-facing iPhones also picked up game audio, though MLS said it is being careful about player privacy for now. The proximity to coaches and players raises the possibility of capturing conversations on the field, including language that might not be suitable for broadcast. The league said it wants to be considerate before going further with that capability.
The broadcast was part of Apple's broader effort to demonstrate what the iPhone 17 Pro Max can do at a professional level. The implicit message is that consumers carrying the same phone in their pockets have access to similar recording capability, though replicating the full broadcast setup would require equipment well beyond what most people own.
