Apple is striving to step up its game when it comes to original content, but it is also striking collaborations that could help its queue in sports. The Cupertino-based tech giant is starting a new section in Apple News that will be entirely devoted to the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
The Olympics segment will be found in the ‘For You’ section, the part of Apple News, where the platform provides a more customized collection of stories based on publications and channels that you visit on a regular base.
Technology and Sports
Apple will be collaborating with NBC Olympics for the new service, which will provide videos, articles, and infographics from various sources. The publication will work outside the U.S., more precisely, in every place Apple News is live. However, because NBC only holds the rights to coverage in the U.S., the video links will only seem to function there. The other collaborators included are basically Apple’s other news partners.
The Winter Olympics section will be found on News, but the portal will also include a planner which details what is showing when and allows people to add events they want to watch in their calendar.
According to Apple, the section will also link to live streams, even though these and full replays of particular events will link outside to the NBC Sports app. Videos from events can be watched in the Apple News application.
The tech giant has been making numerous changes to increase its content plays. The intent is that having more elitism and ownership of what is offered on its video and music services could make them look different from the rest of the digital media opponents. This was also intended to make them more appealing for people to pay and use.
Placed in a Rather Unusual Section
Sports has not been a main consideration in these circumstances until not long ago. Now, a deal with Spielberg and family-friendly comedies and also dramas with widely spread popularity seem to be a daily agenda.
Even so, Apple created a Sports tab to Apple TV, especially for this, back in September, most probably paving the way for this and other activities scheduled to appear in the future.
The confirmation comes a day after Google released its own lineup of Olympics reporting and features. The actions of both Google and Apple show how those in technology businesses, but still outside the regular business of media, are trying to attract their own audience around the Olympics, which is among the most-watched sporting events in the entire world.
A rather confusing thing is why Apple has decided to place its Olympics coverage in the ‘For You’ section. One possibility is that it will give a bit more attention to the segment as the company has never said how much ‘For You’ is used in comparison to the other Apple News sections. However, what might be at the top of the application is utilized the most when first opened.
Another possibility is that because the event is of huge interest all over the media, placing the Winter Olympics into the sports segment might lead to a huge number of users to never actually see it.
