A version of this article first appeared in the CNBC Sport newsletter with Alex Sherman, which brings you the biggest news and exclusive interviews from the worlds of sports business and media. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox. Apple’s head of TV is not a fan of the modern sports viewing experience. “We’ve gone backwards,” Apple Senior Vice President of Services Eddy Cue said during a panel Wednesday at Motorsport Network’s Autosport Business Exchange NYC. “You used to buy one subscription, your cable subscription, and you got pretty much everything they had. Now, there’s so many different subscriptions, so I think that needs to be fixed.” In some ways, Apple is part of the problem. The company is about to announce a $140 million per year media rights deal with F1 for its U.S. rights, according to people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the deal before it’s announced. With the acquisition of those rights, Apple will add to its growing sports portfolio, which also includes Major League Soccer and MLB’s “Friday Night Baseball.” Apple TV costs $12.99 per month. Consumers who want to watch a wide variety of sports are able to access them — a positive development from 10 or 20 years ago, Cue noted — but they have to sign up for “1,200 subscriptions” to get them, he joked. The solution is “more bundling,” said Cue, and more partnership between media partners. “If I’m a league, and I have two partners, for example, it should be very easy for me to go between them and do all kinds of things between them and do pictur …
