APM Music To Serve as Unified Music Resource for Major League Baseball Under the deal, the production-music supplier will also manage copyright clearance By Dan Daley, Audio Editor
Wednesday, June 7, 2023 - 7:00 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
Major League Baseball and APM Music have reached an agreement under which the Los Angeles-based production-music supplier will provide all the prerecorded music from its catalogs used by the league and its 30 teams, collectively and individually, for broadcast, in-venue, commercial, promotional, and social-media applications. It will also manage copyright-clearance services for music from other sources.
The term of the agreement, which was signed in December but not announced at the time, is four years. The dollar value was not disclosed but is based on a flat annual fee.
The exclusive, league-wide deal builds on previous arrangements with individual MLB teams, including the New York Mets, for which APM created custom music and scoring as well as providing other audio resources and related services for multiple in-stadium and broadcast applications.
APM Music's Matthew Gutknecht: The goal is to create a unifying, creative resource across teams, the league, cable properties, and digital, while also managing liability.
Potential audio services under consideration include sound design, such as creation of sonic-branding elements that teams can use for marketing purposes.
According to Matthew Gutknecht, director, sports entertainment, APM Music, the arrangement can be scaled according to individual teams' financial resources and creative needs. For instance, original music scores for team and league productions will be available as a separate option.
The 40-year-old company, owned jointly by Sony Music Publishing and Universal Music Publishing, has an extensive history in developing production music for broadcast sports. Among its clients are the NFL Tampa Bay Buccaneers, MLB L.A. Dodgers, MLS Philadelphia Union, and NBA L.A. Lakers; production entities NASCAR, NFL Films, and PGA TOUR Productions; and collegiate athletics programs at Alabama, Auburn, South Carolina, Georgia, and Clemson. Its sports-music roster includes some iconic tracks, such as Heavy Action, familiar as the Monday Night Football theme, and catalogs like the NFL Films Music Library and MLB Music Library.
It was very challenging to get the league to agree to a league-wide deal, where some teams have more [media] resources [and] others had little or no budget for that, Gutknecht says. We were able to equitably create a solution right down the middle to make everyone as happy as possible. The goal is to create a unifying, creative resource - a level playing field, no pun intended - across teams, the league, cable properties, and digital, while also managing liability as broadly as possible at reasonable cost.
Legal Land Mines The reference to liability underscores a music-media legal land mine increasingly encountered by broadcast sports: copyright-infringement litigation between leagues, broadcasters, and music publishers. For instance, if music properly licensed, through a performing-rights organization such as BMI or ASCAP, for in-venue use over the PA system in a venue leaks into a game broadcast, that could constitute unintended but nonetheless very real copyright infringement. Such litigation has become more frequent in recent years as the range of outlets and number of sports media on the air and online have mushroomed, as has the number of open microphones in sports venues - including a growing array worn by the athletes themselves - creating more potential for unintended copyright infringements.
The rules of the game have changed, say Gutknecht, referring to rightsholders' more forcefully asserting such infringements. We interface with legal departments far more now than in the past.
Having a legal framework in place around music usage could encourage the use of more music and in more ways, he contends: People are thinking about music differently now that they don't have to be concerned about liability. Now they can get above that and think of their overall content strategy. What's their opening video, what's their special anniversary? Is there a uniform reveal? All of that needs music.
Major Leagues, Big Deals The MLB deal is similar to one that APM Music secured with the National Hockey League in October 2021. Under the terms of the MLB arrangement, teams will be able to use APM's music resources - current inventory and archives - and copyright-clearance services for music from such other sources as the vast catalogs of Universal Music and Sony Music.
We're not like music supervisors, says Gutknecht, referring to those who manage the music choices for film and television projects. But we're starting to lean in that direction. We're not there just to provide a resource but also to advise our clients.
He notes that, since the NHL deal, sports leagues have significantly increased their use of music in venues, on-air, and, particularly, on social media, where he adds, copyright issues increasingly occur. Furthermore, baseball has developed additional applications for music, notably the increased use of walk-up music, songs individually chosen by hitters and played as they approach the batter's box. In some cases, to avoid unintentional infringements, small PA systems have been built in some stadiums to keep that music focused on the home-plate area and out of the effects microphones surrounding it.
People are beginning to realize that you can't just take a clip from a game and post it to social media; there is no implied sync,' Gutknecht says, referring to synchronization licenses that allow film and television to secure rights to use music. We're trying to cover
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
APM Music To Serve as Unified Music Resource for Major League Baseball Under the deal, the production-music supplier will also manage copyright clearance By Dan Daley, Audio Editor 
