Exclusive Streaming Getting Out of Control

Major League Baseball recently announced that its YouTube-exclusive weekday afternoon games will be returning next month.  Which aren't to be confused with MLB's exclusive package for Friday night games on Apple TV+.  Or their Sunday morning package with Peacock.  Or their national TV deals with FOX/FS1, TBS and ESPN, networks that actually air games ON TV!  Oh yeah, and there's each team's local TV deal, too.

So, to keep track, that's SIX! separate national "TV" packages, some of which are exclusive, some of which aren't.  It's enough to make your head spin!  You'll literally need to check every day who's showing the game, then figure out if you even CAN watch it based on that!

The Yankees, meanwhile, have sold a package of games to Amazon Prime, which will have exclusive rights to those games.  And Amazon, of course, is putting them behind the paywall.  So, in order to watch every Yankee game this season, you'll need more than just a cable subscription that includes YES.  You'll also need to pay for an Amazon Prime subscription.

It really shouldn't have come as a surprise that leagues and teams would start moving games to their streaming services, but it got very ridiculous very quickly.  It's an obvious attempt to cater to the cord-cutters.  But a big reason a lot of people have kept their cable packages is because cable's the only way to get the regional sports networks.  Now having cable and the RSN isn't enough.  You need to subscribe to one or more of the streaming services anyway!

And this is just the start!  The NHL's new TV contract with ESPN and TNT features exclusive games on ESPN+.  A few weeks ago, I wanted to watch a Rangers-Penguins game.  I couldn't.  Because it was on ESPN+ and only ESPN+!  In fact, it feels like there are more games "televised" on ESPN+ than ESPN's actual TV channels!  Which begs the question...How is it a "TV" contract when the games aren't actually on TV?

This is all, of course, just a warmup for Thursday Night Football's move to Amazon Prime this season.  Amazon has had Thursday Night Football for a few years, but this is the first time they'll have it exclusively.  They've even hired Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit as their broadcast crew!  But, if you want to watch Al and Kirk, you've gotta purchase an Amazon Prime subscription...which people will.

That's the dumbest part of this whole streaming revolution.  Their sole reason for doing it is to get people to sign up for these services.  The leagues don't really care.  They'll gladly grant the streamers exclusivity if it means they get their money.  And the more exclusive deals they can broker, the more money they can make.  So what if it completely jerks the fans around?  If they want to watch their team play that badly, they'll pay it...at least so the logic goes.

I'm waiting for the day the RSNs strike back.  And, frankly, I think it'll happen sooner rather than later.  The one bullet RSNs have in their gun is live games of the local teams.  That's how they determine how much they can charge cable systems to carry the channel.  But, with all these exclusive deals with different streaming services, the leagues are gradually taking away the only thing RSNs bring to the table.  Which in turn will result in the RSNs losing money since they won't be able to charge cable and satellite providers as much.

Yes, the RSNs stream games, too.  That's not my point.  My point is that whether it's on linear TV or streaming, they're still having their inventory taken away!  And local blackout restrictions still apply to the games that are exclusive to the streaming services!  (The Yankee-Amazon thing is different since those are YES-produced broadcasts...they're just milking people out of an extra $13 a month, plus whatever they're paying for cable for no reason other than greed.)

If people want to subscribe to one streaming service or none of them or all of them, that's entirely their prerogative.  But they shouldn't be bullied into signing up for them by the leagues and teams!  They especially shouldn't be bullied into signing up for multiple services just so they can watch their favorite team play, all while the league rakes in the dough from all these different exclusive "TV" deals.

Now, let me be very clear about something.  I'm not opposed to the idea of streaming live sports.  Just the opposite, actually.  ESPN3/ESPN+ has been tremendous for college sports, with so many schools and conferences having places to show their events and getting a high-quality production.  Even with the rise of conference-based networks, that simply would not be possible otherwise.

Likewise, NBC has moved a lot of its sports programming to Peacock now that NBCSN is no more.  But these events were actually being broadcast on Peacock from the beginning.  Even when NBCSN was still on the air, NBC had "NBC Sports Gold," which was a subscription service where you paid to watch specific sports beyond what was shown on TV.  I had the track & field package for years.  It was great!  It had full, unedited coverage of all the meets from Europe.  NBC Sports Gold simply transitioned to Peacock, which is actually a better deal since you get everything on the service, not just your specific sport!

Making those niche sports that won't get high enough ratings to warrant more TV coverage available via streaming is perfectly reasonable.  If people want to get a subscription to watch them, they will.  If they don't, they won't.  And I'm sure there are plenty of people who are such big figure skating fans that they want to watch every figure skating competition, even the ones that aren't on TV (or the full competition live instead of just the edited version they do show on TV later), so they'll gladly pay the $5 a month for Peacock so that they can.

What NBC did during both the Tokyo and Beijing Olympics was really smart, too.  They made a big point of saying how everything would be shown live on Peacock.  But all that stuff was also live on NBCOlympics.com if you logged in through your cable provider.  Sure, Peacock had some studio shows that you otherwise wouldn't have been able to watch, but the event coverage was the same.  It didn't matter if you had a Peacock account or not.  They didn't make you subscribe just so you could watch the Olympics (even though that would've been the time to do it).

My problem is when fans aren't given a choice.  The only options being presented are (a) sign up for a streaming service (or multiple streaming services) or (b) not be able to watch all of you team's games.  I'm sure there are a lot of people who'll choose option B, which gives everybody what they want.  The fan gets to watch the game.  The league/team and streaming service that are taking advantage of that fan get more of their money.

Unfortunately, this is a trend that doesn't look like it's going to stop anytime soon.  In fact, it only figures to get worse.  Which is a sad commentary about the state of sports broadcasting.  By catering to cord-cutters, you're screwing over the people who still get their sports the traditional way.  And they're not only gonna continue to get away with it, they'll continue getting richer because of it, too.