Tackling Sports Streaming: The Hidden Cost of Watching Sports

We Fixed It, You're Welcome

The episode explores the increasingly fragmented and expensive landscape of sports streaming caused by competing media rights deals. Guests

Key takeaways

• Renee Washington describes an 'arms race' among networks to secure massive media rights for leagues like the NBA and NFL.
• The rise of player-centric fandom, driven by stars like Messi and LeBron James, is reshaping how sports are marketed globally.

Main topics

• Sports streaming fragmentation
• Media rights competition

Notable quotes

More choice doesn't feel like a choice. It feels like work.

Conclusion

While globalization drives massive revenue and star power, the industr

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Welcome to We Fixed It. You're welcome. The show where we take over companies, you come along for the ride, and we try to put them back better than we found Speaker 3 (0:10) them. Speaker 1 (0:12) Hey, sports fans. How many streaming apps do you subscribe to these days to keep up with the games you care about? Two? Four? A whole spreadsheet's worth? Things used to be simpler. Wanted to watch your team? You turned on the TV. Now there's more to it. You have to know which app's broadcasting which game, which subscription covers which network, and whether you specifically can see it based on where you live. Leagues are chasing bigger rights deals and bigger audiences, and somehow the fan experience got really complicated. Today, we're digging into just that, the business of sports streaming. Pricing, access, and how it's impacting the people actually just trying to watch the game. Is this the way things are now? Can we create a better model? That's what we're here to fix. And we're adding to our own team today. Joining us is Renee Washington. She's worked across ESPN, CBS Sports, MSG Networks, and Philly sports covering things like the NFL, NBA, WNBA, and college sports. She's also a former LaSalle Soccer All-American and Hall of Famer. And these days, she's involved with the Brooklyn FC women's soccer team as a content and broadcast lead. Renee, welcome to the show. Tell us a little bit more about your story. Speaker 2 (1:21) Well, thank you, Aaron, and you guys for having me. It's such a pleasure joining you, and I'm thrilled we could make this happen. And I think it's very timely as we're getting into the transition into fall sports to have this conversation. So I've been working at the intersection of sports, business, technology in so many different capacities, whether it's, as you mentioned, through the wonderful introduction, working as a sports reporter and anchor, a host with various networks. I just came out of working with the World Cup with FIFA. I was working with for the World Cup. And then also have been actively involved with everything from the Winter Olympics with NBC Sports to college sports coverage to professional sports coverage, whether it's soccer, baseball, basketball, you name it, I've covered it. I've been there. And then also have my own company, Renee Washington Media and Consulting, where we actually give a lot of insight information around. the marketing, the brand strategy, the behind the scenes of how businesses are growing to reach their audiences. And that's one of the core pieces we talk about. So a lot of alignment and a lot that I've seen even since my own journey back as a three-time All-American professional soccer player to now of the evolution of sports and access. So thrilled to be here. It's Speaker 1 (2:26) a Speaker 2 (2:26) real to dive into some of these topics with you guys. Speaker 1 (2:28) Thanks for that. Thanks for being here. And I feel a lot better about our chances of fixing this now that you're here. Speaker 1 (2:35) Melissa, you're up to bat. How did watching my favorite team turn into the crowded landscape that it is today? And what does it mean for us fans? Speaker 3 (2:43) Well, Renee, you teamed us up greatly. Are you ready for some football? This is my favorite time of year. Kind of an ironic slogan because we are ready. We just can't find the game. Remember when watching your team just meant turning on the TV? Yeah, those days are gone because apparently. We have to follow to follow one team means juggling four or five, six different services, one for Thursday night, one for Wednesday night, one for Sunday ticket, one for Monday night, one for your local team, local broadcast. And my favorite and my must have for NFL football is NFL Red Zone. So it's not getting cheaper either. It's to keep up. ESPN just this week raising prices again. Unlimited's going from $29.99 to $31.99 a month right as football season kicks off. Of course it is. And baseball is not any different either. Major League Baseball spread its national gains across seven different platforms for 2026 through 2028. NBC, Peacock, Netflix, ESPN, Fox, TBS, and Apple TV+. Seven, if you can tell me off the top of your head where to find tonight's game for your team, I want to hang out with you. You've got it covered. And then there's the cautionary tale. So Diamond Sports. These guys ran 19 regional networks, carried the rights to 42 pro teams across the MLB, the NBA, the NHL, and collapsed under almost $9 billion in debt. That is horrible. But most of all, fans in those networks just lost their team overnight, not because they did anything wrong, but because the business behind the screen fell apart. And I don't even have to leave home to find one of these stories. Here in the Denver region, a contract blow up between Xfinity and Altitude Sports, owned by the Kroenke family, who also own the Colorado Avalanche and the Denver Nuggets, blacked us out from watching our own teams for six years. Six years. That was long enough for the Avs to win the Stanley Cup and the Nuggets to win an NBA title. And we couldn't watch it here in Denver. So Xfinity customers couldn't watch either one of them. So that was a total nightmare. Now, I get the logic. There's a legitimate business case for all of this fragmentation. Leaks reach younger audiences, sell direct to fans, one more first party data, offer more flexible viewing options. That's fair enough. It's a business. But here's the thing from the fan side. More choice doesn't feel like a choice. It feels like work. It's four to six subscriptions. It's blackouts. You didn't see coming in an app that crashes right as the game starts. We've talked about that when something happens with live streaming. So what's that's what I want to dig into today is streaming actually giving us more access to sports or just more places where access can quietly break. Renee, you sit on both sides of that screen inside the broadcast booth and inside a newer league. trying to build his audience from scratch. So when you hear all of this, does it match what you're actually seeing? Or is it the industry missing something that fans and the executives both are getting wrong? Speaker 2 (6:00) There's a couple underlying issues. I think for one, it comes down to money is most important. And I think there's, it's an arms race for every network to try to be involved. You look at Netflix, who's actually got the game tonight for the Thursday night game for the NFL in Australia. And that 49ers-Rams game is one that typically would be on Prime on a Thursday night. But because Netflix has their marquee day, they have the holidays of Thanksgiving. I believe they have Christmas tonight. We also saw Netflix take over for MLB for All-Star, the All-Star activities, which was amazing to see it in person, but crazy to watch on TV, too. It's an arms race. Every network is trying to figure out a way to get involved with the media rights. And media rights are big, big money. You look at the... NBA deal with NBC Sports coming into this NBA season. I'm sorry, last NBA season, the WNBAs, but expanding with their media rights. A lot of revenue is generated through the media rights. And so we've moved beyond traditional cable that now people want to be able to have access. The same way we have access to have Zoom conversations and jump on shows and have conversations like this on our phone, on our computer. People don't have that same access for watching games. There used to be a time, and my parents always talk about it, and my older relatives in that sense of the time when you would just gather on your TV to watch one NBA game per week. You might see a team. You might see Michael Jordan and the Bulls one time. You don't see them every day. We have access to not only every game. I know on my, you know, from how I watch, I have opportunities to watch different versions. I can watch, let's say it's the 49ers broadcast versus the Rams broadcast versus the Alts. Like there's so many broadcasts, even beyond access to every game, there's access to so many different types of broadcasts, which is why ESPN and different networks have also launched like the demanding cast. Like it's just insane. So beyond even the actual media rights, there's the actual. When you watch a game, where do you watch? People are always trying to figure out YouTube TV and where do I get access on which app? What streaming app do I need today? So it's a lot, but it always boils down to money, in my opinion, of every network wanting to get their hand involved. Sports are massive. They're generating billions and billions of dollars. They always have, but it's even bigger now. There's global expansion. There's the rise of international superstars. There's the rise and expansion of teams. There's the rise like... We see the valuation. We just saw the Cowboys leading the world in valuation for how much they're worth. So that is why everyone's trying to get their hand in the pot. And I think the hard part is how do you balance that without it being overwhelming, without it being something that we're running into an issue now with people don't know where to watch games. I think it's Speaker 4 (8:45) really interesting, too, because I think that the problem, you know, there's three, four actually major things. So choice overload, right? There is. unless you just had seven different opportunities to watch like different games and at different times and that decision fatigue, like we're, you know, the networks are now putting it onto the fans essentially to find out and figure out what app, you know, where is it local? Is it, you know, is this, you know, do I need to get the premium tier of this app? Did I renew my prescription? There's just a lot on the cognitive load for the fans. And what I wonder, too, and we talk about, you know, kind of diamond sports, you know, as a cautionary tale and how much they lost, because as you said, Renee, this is money. The rights are the money and they had the rights for a long term time. But my worry is. With all of this decision fatigue and fans essentially not knowing and putting it completely on them to figure out when things are happening, when blackout dates are there, what streaming service has the rights for what, it gets into a term called loss aversion, where people, it's essentially FOMO. As you mentioned, Melissa, your team just won twice and you couldn't watch any of it for six years. And I wonder what the downside of that is from like the fan experience. That's money right there that people aren't watching. And so you lose kind of that belonging to your team. You're not involved in the day. You're not buying the merch because you just don't have access to watching what you're wanting. So I wonder where kind of the networks think about, you know, if there's eight. seven, you know, how many people are kind of running the rights of everything? Do they consider, you know, if there's so many blackouts and there's so many rules and regulations, how many people they're losing? Because, you know, I don't think everyone can get seven or eight apps at all time, right? Not everybody can do that. So, you know, what happens to the people, like, you know, if you have to only pick one, are these larger networks not... worried about kind of this FOMO and this loss of fans because of all of this decision fatigue. And is there a workaround around that? I Speaker 3 (11:09) think Renee brought it up, up the point. It's a business decision. It's about the money. And so you bring up a really great. perspective and that's my perspective too Gino is a fan experience and what does that mean but I don't think that plays into it as much as how much money are they going to be making because regardless of the fact that I couldn't watch you know it in my home because I have Xfinity I couldn't watch the night I had to go someplace so I'm gonna go to a bar I'm gonna call around and find the bar and they post it like what bars actually have the other network so that they can actually show the games, right? So there is money involved and people still follow their teams, right? And now, like, I hate to say this, but like you can pirate a lot of this stuff, right? So people, you know, like I'll see my son pirating, like watching it on his phone, you know, like, or I'm like, what are you, how are you watching that? He's like. Don't don't ask, mom. And so I do think it is a business decision. It's not really trying to screw the fans so much because I think that they always know that the fan base is really important. But if you think about all the ways teams and the networks are making money through sponsorships and. ticket sales and merch and food. I mean, gosh, it's $18 for a beer, you know, at the game. It's amazing what an industry this is. And, you know, there's actually one league, and Renee, this probably hits close to home a little bit, even though it's Major League Soccer, it's the MLS. that actually has a contract with Apple Plus. So all their games are on there, but it was a money situation. So they proved that one app, one price, no blackouts, every match. But to be honest, the MLS did it because they were in a weaker position, negotiating position. And ESPN and Fox were really lukewarm on. you know, whether they should show these regional soccer games and da, da, da, da. And so Apple came in and said, we'll give you two and a half billion dollars over 10 years and we have exclusive rights. Right. And it's great for the fans. But, you know, it again, it's a money thing. It wasn't because they were like, oh, we can do this and have all of our games on Apple TV Plus. That's not what they were thinking. They were thinking. We get two and a half billion dollars and we can infuse that into our teams and grow the brand. And soccer with FIFA here this year, I mean. Heck, it's such a big thing. And Renee, you can also talk about the Women's League and then also in women's sports. That's all up and coming. So there's all of these avenues for these streamer streaming companies. And they're not just streaming company sports, right? Netflix, Prime Video, like they're all getting in. They're all getting their hands into this. And it's not just ESPN and Fox Sports, right? Speaker 1 (14:23) Today's episode is brought to you by Whatnot. 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And with the Guide Me feature, anyone you choose can follow that same process with real-time on-screen instructions showing them exactly where to click. And don't worry, it can automatically redact sensitive information like names, emails, and account numbers so you can share with confidence. Look, don't just document your process. Why not find ways to make it better? To see what Scribe could look like for your organization, head to scribe.how slash fixedit and mention We Fixed It for your first month of Scribe capture free on select plans. That's S-C-R-I-B-E dot how slash F-I-X-E-D-I-T. Yeah, Speaker 2 (16:45) I think there's a few things. And it's a great point that you bring up, you know, at the beginning of this, because I think the sad reality is all of these media deals, it's not really for the local markets. I think it's for the global markets. And that's the shift that sports have taken. So I know when I used to work in Major League Soccer with the Philadelphia Union, we had our local union. anchor, anchored show that I was part of that was pregame halftime postgame shows, it was on site, it was, you know, streamed on the local 680 C and the local Philly stations, and they moved that, you know, with the emergence of especially Apple TV actually got a lot of hate, people cannot stand it, which is ironic, because it's one platform, but everything's behind a paywall, everything is hard to access. And so we've seen all of these different leagues trying to figure out what media rights make most sense, how they can best reach their audiences. But they've gotten rid of the local stations. You look at NBC Sports was in every single market. And now we only really have NBC Sports, Philly, Chicago, and I think L.A. are like the only ones or the Bay Area are like the only ones that still exist. You know, local coverage of you have your I think about it Speaker 3 (17:53) in Speaker 2 (17:53) Philly with our NBC. We have our former. Sixers player, Phillies player, Flyers player, it's on for their respective teams. They're local. They connect