Tough time to be a sports fan: Costly streaming services can make watching your team a chore

By now, you’ve seen the commercial.

Comedian Larry David calls his pal Michael Kay in a panic because he can’t figure out how to watch the Yankees game on TV.

Kay tries to guide him through the steps to find the game by suggesting David speak into his TV remote. David objects in a technology-resistant mode.

“OK, I won’t watch it,” David said. “I’ll play Mahjong.”

This amusing spot was supposed to show viewers how easy it is to find a Yankees game on the YES Network or the Gotham Sports App. David eventually does, thanks to Kay’s help, and settles in for a pleasant evening watching Yankees baseball.

But what about sports fans who don’t have Michael Kay on the other end of the phone?

The explosion of streaming platforms for live sports has birthed a dizzying array of channels, sites and apps that viewers must navigate — and pay for — to find their favorite teams’ games.

The Yankees, for example, could have games appearing on up to 10 different platforms this season, starting with their March 25 season opener, which was a Netflix exclusive. To watch every Yankees game this season would cost close to $400, provided you remain diligent about subscribing to the platforms when needed and unsubscribing when no longer needed. To watch every Mets game would cost around $350 with the same approach to subscriptions.

And it’s not just baseball fans who have to search and pay.

Knicks fans recently saw two of their first three playoff games shunted to the subscription platform Amazon Prime Video as part of the NBA’s new 11-year, $76 billion media rights deal.

“I was flipping the channels,” said Samantha Gootkin, 29, of Bellmore. “I'm like, 'I could have sworn the Knicks were playing today.' And I'm checking every channel they could possibly be on just to find out that they're not on TV and I need to go into an app into Prime Video so I can watch the game, which I was like, 'Are we kidding?' I'm just lucky that my mom has Amazon Prime, because honestly, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to watch a playoff game, which I think is absurd.”

The first four games of the Knicks' second-round playoff series against the 76ers will be on four different networks/cable channels/streamers (NBC and Peacock, then ESPN, then Amazon Prime Video and finally ABC).

NBA commissioner Adam Silver, speaking at a meeting with the Associated Press Sports Editors last week, said technology will make it easier for viewers to find what they're looking for.

“There were predictions going into the season that people would have trouble finding our games," Silver said, "but we had our highest viewership in 26 years . . . All of our television habits are changing. Sports is no different now."

The Federal Communications Commission estimates it may have cost fans from $1,000-$1,500 to watch every NFL game last season.

“From the consumer standpoint, it’s a very difficult time,” said Bill Squadron, an associate professor of sports management at North Carolina’s Elon University who is a Manhattan native and Jets fan. “You’ve got all these different services and prices are going up, particularly if you’re a sports fan. It’s hard to have the money to subscribe to everything and yet it’s also hard to find things sometimes.”

National debate

The issue is attracting the attention of politicians across the spectrum.

The FCC under the Trump administration has launched a probe into the sports leagues’ practice of selling games to streaming services, and the Department of Justice is reportedly investigating whether the NFL and MLB are engaged in anticompetitive behavior by selling rights to its games to multiple platforms.

U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) has introduced the “For the Fans” Act, which is designed to decrease consumer TV costs and make local games easier to access, while ending blackouts for fans with out-of-market subscriptions.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY) in early April sent a letter to the FCC about media consolidation that they believe is driving up the cost of live sports in what the lawmakers call “streamflation.”

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) is asking the FCC for a possible revision to the 1961 Sports Broadcasting Act, which allows the leagues to pool their media rights and sell them nationally.

'It's a lot of money' 

Meanwhile — while waiting for some sort of future governmental intervention on their behalf — fans are caught shelling out more money to more services to watch their teams’ games.

Or they are skipping some of those games to save money.

Mahjong, anyone?

“In the regular season, it's still annoying, obviously, and it's difficult to then try to see your favorite teams play,” Gootkin said. “I even had an issue with the Mets game just last week. It was supposed to be on SNY. It wasn't. I couldn't even figure out where it was. I ended up having to try to find a stream online.

“I feel like there's so many options now, and there's so many places that games end up being on, like you can only have it if you have ESPN Plus or you can only have it if you have Amazon Prime or this or that, and it's becoming too much, I think.”

It’s not just the inconvenience of trying to find the games that vexes fans. It’s the cost.

“I'm spending over $300 a month for TV entertainment,” said Charles Fradella, 75, of Glen Cove. “It's a lot of money. And I'm retired. My wife and I are retired. We live on a fixed income.”

Asked if he ever thinks about getting rid of anything to save money, Fradella joked, “I think about getting rid of my house.”

Rick Madden, a 56-year-old from Oceanside who estimates paying about $350 a month, said: “It's not cheap. And then they just want to keep adding more and more stuff. Like now they put the Friday night baseball games on Apple. I'm not paying for Apple. I draw the line. That's it.”

The first Subway Series game between the Mets and Yankees this season will be an Apple TV exclusive on May 15.

Rudy Rosenberg, 68, is a San Francisco 49ers fan who lives in Carle Place. He said he pays $300 a year for the NFL package on YouTube TV to watch his team, just added the Gotham Sports App for another $300 a year to watch local teams including the Yankees and Islanders, and also spends about $70 a month on regular TV.

“I have no problem navigating it at all, and some people my age might have more of a problem,” he said. “They might be more stubborn and not amenable to change. They just don't watch anything and then they complain. But I have no problem with it.”

Solutions in store?

What can be done to help sports fans? Squadron, a former New York City commissioner of telecommunications in the early 1990s under Mayor David Dinkins, said the current situation reminds him of when the city was trying to get cable access for New Yorkers so they could watch games that had switched from over-the-air TV.

“We tried to broker some sort of an arrangement that would help keep as many games as possible on broadcast TV because otherwise fans would have no option,” Squadron said. “So this is, in some ways, not a new issue. But I do think it's a very complex media market today. The business of sports in the last 30 years kind of exploded in terms of the scope and size and dollars involved. So I don't think it's wrong for government, whether it's the Justice Department or the FCC or Congress, to look at this, certainly to look at the Sports Broadcasting Act, which was passed in 1961, to see if there's anything that could or should be done.”

The leagues say they are moving games to streaming services to increase availability for fans. What they mean is younger fans, some of whom have never had a cable subscription and are used to getting their content on apps.

“The leagues really have a strong interest in wanting to make sure their fans can find the games and continue to support their sport,” Squadron said. “And everybody's focused on young fans. Those fans are not on cable anymore, in vast majority . . . I think we're in a major transition when it comes to the media landscape. We're now in this transition where cable is declining rapidly, streaming is growing very rapidly. Younger people seem much more inclined toward streaming.”

Can the political saber-rattling actually lead to something that will help fans?

“I think to say things are impossible is not sort of something I ever like to do because, particularly in today's world, it's hard to predict,” Squadron said. “But I think it's a big challenge for government to frame the current media environment in a way that's clear, coherent, affordable, etc. You have a lot of forces going on, from the Netflixes, YouTubes, Apple TVs, Amazons, and from the other side, the Foxes, CBS, ESPN, NBC, etc. My own feeling is that the market is probably going to sort these things out probably better than government could.”

Newsday's Hank Winnicki contributed to this report.