For Frustrated Fans, Streaming Makes Watching Sports a Sport Unto Itself
Whenever Jimmy Kraft is about to watch the New York Yankees, he first checks a calendar to make sure he is subscribed to the right streaming app. “There is a little bit of prep involved," said Kraft, who juggles a multitude of services to watch his favorite team, including the YES streaming app; ESPN+; the Fox Sports app; Apple TV+; and Amazon’s Prime Video. “It’s difficult to keep up." Kraft, a 39-year-old website developer from the Rochester, N.Y., area, is learning what it takes to be a sports fan in the streaming era.
He intends to cancel his streaming subscription to YES, the Yankees’ local broadcaster, as soon as the baseball season ends. He only pays for ESPN+ on months when the platform carries Yankees games. He uses a promotion and his wife’s shopping account to avoid paying extra for Apple TV+ and Prime Video, respectively.
And he chose to ignore Peacock, another streaming service that also has exclusive rights to a slice of the baseball season. Fans say the sheer complexity of having to juggle so many streaming platforms has made watching sports a sport unto itself. Many lament the loss of simple joys, such as the ability to flip between channels during lulls in the game, given the clunkiness of having to open and close separate apps.
Some are bewildered to find out they can’t watch a bunch of games because they live too close to one of the participating teams, even when the team in question actually is more than 400 miles away. Others have simply given up watching, turning back to the simpler times of listening to games on the radio. The streaming revolution hasn’t been bad for everyone.
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