Since the beginning of television, sports games aired solely on the antenna. As the years unfolded, cable and satellite television was born, giving way to more channels and more ways to watch sports programming.
However, cable and satellite prices kept going up over the years due to networks like Fox, NBC, CBS, TNT, TBS, etc., bidding the higher dollar to get the rights to air live sporting games like the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, and other leagues.
One of the reasons why these networks have raised their prices is that these sports leagues demand millions, and millions of dollars. Once these networks win the bid and have to make up the money they spent on these leagues, they turn to the carriers like Xfinity, Spectrum, DirecTV, Dish, and other services to charge them more money to carry their channel.
Eventually, these carriers give in, and they pass the price on to the customers. The continuing costs of these services led to the birth of the streaming era. Netflix, which launched in 1998 as a DVD-by-mail movie rental service, was one of the founders of streaming in 2007. People paid a small monthly fee to watch all the TV shows and movies.
As the years followed, Sony’s PlayStation Vue launched in 2015, becoming the first internet pay television service to have live programming. They only lasted six years, but soon, YouTube TV, Fubo, Hulu + Live, Apple TV, FloSports, and others followed suit, leading to the trend called “cord-cutting.”
Customers rapidly cut their cable and satellite subscriptions to move to these services. After all, the message for streaming was “pay to watch TV at a low price.” At first, the services were living up to the message. But there was a problem. As sports have evolved over the years. They have gotten bigger, and many of these leagues demanded more money from the networks, and they gave in to them.
Like cable and satellite, which led people to cut the cord. Networks, including Fox, NBC, CBS, etc., demanded more money from the streaming companies or else they would pull the plug. Unfortunately, they gave in and passed the cost on to the customer, pushing their budgets to the max. Because of the rising costs, people began to cancel their streaming services. Now, streaming services are essentially the new cable.
While all of this is going on, there is another service that does not charge people a subscription fee. They simply make their money from advertisers. These services are called FAST.
What is FAST?
FAST stands for Free Ad-supported Stream Television. These services only require an internet connection and a streaming device like Amazon, Tablo TV, Roku, Google TV, or an internet television. These services offer on-demand movies and TV shows, along with live 24/7 programming featuring news, movies, classic TV shows, and yes, sports. These services are the new antenna.
Pluto TV became the first FAST App that launched in 2014. They have since been bought by Paramount in 2019. Others also started during that time, including the Roku Channel, Tubi (owned by Fox), XUMO Play (owned by Comcast), Plex, STIRR, Sports TV, Free Live Sports, and more.
From a sports perspective, these FAST apps have a variety of live sports channels, such as Fox Sports, Yahoo Sports Network, CBS Sports HQ, NBC Sports Now, Stadium, Tennis Channel 2, NFL Channel, NHL, and more. There have been a handful of sports leagues that have aired live games on these services, including the Nippon Professional Baseball, HBCU sports, and a handful of major sports leagues like the NFL, which broadcast Super Bowl LIX on Tubi, and NASCAR, who have a handful of live races on its channel. Major League Baseball used to have Sunday morning games on the Roku Channel, but has since moved them to Peacock.
In the last two weeks, we have seen more sports appear on the Fast Apps, including the Indoor Football League (IFL) airing live games on the Yahoo Sports Network, the IHRA started streaming on Speed Sport 1 and YouTube, and The E.W. Scripps Company, owners of ION Television, launched the Scripps Sports Network, a live 24/7 sports channel that air leagues like the WNBA, NWSL, American 7s Football League, National Arena League (NAL), along with original programming.
With the amount of people canceling their paid streaming services and turning to the FAST Apps for their entertainment and sports content, many of these sports leagues, especially the minor or independent leagues, should consider doing the same. Being part of a paid service like FloSports only gets you so far. Now, do not get me wrong, there is nothing against paid services. These sports leagues are making some money. Everyone should have the opportunity to make money.
FloSports does have several YouTube channels that showcase a Free Game of the Day, attempting to get people to pay to watch all of the games. The problem is that people are done with the paid subscriptions, and that can hurt the leagues in the long-term.
If these sports leagues want long-term growth, they need to move some or all of their games to the FAST live channels. By getting a majority of games over there, they might be able to convince more people to either cut down on the number of subscriptions they have or cancel them altogether. In return, they will have a chance to build a dedicated fanbase that could result in increased attendance, revenue, and possible expansion.
