Watching local games of the Los Angeles Lakers long required a traditional TV subscription, but a deal was reached in April to carry the team on AT&T’s live-TV bundle.
Photo: alonzo adams/ReutersIf you’re thinking of cutting the cable-TV cord, figuring out which streaming-video services give you the best value can be difficult. For sports fans, it can be downright maddening.
If you’re interested in the National Basketball Association, for example, Sling TV’s $30-a-month Orange plan has all you need. If you’re also a big football and baseball fan, you’ll likely want to fork over another $20 for YouTube TV. Love international soccer? FuboTV has the most robust offering for $55 a month.
Following your local teams can be even trickier because the market is highly fragmented. Fans of baseball’s Chicago Cubs can sign up for the $55-a-month Hulu + Live TV online service, while Chicago White Sox fans can rely on the $5-cheaper YouTube TV. The NBA’s Houston Rockets are only available on Fubo TV.
Got all that?
The complexity of sports viewing in the cord-cutting universe is part of what inspired The Wall Street Journal to build a quiz that recommends streaming services based on a household’s interests, viewing habits and budget. The sports portion draws on data such as how many games of each sport are available on particular services.
Which Streaming Services Are Right for You? Take the WSJ Quiz.
Major sports leagues have been on hiatus during the coronavirus pandemic. Some international soccer has resumed, the NBA plans to return soon, Major League Baseball is working on starting a shortened season and the National Football League plans to go ahead with a new season this fall. But there are fears that outbreaks within leagues could force play to stop again.
Live sports have been the main selling point of traditional cable TV, even as consumers gravitate to a host of streaming services—from Netflix to Hulu—for entertainment. “Sports is the glue that holds the bundle together,” MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett said.
U.S. households spend an average of about $100 a month for a traditional pay-TV package, according to Kagan, a media research group within S&P Global Market Intelligence. Sports fans who cut the cord can save a lot of money. All major U.S. and international sports leagues are now available on internet-based TV packages that cost about half of a traditional pay-TV subscription, a Journal analysis found.
Still, the streaming marketplace is messy, and there are trade-offs to consider.
Take the New York market. Being a fan of the New York Knicks isn’t easy—no other NBA team has lost a larger share of its games in the past 20 seasons. Cord-cutters in the region have the added headache of very limited viewing options.
The cheapest option for tri-state-area-based Knicks fans is FuboTV, which also carries hockey’s New York Rangers and Islanders, and the New Jersey Devils. But if they also want to watch the New York Yankees, they’ll need AT&T TV Now Max, which costs $80 a month. Fans of the Brooklyn Nets and New York Mets, on the other hand, only need to shell out $55 for Hulu + Live TV.
New York-based cord-cutters who like the Yankees and the Knicks will need to shell out $80 a month, while watching games of the Brooklyn Nets and New York Mets is possible for $55.
Photo: Julio Cortez/Associated PressAngelenos have a similar predicament: The pricier AT&T TV Now Max package gives access to all eight major Los Angeles teams, while Hulu + Live TV costs $25 less but lacks the Lakers and Dodgers.
Local games of the Lakers and Dodgers had long been impossible to watch without a traditional pay-TV subscription until AT&T reached a deal in April to carry them.
It is highly likely that your team is carried by a live-TV bundle. The Journal analysis recently found that 91% of U.S.-based teams in the four major sports leagues were available on at least one service.
There are still a few places where watching a local sports team remains all but impossible without a traditional pay-TV package. That is the case for local fans of the Seattle Mariners, Washington Nationals, Baltimore Orioles, Utah Jazz and Vegas Golden Knights, whose regional sports channels have no carriage deal with any internet-TV bundle.
In Pittsburgh, both the National Hockey League’s Penguins and the MLB’s Pirates are unavailable to local cord-cutters, for the same reasons.
The worst place to be a sports-loving cord-cutter has to be Denver, where the regional sports networks covering the professional basketball, hockey and baseball teams are only available on traditional pay-TV.
Take the Journal’s streaming quiz to see if cutting the cord makes sense for you.
Write to David Marcelis at david.marcelis@wsj.com
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