Watching sports over the past few years has become increasingly more accessible due to the rising popularity of streaming, but it also comes with a cost.
As of late, streaming powerhouses such as Apple, Amazon and Disney have been able to obtain licensing agreements for certain sports. For example, Amazon made a deal with the NFL to have its streaming service be the exclusive host of Thursday Night Football.
There are plenty of other platforms that are also at the top of the game when it comes to streaming sports, services like YouTube TV, Paramount and Peacock have become popular and almost every league has its own streaming platform.
The problem is, people that want to watch multiple sports are struggling to pay for all of these different subscriptions that most of the time are exclusive to certain games or sports.
“We have a YouTube TV subscription, so that we can get all the Browns games, but they don’t carry any of the Guardians games, so we did not get to watch a single live Guardians game unless it was on Fox or something like that,” teacher Pamela Dentler said.
The wide variety of platforms that must be purchased to watch sport are not the only thing increasing cost for people. The services themselves are raising the prices of their platforms or introducing extra plans that can cost more.
According to variety.com, the top seven streaming platforms in the U.S. have seen on average a 23% increase in monthly prices. These platforms include Apple TV, Hulu and ESPN+ (which are both owned by Disney). One service that didn’t make the list was Amazon Prime. They haven’t increased their prices directly, but they do plan to bring ads to the platform, and to watch ad-free, you must pay an extra $2.99 a month.
Though it seems like a few dollars more, having multiple subscriptions that have to be paid on a monthly basis is expensive in itself, but when almost every service is increasing their prices, over time it’s not just going to be a few dollars, it’s going to be much more than that.
“My subscriptions have gone up a few dollars here and there which has made me contemplate whether they’re worth the money at all,” junior Ryan Nice said.
Even with all of these inflated prices, sports fans are some of the most loyal fans, and they will do anything to watch their favorite teams play.
According to playtoday.co, 65% of fans pay for streaming services instead of paying for a regular cable subscription to watch sports
Overall, the expansion of streaming platforms has made watching sports a lot easier for some people, but the continuously increasing prices are very concerning to the average person who doesn’t have enough money to afford these growing costs.
