Why It’s So Hard to Find Sports on TV

Fans, including the author's Yankees-obsessed wife, now need multiple subscriptions—and lots of patience—to follow their teams

By James K. Willcox
Senior Home & Tech Editor

Updated April 8, 2026

A photo collage with numerous TV network and streaming service logos laid over a TV with a New York Yankees player on it. — With major sports leagues cutting deals with Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Peacock, and other streaming services, it's getting harder and more expensive to watch every game.

It’s getting increasingly difficult—and frustrating—to follow your favorite teams on TV.

My wife is a prime example. A devoted baseball fan, Lisa has to constantly flip back and forth among different cable channels and streaming services to catch every New York Yankees game, even though we have access to the team’s own YES regional sports network.

The games are now spread across various TV networks and streaming services. It’s expensive to pay for them all, and aggravating to figure out where each game is being shown. It’s not just the Yankees—you have the same problem if you’re a fan of another baseball team, an NFL franchise, or teams in other sports, from soccer to hockey.

In this article

How Watching Got So Complicated
Where Is That Game Again?

Let’s start with cable and satellite TV. Sports have been called the glue that keeps many people stuck to traditional TV plans, and that’s my situation. I write about cord-cutting all the time, but I haven’t been able to cut the cord myself because of the damn Yankees.

To watch the majority of Yankees games this season, Lisa needs the YES Network, which is showing 125 of the 162 games this year. We get access to YES through a $160-a-month DirecTV satellite plan that also includes access to several premium services. It’s also available via several cable-TV services, including Charter/Spectrum, Comcast/Xfinity, and Verizon Fios.

I’ve been wanting to ditch that service for a lower-cost streaming alternative, but it hasn’t been easy. For a while, the only cable-style TV streaming service that included YES was the streaming version of DirecTV, the internet version of a service we already have. But a package that included YES, other cable channels, and premium services such as HBO Max, Cinemax, Showtime, and Starz that we currently get—plus Disney+—would cost us $170 a month, more than we’re currently paying.

We’ve stuck with the DirecTV satellite service.

Our options have expanded a bit, however. First, Fubo, a sports-centric cable-style streaming service, added the YES Network to its roster of regional sports networks. That seemed like good news, but it wasn’t a game-changer. The least expensive Pro plan costs $75 a month, which isn’t too bad. But then Fubo tacks on a $17-a-month regional sports fee, making the real price more than $90 a month. And right now, Fubo lacks NBC channels due to a carriage dispute, so it’s not an option for us.

Even if we went with Fubo and ditched satellite, we’d lose access to a few streaming services in our package, including HBO Max, a must-have in our household.

We really thought the saving grace would be the launch of a stand-alone YES direct-to-consumer service. Unfortunately, the price for the network—now rolled into a new app called Gotham Sports, which also includes MSG Networks—is steep: $35 a month or $300 annually. And that reflects a price cut for the 2026 season. There’s also a YES plan that runs through Sunday, September 27, the last regular-season game. It costs $20 a month or $210 annually, but early birds can get it for $175 if they buy by April 15.

If you only want Yankees games, Gotham Sports offers a New York Yankees “Season Pass” that includes regular-season games through the last game on September 27. The cost is $120 a month, or about seven months for the price of six.

Those details only apply to Yankees games. But the pricing is in line with what other new stand-alone, direct-to-consumer sports networks are charging. For example, NESN 360, which shows the Boston Red Sox (please don’t tell Lisa I mentioned that team) and the Bruins, charges $30 a month or $230 annually.

Why are these networks so expensive? In cable plans, sports programming has always been subsidized by subscribers who never actually watch any games. Direct-to-consumer services don’t have that luxury.

But it’s not just about price. The biggest problem for my wife is that not all Yankees games are shown on the YES Network. Instead, they’re split across multiple networks and services. All this has made me the target of her frustration—she assumes I should be able to make it easier for her to find her team. “You write about TV and streaming services for a living,” she says. “Can’t you figure this out?”

Lisa also hates the fact that the YES/Gotham Sports stand-alone service doesn’t let us record games, which is how we typically watch baseball on DirecTV. We did discover that games broadcast on YES can be viewed on-demand within 48 hours on the Gotham Sports app, and YES shows encores of the Amazon Prime games—but that means watching them on the network’s schedule, not ours.

How Watching Sports Got So Complicated

Back in the halcyon days of my youth, Yankees games were broadcast on a local over-the-air channel, WPIX-11. In the late 1970s, the landscape changed when games started being simulcast on new, sports-centric channels. By 2000, most markets had some type of regional sports network, or RSN. Teams typically split their games between a local broadcast TV station and the RSN. But as the number of cable subscribers grew, more games shifted to the RSNs.

That’s what happened here in New York with the YES regional sports network, which is owned by the Yankees, Sinclair Broadcasting, Amazon, and investor groups. Until 2022, there was always a broadcast partner—like WPIX-11—that carried a package of Yankees games. But that year, Amazon took over those games exclusively, so for the first time, there were no Yankees games on the old TV channel.

I’m okay with that, but it’s harder to accept that my wife and I can’t watch all the games on YES. (That “Y” stands for Yankees, right?) And it’s not like just one or two games are missing. This year, the Yankees games will be broadcast not only on YES but also on ESPN, Fox, FS1, and TBS.

Those channels are all included in our expensive satellite TV service. But it doesn’t stop there.

To see literally every single Yankees game—something apparently stipulated in our marriage vows—we need 10 networks and at least four paid subscriptions. (Five if you don’t get YES as part of a pay-TV package.) Those include Netflix, which had the Yankees’ opening-day game, and Apple TV, which has the rights to stream Friday night MLB doubleheaders every Friday this season, including a Yankees-Mets matchup in May. (The second-half schedule hasn’t yet been released.) Netflix also has the rights this year to air the Home Run Derby and the "Field of Dreams" games.

To watch the 21 live nighttime Yankees games Amazon will show this season—mainly on Wednesday nights—we need an Amazon Prime membership. That’s $139 a year. We’ll also need access to ABC, ESPN, Fox, FS1, NBC/Peacock, and TBS for all regular-season and playoff games.

Another bit of bad news: The MLB’s deal with Roku for "MLB Sunday Leadoff," an 18-game package you could watch for free on the Roku Channel, has expired. This year, those early Sunday games will air mainly on Peacock, which costs $11 a month. Right now, there are no Yankees games on the schedule, but Mets fans aren’t as lucky.

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Yankees fans who don’t live near New York or can’t get access to YES will need MLB.TV for out-of-market games, and that’s $150 a year. (Thanks to a new deal, ESPN Unlimited subscribers can get MLB.TV for $135 a year.)

To be clear, other sports are just as hard to follow on TV.

In 2022, NFL football fans saw “Thursday Night Football” move from Fox to Amazon Prime as part of an exclusive deal that runs through 2033. Amazon also hosted a game on Black Friday last year. If you want to see “Monday Night Football” next fall, you’ll need ESPN or the Spanish-language ESPN Deportes. (Some games are also on ABC, and ESPN+ has one exclusive game.) NBCUniversal’s Peacock had a deal that gave it one exclusive in-season game in 2025, while Netflix streamed two Christmas Day games exclusively. (A third game was on Amazon as part of its Thursday night schedule.) That’s in addition to the other NFL football games on CBS (and Paramount+), Fox, and NBC (and Peacock).

Where Is That Game Again?

As my wife knows all too well, figuring out when and where to watch each game has become a full-time chore, given the 162-game baseball season. (The DirecTV program guide lists only the games shown on its service.) And the details don’t stay consistent over time. For example, Amazon started showing its games on Fridays, but they’re now on Wednesdays; Apple TV picked up the Friday night games.

Beyond the pricing and the confusion, Lisa has grown accustomed to the YES announcers, plus the way game stats—pitch count, ball and bat speeds, the runners on base, and the number of outs—are displayed on YES. Switching networks removes those familiar connections.

Unfortunately, the year-to-year changes will continue, and maybe even accelerate. While YES is the most profitable, most-watched regional sports network in the country, many others are in trouble. Their business model is changing, as cord-cutting hits record levels. That means fewer subscribers are paying for plans that include regional sports, and many cable-style streaming services are dropping those networks.

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As a result, many RSNs are stuck in sports rights deals that no longer make financial sense. Some have filed for bankruptcy protection, while others have reclaimed their TV rights and either had the league take over broadcasts or launched their own direct-to-consumer services. All this suggests we’ll see more sports events shift away from RSNs toward other options.

As for me, I recently texted my wife with a link to the New York Yankees broadcast schedule—including where the games will be available to watch—and suggested that she keep it on her phone.

Her suggestion to me? I can’t repeat it here.

James K. Willcox

James K. Willcox leads Consumer Reports’ coverage of TVs, streaming media services and devices, broadband internet service, and the digital divide. He's also a homeowner covering several home improvement categories, including power washers and decking. A veteran journalist, Willcox has written for Business Week, Cargo, Maxim, Men’s Journal, Popular Science, Rolling Stone, Sound & Vision, and others. At home, he’s often bent over his workbench building guitars or cranking out music on his 7.2-channel home theater sound system.