Watching Live Sports Shouldn't Be This Hard, Confusing, and Expensive

It shouldn’t be this hard to watch live sports.

The 2026 MLB season opened Wednesday night, for the first time, on Netflix. However, baseball fans need not get too familiar with the service. Netflix will air only two more MLB events this season: the Home Run Derby and the Field of Dreams game.

Elsewhere, baseball fans will need TBS, Fox, NBC, Peacock, ESPN, and Apple TV+ for the full nationally televised slate. Those who pay for MLB.TV to access all out-of-market broadcasts will also need to subscribe to ESPN Unlimited for $29.99 just to have the option to purchase the package.

Local viewers may also have to adjust this season.

The league announced this week that it will produce and distribute local games during the 2026 season for 14 clubs, following the shutdown of FanDuel Sports Network. Most local packages will cost around $19.99 a month, but unlike previous regional sports networks, they will include only the local MLB team. In the past, most RSNs carried broadcasts for the local MLB, NHL, and NBA teams. Not anymore.

Netflix branded floats, fans and kayakers on Netflix branded kayaks are seen during the MLB Opening Night Game: Yankees vs. Giants, at Momo's on March 25, 2026 in San Francisco, California.  (Photo by Kelly Sullivan/Getty Images for Netflix)

MLB isn’t the only league gouging consumers. The NFL now has seven different broadcast partners: Fox, CBS, ESPN, NBC, Amazon, Netflix, and YouTube. The cost to stream the NFL this upcoming season will cost somewhere around $800.

The NBA also expands its number of partners this season, adding exclusive games on Amazon, NBC, and Peacock, along with ESPN. 

What’s more, the streaming experience lags behind traditional broadcasters. As baseball fans noted during the Yankees-Giants opening night game, you can’t fast-forward or rewind past the automatic ads, which often run six at a time. Further, streamers like Netflix and YouTube have turned broadcasts into hours-long infomercials for their other products, often treating the game as a mere marketing tool.

Note: baseball fans hardly care about the latest season of "Love." They certainly didn't care to hear from Jameis Winston, a football player, repeatedly during the broadcast, 

And what’s the tradeoff for fans? That’s the kicker. There isn’t one. 

Streaming has made watching live sports more expensive, confusing, and frustrating. The viewing experience is not better. The leagues do not care.

As the NFL continues to show, if it can expand its schedule and list of broadcast partners even further, it will. The league is expected to air at least two Wednesday games this upcoming season, with at least one on YouTube.

The UFC is the only major sports property that requires just one service. Every UFC event now streams exclusively on Paramount+ for $9.99 a month. By comparison, it’s a bargain.

No one expects leagues to put consumers ahead of their own business interests. But they are clearly testing how far fans are willing to go – and pay – to keep watching.

The NFL will likely get away with it, even as the on-field product raises concerns. It’s less clear that fans will pay for multiple services to watch regular-season MLB, NBA, or NHL games. On most nights, those games are simply not of enough consequence. National broadcasts are not worth the added cost if fans are already paying around $20 a month just to watch their local team.

Again, it doesn’t need to be this hard to watch live sports. The leagues operate as if they are invincible. We’ll see.