• Loading stock data...
Wednesday, April 23, 2025
opinion
Media

Where Is the Dang Game? Fragmentation Is Worse Than Ever

  • With leagues like the NFL parceling their games out to a growing list of networks and streamers, it’s become more of a headache to find the game you want.
  • Consumers and media execs are aware, and they’re trying to alleviate it—but things will get worse before they get better.
Bill Streicher/Imagn Images
Cristina Daglas
Exclusive

ESPN Executive Editor Cristina Daglas Out After HR Investigation

Daglas was placed on administrative leave in January.
Read Now
April 23, 2025 |

Mark Phillip quit his job to start his company Are You Watching This?! in 2006 because, he says, “I hated waking up in the morning and learning there was a great game the night before that I didn’t know about, because it was on some random channel.” 

The company sells “real-time sports excitement data” and gambling widgets to customers like Fox Sports, USA Today, Hearst, VSiN, and DraftKings. In 2011, he also launched icantfindthegame.com, which tracks every live sports event being broadcast or streamed at every moment, tells you what channel it’s on, and adds a human rating of the current action (“Ok, good, hot, or epic”). Fourth quarter, game tied? Tune in right now.

The need for such a service is obvious: Sports fans are all suffering from the same headache these days, and it’s building up to a migraine. Where can I find the damn game? What additional service do I have to pay for? 

Take the NFL as the best example, though not the only offender: its games are on either NBC, CBS, Fox, ABC, or ESPN… or ESPN+ (one exclusive Monday Night Football game), Amazon Prime (Thursday Night Football), Peacock (two exclusive games last year, one this year), or Netflix (two Christmas Day games). Even coughing up for Sunday Ticket gets you only the 1 p.m. out-of-market games. You’ll still need at least three streaming subs to watch the games exclusive to streamers. Paying for cable (remember cable?) wouldn’t get you all the games. To get every game without cable would run you $788.

The latest sign that even the broadcasters involved in this morass feel your pain is that ESPN added a new feature to its mobile app and website called Where to Watch, and notably, it lists games on competitor networks. It had long been an unspoken practice, by ESPN and others, to avoid directing viewers to games not on Disney networks; that practice has officially ended now, sources tell me, and it’s specifically because live game fragmentation has gotten so bad. 

When Phillip saw the news about ESPN launching Where to Watch, “my stomach fell,” he says. But then he tried the product. “ESPN isn’t doing any curation. If you think about what Netflix would be without curation, it would just be a White Pages and you’d have to scroll through. You have to also curate for people.”

TV confusion is what led CBS Sports to create the oft-copied, occasionally automated “How to Watch” posts that include nothing other than a game’s time and channel. TV confusion is how the “What time does the Super Bowl start” SEO game got so big (and silly). 

The broader point is it shouldn’t be this hard to find the game you want. But it’s all happening because tech giants are crowding into the room when live sports rights are coming up for bidding. 

NBCUniversal Group chairman Mark Lazarus doesn’t sound scared, but he should be. Tech giants like Amazon and Netflix “don’t have the combined reach that we have with broadcast and streaming,” he told me onstage at our Front Office Sports Tuned In summit last month. My take: Having broadcast reach might not outweigh the dollars that the tech giants will soon dangle in front of big leagues. (The NBA already chose Amazon over longtime partner TNT.)

At that same summit, I was struck by the realization that all of our guest speakers—from ESPN, NBC, Scripps Sports, Roku, Teton Ridge, and YouTube—are in the same business these days: live television. Separating the networks from the tech companies, in the context of live sports rights, is almost beside the point. They’re all competing with one another for rights. 

Maybe YouTube is best-positioned of all, since, as the company is careful to caution, it’s merely a platform. Apart from its megadeal signed in 2022 to show NFL Sunday Ticket (which YouTube’s top sports exec Jon Cruz described more as an endpoint than the start of YouTube going after more rights), YouTube TV merely shows live programming from other providers in a conveniently curated pane. 

Major League Soccer took its primary package to Apple TV, so we’ve seen this shift begin. But in a future where an entire season of a major league is exclusive to Amazon or Netflix, you’ll need to leave YouTube and head to the walled gardens of other apps. The headache persists. 

This was the thinking behind Venu Sports, the sports-specific pay-TV app cooked up by the triumvirate of Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery. It was set to launch in time for this NFL season—until FuboTV sought and won a temporary injunction that stopped Venu from launching. Fubo argued it was anti-competitive that these mega broadcasters weren’t willing to license out just their sports channels to other TV apps, but were going to do it for their own joint venture. (A trial is set for a year from now.)

My guess is Venu won’t see the light of day, but it was a nice idea for sports fans: far more of the games in one place. What all sports fans want, of course, is a single, simple app (tell me the price, I’ll pay it!) that shows every single NFL game. Of course, that can never happen when the rights are parceled out to so many different companies that compete with one another. Or can it? 

Venu won’t be the last attempt by competitors to come together on one product that would wield huge pricing power. “The great rebundling will happen,” Phillip says. “People will be tired of dealing with all the splintering.”

Linkedin
Whatsapp
Copy Link
Link Copied
Link Copied

What to Read

NC State women's cross country
breaking

Judge Threatens to Reject $2.8 Billion House v. NCAA Settlement

The NCAA and power conferences could end up at trial.
Cristina Daglas
exclusive

ESPN Executive Editor Cristina Daglas Out After HR Investigation

Daglas was placed on administrative leave in January.

ESPN Nears Draft Rights Extension Amid NFL-Disney Talks

The league has not signed its next NFL Draft media-rights deals.
Flau'jae Johnson
exclusive

Flau’jae Johnson Says She Will Return to LSU

The transfer portal closed Wednesday.

Featured Today

Apr 5, 2025; San Antonio, TX, USA; Duke Blue Devils forward Cooper Flagg (2) reacts after a three point basket against the Houston Cougars during the first half in the semifinals of the men's Final Four of the 2025 NCAA Tournament at the Alamodome.

Cooper Flagg’s Timing Is Perfect for the NBA and USA Basketball

The projected No. 1 pick just declared for the draft.
Apr 14, 2025; New York, New York, USA; Paige Bueckers is interviewed by ESPN after being selected with the number one overall pick to the Dallas Wings in the 2025 WNBA Draft at The Shed at Hudson Yards
April 21, 2025

ESPN’s WNBA Coverage Mirrors the League’s Stunning Growth

“I don’t think we stand still in our coverage of women’s sports,” says Rowe.
Mar 16, 2025; Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA; Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (2) celebrates with guard Isaiah Joe (11) after score in the fourth quarter against the Milwaukee Bucks at Fiserv Forum.
April 20, 2025

Unorthodox OKC: The Thunder Redefined Tanking to Become NBA’s Best

A rebuild years in the making has OKC in the driver’s seat.
Mar 13, 2020; Augusta, GA, USA; The front entrance at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Ga., Friday morning. The Masters Tournament has been postponed due to coronavirus concerns.
opinion
April 20, 2025

What’s It Like to Play Augusta? A Day on the World’s Most..

Inside a round at the most exclusive club in the world.
FuboTV signage

Disney’s Fubo Takeover Now Faces DOJ Antitrust Review

The deal struck by the ESPN parent company could be in jeopardy.
Apr 20, 2025; Boston, Massachusetts, USA; Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum (0) during the first half against the Orlando Magic at TD Garden.
April 22, 2025

NBA Playoffs Deliver Most-Watched Opening Weekend in 25 Years

It was the most-watched opening weekend on ESPN platforms.
Multiple streaming services appear on a Roku TV.
April 23, 2025

Roku’s New Plan to Relieve Streaming Headaches

The streaming company introduces new tools to direct fans to games.
Sponsored

Game On: Portfolio Players Stories, Brought to You by E*TRADE from Morgan Stanley

This week, Two-time Super Bowl Champion and CBS NFL analyst Logan Ryan joins us to talk the business of sports on our third installment of Portfolio Players.
Shannon Sharpe
April 21, 2025

Shannon Sharpe Accused of Rape in Civil Lawsuit

The case was filed by an anonymous woman in Nevada.
Netflix
April 17, 2025

Netflix Rises While Markets Slide—Thanks in Part to Live Sports

The streaming giant beats financial expectations as its sports presence grows.
Lee Corso
April 17, 2025

Lee Corso Will Retire From ESPN at 90

The broadcaster is hanging up his headgear in August.
April 15, 2025

WNBA Draft Draws 1.25M Viewers, Second-Best Behind 2.45M Last Year

Paige Bueckers was the No. 1 pick in the WNBA draft.