ESPN Could Create Downward Pressure For Sports Streaming Prices

ESPN’s forthcoming streaming service will cost $29.99 – which is both a high price for a sports-only service, but also a relative bargain compared to the larger landscape of its competitors in the sports streaming space.

For instance, the Gotham Sports App, which combines YES and MSG+, also costs $29.99 per month with an annual subscription ($41 per month if you opt for a monthly plan) but doesn’t include games that appear on New York’s third regional sports network, SNY (which costs another $139.99 annually).

Marquee Sports Network’s app costs $19.99 per month for audiences to watch live Chicago Cubs games, and get coverage around other Chicago teams. But it doesn’t include live games for the Blackhawks, Bulls or White Sox, which all appear on the CHSN app (another $29.99 per month if you want to watch all three teams and $19.99 if you only want one).

In Los Angeles, the Dodgers’ newer SNLA+ app costs $199.99 for the year (averages out to $16.67 monthly), but doesn’t include any of the other local teams, who have their own streamers with their own pricing included.

And notably, for all of these apps, you have to be in the coverage areas for these services in order to subscribe at all. Otherwise, out-of-market audiences are subscribing via ESPN+ or MLB/NBA/NHL-specific services, which all come with their respective own costs in a similar range.

At this point, it’s easy to ask: How can these prices stay where they are, when the largest provider of live sporting events (ESPN) is offering its network as a standalone service for the same price (and even less, when you figure in the $36.99 ad-supported Disney bundle price)?

Simply put, they can’t.

Despite the market’s shift toward every-game viewing for audiences’ favorite teams – those fans also need access to national games. And many of those national games appear on ESPN’s family of networks.

So a fan of the Cubs and Bulls is paying $70 per month just to watch those two teams and only national games that appear on ESPN. Fan of the Bears, too? Well, they’ll need access to Fox and CBS for afternoon NFL games, plus NBC for Sunday Night Football, and potentially Amazon Prime Video for Thursday Night Football as well. If that consumer also has interests outside of sports, they may have Netflix or another streamer, and suddenly, the entertainment bill is climbing well over $120 per month.

This is not the first time that a la carte streaming’s escalating costs have come under scrutiny, and those concerns will continue. But ESPN’s app may be the one that actually spurs pricing and/or behavioral change.

For consumers without a multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD) – Comcast Xfinity, DirecTV, Hulu Live TV, YouTube TV, etc. – subscription, the soaring prices of a la carte streaming could send them back to “cable” bundles.

For these sports streaming services, the consumer math may be a wake-up call on pricing.

DirecTV and other carriers have RSN add-ons for as little as $14.99 per month, and that price usually includes ALL of the local RSNs.

ESPN’s value at $29.99 per month is worth a debate (even if the Disney bundle price is a steal as long as you use Disney+ and Hulu) when weighing it against larger entertainment streamers like Peacock and Paramount+. But when comparing what consumers receive for that price versus what they get through any of the standalone sports streamers, it’s clearly night and day.

The economics of those RSNs launching and supporting streaming services may have necessitated $20-30 per month price points given how much NBA, NHL and MLB clubs have relied on payouts from those networks. ESPN’s existence at the same price level stands in stark contrast, though, and is almost certain to drive down those rates as budget-conscious cord-cutters start assessing value.

Will the RSNs be able to sustain price decreases? Perhaps not. They’re going to be forced to figure it out, though, within months of ESPN’s streaming launch.