EAST LANSING, Mich—Navigating a wide range of streaming services has become the norm for sports fans.
The abundance of streaming platforms coupled with recent streaming and broadcasting deals has turned a once-simple pastime into a maze of subscriptions and blackouts, leaving some viewers without streaming access to their favorite teams.
But streaming issues have had a surprising impact on local businesses that rely on game-time clientele. One such business is Pizza House in East Lansing. Within walking distance of the Michigan State University campus, the locally-owned pizzeria primarily attracts students and near-campus residents.
The Spartans played Ohio State on Sept. 28. The game was streamed exclusively on Peacock. Pizza House general manager Jeremy Bates said the establishment saw a large turnout due to many MSU fans being unable to access the 7 p.m. kickoff on a subscription-only streaming platform.
This January will mark Bates’ 13th year as general manager. In the days leading up to the game, he said, customers called the restaurant to know if it would be streamed at Pizza House, a development he had rarely seen within the MSU sports community.
“I don’t remember getting those phone calls for Michigan State games since Big Ten Network started,” Bates said.
According to a study by UK market analytics firm Ampere Analysis, subscription streaming services spent $100 million globally on sports rights in 2016. In 2023, that number reached $8.5 billion. Several unprecedented media rights deals included the NBA’s multi-billion-dollar deal with NBC, Disney, and Amazon in July and the NFL’s partnership with Amazon in 2021. In 2022, the Big Ten Conference completed a seven-year, $7 billion deal with Peacock, a subscription-only streaming platform. Most recently, in February of this year, ESPN, FOX, and Warner Bros. Discovery announced a partnership aimed at streamlining fans’ sports-watching experiences. The goal is to bring consumers a streaming service called Venu Sports, a one-stop shop for all things sports entertainment. The new platform has yet to come to fruition, but will likely be yet another sports platform for fans to navigate and pay for.
Bates said the Thursday night NFL games on Amazon Prime and the Big Ten’s partnership with Peacock are the two facets of the streaming surge that have contributed the most to Pizza House’s business. However, he said the new landscape of spectator sports has required the business to spend on infrastructure and additional programming.
Lester Atkins, 73, has lived in DeWitt, a Lansing suburb, since 2007. A lifelong Detroit Tigers fan, he watched the Tigers win the 1984 World Series on NBC on a low-definition television. Four decades later, he missed a majority of Detroit’s remarkable run to the MLB playoffs for the first time since 2014. To Atkins, this absence was not a choice.
For three months during the 2024 MLB season, Tigers games were blacked out, or unavailable, for Xfinity subscribers due to a dispute between Comcast and Diamond Sports Group, the parent company of Bally Sports Detroit.
Watching the Tigers’ final game of the season at Dagwood’s Tavern and Grill in East Lansing, Atkins said he’s “had it” with his inability to watch his favorite baseball team.
“I just think it’s greed from these giants,” Atkins said. “We can’t watch at home.”
Joining Atkins at Dagwood’s, Dick Gereza of DeWitt said he thinks the emergence of subscription-only streaming services will ultimately have a negative impact on sports because fans like himself, a 71-year-old Detroit sports loyalist, will slowly fade away. Gereza and Atkins couldn’t watch their favorite team for months.
Bates said the new age of streaming sports has been a lot to navigate but is an opportunity for businesses to provide a service customers aren’t willing to pay for at home.
“There’s always gonna be a hassle of getting games, whether they’re on traditional cable, or whether they’re on streaming,” Bates said. “I’m not sure that it’s harder now than it was back then, but the options being expanded out does add a different component to it.”