Here's how much cord-cutters need to pay to watch MLB games - over $1,300 if you're a Yankees fan

MW Here's how much cord-cutters need to pay to watch MLB games - over $1,300 if you're a Yankees fan

By Weston Blasi

With more people cutting the cord and additional games only available on streaming networks, watching baseball has gotten more complicated - and expensive. Here's how much.

Major League Baseball's opening day in the U.S. is on March 28. With more people "cutting the cord" by getting rid cable and more games shown on streaming networks than in recent years, watching sports has gotten more complicated - and expensive. Here's what you need to know if you've cut the cord and want to watch MLB games in 2024 - especially if you live in a major media market.

Unlike many NFL and college football games, MLB games are mostly available on local channels as opposed to nationwide networks like NBC $(CMCSA)$ and FOX $(FOX)$.

The cost and difficulty to watch your team differs based on where you live and which team you support. Below we'll break down the cost of streaming all of one team's games - the New York Yankees - to give a rough estimate of what it will cost people in a major media market who don't have cable to watch all of their games.

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This year, the Yankees' 162 regular season games will appear on a total of seven channels/platforms. Most games - 138 - will be on YES, TBS, ESPN $(DIS)$, FOX and FS1. Amazon Prime will show 21 of the team's games, and Apple TV+ three. People who pay for the YES app will not be able to see the games that are shown on Amazon $(AMZN)$ and Apple $(AAPL)$, with some exceptions for simulcast instances.

Here's a breakdown of how much it will cost Yankees fans to watch all of the team's games.

   STREAMING-ONLY COST (NY metro)       STREAMING-ONLY COST (out-of-market) 
   Apple TV+:                           Apple TV+: 
   Fox, TBS, ESPN, FS1 via YouTubeTV:   Fox, TBS, ESPN, FS1 via YouTubeTV: 
   Amazon Prime Video:                  Amazon Prime Video: 
   YES Network app:                     YES Network via MLB.TV: 
   TOTAL:                               TOTAL: 

The costs in the table are for annual subscriptions. In some cases, you could pay month-by-month just during the baseball season and spend a little less.

Either way, the total cost to stream every Yankees game this season for cord-cutters will be over $1,000, depending on which platform you use to watch television, and where you live.

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The cheapest option is actually for fans who live outside of the New York metro area: $1,264. This is less costly because fans can use MLB.TV to watch their favorite team's games, something that would be subject to local TV blackout restrictions if they lived near close to where the team plays, in this case New York.

The streaming-only option costs $1,354 and users must pay for the YES Network app to watch a majority of the team's games because the YES Network was dropped by cable-cutting streaming networks like Hulu , SlingTV and YouTubeTV. Both offerings cover the entirety of the regular season and postseason play.

Millions of people have canceled their traditional cable-TV subscriptions over the past decade. In 2015, just 20% of U.S. households didn't pay for a cable subscription. That number jumped to 53% in 2022, so now the majority of households don't subscribe to cable, according to Statista data.

And keep in mind that the costs detailed above don't include the price of internet service, which of course is necessary for cord-cutters. The average price Americans paid for internet service in 2022 was $64 a month, according to data by OpenVault, so you can add that onto the grand total too.

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While the overall breadth of services needed to watch every game for your favorite MLB team is not as big as the excel spread NFL fans need to keep track of their usernames and passwords, it is still more than it was 6 years ago when fans could find all their team's games on cable.

It's worth pointing out that every team can negotiate its own broadcast deals with networks or digital platforms. Because of this, some of the league's more popular, big-market teams - like the Yankees and the Dodgers - are able to secure more lucrative broadcast partnerships by splitting up their 162 games to multiple broadcasters.

For MLB fans looking to stream their team's games, but also looking to save some money, it's important to check if there are any discounts available to you for these services. YouTubeTV is currently offering a $45 discount on a customer's first three months, the YES Network app has a $40-off deal, and Amazon offers a $70-off discount for Prime for students.Savvy streamers can also save money by opting to subscribe and unsubscribe depending on dates when platforms like Amazon or AppleTV+ are broadcasting games.

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-Weston Blasi

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March 28, 2024 16:21 ET (20:21 GMT)

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