{"id":162978,"date":"2025-09-17T10:41:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T10:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/162978\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T10:41:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T10:41:07","slug":"sports-spectrum-paying-for-the-82-game-price-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/162978\/","title":{"rendered":"Sports Spectrum: Paying for the 82-game price point"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The New York Knicks against Phoenix Suns at Madison Square Garden on April 6th, 2025. The Knicks won, 112-98. Photo courtesy of @nyknicks on Instagram<\/a><\/p>\n

In response to a question about the viewership and accessibility of the streaming market, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver recently announced during a press conference that the NBA is a \u201chighlight-based sport.\u201d This statement, problematic for its own reasons, greatly disturbed me, making me think: how much does it actually cost to watch the NBA this season?\u00a0<\/p>\n

For my sanity, I did this with a single team\u2019s schedule: the New York Knicks. The NBA wants me to get League Pass for the season. For all intents and purposes, the league\u2019s one-stop shop is not a solution for me or any Knicks fan in my home zip code. If the Knicks are playing their intercity rival, the Brooklynn Nets (despite their stadiums being a 15-minute drive from each other) or they\u2019re playing their regional rival, the Boston Celtics, you can\u2019t watch it.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

While the Knicks themselves are not blacked out at my home address, NBA League Pass gets really finicky with its blackout zip code borders. Some weird spots in central Connecticut (Bristol) are blacked out from all three teams. Due to TV deals and regional sports networks, the league can\u2019t really create a valid direct-to-consumer option without making the regional sports monopolies angry, so for now, we say no to League Pass.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is more reasonable in the northeast, but a map created by a Reddit user<\/a> highlights a significant issue once you head west. Albuquerque is roughly 300 miles from the nearest NBA stadium, but both the Nuggets and the Suns are blocked out for them entirely. This is a similar issue noted by Foolish Bailey in his video about MLB blackouts<\/a>, where the state of Iowa is unable to watch 6 MLB teams in their local markets. Still, all of them are located multiple hours away from the state.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

For the regional networks, Gotham Sports is the solution for New York City sports teams. I couldn\u2019t sign up initially because the browser thinks I am outside of the broadcast area, which, according to the website<\/a>, is \u201cNew York, Connecticut, and parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, after some location shenanigans, I get into the page, and the only option visible to me is the $41.99 a month option \u2013 giving you access to the Yankees, Nets, Rangers and the Knicks. There is the MSG+ only version, just $21.99, which is just the Rangers and Knicks. This does not give you access to national broadcast games, which you need from Peacock, Amazon Prime, and ESPN Unlimited \u2013 which isn\u2019t ESPN+\/ESPN Select, I recently learned.<\/p>\n

ESPN Unlimited may or may not include your local ABC feed, so there may be some games you can\u2019t watch because they are not forwarded to either your local ABC feed or ESPN \u2013 so to cover all your bases, you can bite the bullet and pay for a Sling Blue TV subscription for $45.99 \u2014 is what I thought you could do. Depending on where you live, you may not get access to said local channels, so your best bet is getting YouTube TV for $82.99 a month.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Factoring in Connecticut taxes, extrapolating the prices for 8 months yields a total cost of $1,305.55. Which is an amount that many people do not want to dedicate to watching sports.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When you consider this price, Silver comes across as deliberately adding to the pain of the possibility of not being able to watch your favorite sports teams. He argues that a lot of the content is free on social media, thanks to highlights. However, I think highlight culture is destroying online sports discussions because if you only watch the highlights, you might not understand what\u2019s really going on. Highlight reels are crafted for social media fame, not to give you the full context.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Another factor that ties into this is the general decline of shared experiences, such as sitting around with family and watching a game. Most commonly, this happens with the NFL, with Sunday Night Football becoming a ritualistic gathering of sorts. Given the numerous paywalls in the NBA, you might be better off following the game\u2019s feed through Google. Suns owner Matt Ishbia provided free TV antennas to fans after they stepped away from their Bally Sports deal \u2014 similar to how the Arizona Diamondbacks did an in-market plan<\/a> for MLB.TV, their equivalent to League Pass.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Access to the games was already becoming an issue: not everyone can afford to drive through a major city and pay a couple of hundred dollars to get into a stadium to see basketball. This just escalates the problem!\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

So how do you watch the NBA? Of course, there\u2019s the open but still hidden secret of Streameast\u2014but the main website has been shut down. It\u2019s almost as if the NBA is asking people to leave the island of legality behind and sail the seven seas.<\/p>\n