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In January of this year, MSG Networks and YES Network formed a digital joint venture. You should all be familiar with MSG. They own and broadcast New Jersey Devils. They also broadcast games by the New York Islanders, Buffalo Sabres (in upstate New York, of course), New York Knicks, and Our Hated Rivals. The latter two are also owned by Cablevision, which also owns MSG. For those who don’t know, YES broadcasts games by the New York Yankees and Brooklyn Nets. In other words, they own and broadcast a lot of sports here on television and digital streaming. The joint venture is called Gotham Advanced Media and Entertainment, aptly called GAME.
At that time, Andrew Marchand of the New York Post reports that the partnership could result in a “direct-to-consumer streaming service.” This turned out to be correct. Earlier this week, Justin Tasch of the New York Post reports that GAME will launch the Gotham Sports App before the 2024-25 NHL and NBA seasons. The app will live stream all of these teams’ games on one platform. This also means that the app will effectively replace MSG’s existing apps, MSG+ and YES’s app. I wish it had a catchier name than Gotham Sports App (GSA), because the name of this venture is GAME. It is what it is.
According to the Tasch article, here are some key highlights about the app:
- If you’re already a subscriber to MSG and YES on TV and live in the New York City metropolitan area (such as northern and central New Jersey), the app is at no additional cost. You may need to log in to your TV subscription, similar to what MSG+ requires you to do to access its app.
- If you are not a TV subscriber, you can subscribe to MSG or YES through the app. This will cost slightly more.
- You can subscribe to games from the Devils, Nets, Yankees, and other teams at the same time. A monthly subscription costs $41.99 per month. An annual subscription costs $359.99, or $29.99 per month.
- You can subscribe to just YES, which presumably lets you watch only Yankees and Nets games. A monthly subscription costs $24.99 per month. Or a yearly subscription costs $239.99, or $19.99 per month.
- You can also subscribe to just the Devils at MSG and any other teams they can broadcast. A monthly subscription is $29.99 per month. An annual subscription is $279.99, or $23.33 per month. You can also watch a game for just $9.99. I’m not sure if the YES or combo subscriptions offer this option.
Obviously, GAME wants you to buy a one-year subscription to one or both of its network services. This makes sense if you want to watch a lot of games legally. Not so much if you only want to watch a small selection of sports or a single game. The monthly subscription price for the season might be cheaper if you remember to activate the subscription only for the NHL or NBA season. Will you remember to cancel your subscription before the season is over? That’s up to you. GAME is betting that you probably won’t. I understand this, since companies tend to “conveniently” renew subscriptions for you (even season tickets!), and there are various plans on the market (example) can save you some money by terminating a subscription you forgot about.
By the way, is this more than what MSG+ charged last year? Compared to MSG exclusive subscription, no, but only for annual subscriptions. An annual subscription to MSG+ (the app will be discontinued once GSA goes live) costs $309.99 per year. What GAME announced was actually a price cut. However, the monthly subscription price and individual game prices for the upcoming app remain the same as last year. Again, the right answer is not that clear-cut.
Also, it’s clear to me that the trends in broadcast have veered significantly away from “cord cutting.” Your opinion of your TV provider may differ — MSG and Xfinity are still at loggerheads with each other — but it’s probably cheaper to buy an entire TV package right now than to buy these different services. I’m old enough to remember when streaming was considered a game changer in broadcast. Now it’s basically cable, just with a few more steps.
Oh, and there are additional fees. The price of this app is too high for me. $10 for a Devils game? Really? $24 per month for a year’s subscription to Devils games? Really? If I want to watch other teams, then the annual subscription is $30 per month. I guess for some people, it’s worth paying $6 more per month to watch the Yankees and Nets. For me? I don’t know. The reason I’m concerned about the annual subscription is that the monthly subscription is priced in such a way that you pay more per month but commit to a shorter period of time. I understand that this is by design by GAME. I also understand that it’s still ridiculous. Not that cable companies have ever been generous, but they also haven’t charged me $30 per month for just two channels. Cross it out – Two-channel gaming. Some important people are already expecting their income to increase And clearly unhappy.
Unfortunately, I find myself on the other side of entertainment yelling “no,” “too expensive,” and “come on, really?” and getting no response. We live in an entertainment world where keeping up with the latest shows often means subscribing to multiple services that cost about this much per month — and can even cost more than a cable subscription. A world where getting a movie recommendation means searching Google or Bing to see what platform it’s on and if it’ll be there. A world where my Red Bulls season ticket comes with free access to the digital broadcast platform AppleTV so I can actually watch the team play outside of Harrison. No, not the entire platform — just their MLS coverage. A world where actual action is being taken to urge people to buy physical media — games, movies, books, music, etc. — so that no one can just take the content away or modify it in the future. While all of these options and access methods simply didn’t exist 30 or 40 years ago, the main structure remains: companies own the TV/broadcast rights, and consumers can like it, not accept it, or be unable to legally watch it. Although digital streaming has only become a viable platform for live events in the last 15 years or so – and even 15 years ago there was a gap in feasibility, there really was no other option.
So the Devils decide how to broadcast their own games. Like the Dallas Stars didI personally think this is a very interesting idea. From an outsider’s perspective, I don’t think it’s feasible for the Devils. MSG still pays the Devils a fair amount to broadcast their games. While many regional sports networks are shaky, Cablevision is definitely not one of them. James Dolan may not make great music, but he controls the market. With this venture, he still has control, for better or worse. YES has managed to stay on its feet, lasting 22 years, and has multiple owners, including the Yankees, Diamond Sports Group, Amazon, Blackstone, RedBird Capital Partners, and Mubadala Investment Company. Even if one or two of them go under, the rest won’t be affected – not to mention that other groups might want a piece of the action if some ownership stakes become available. Unless the Devils owners really want to own their own broadcast and are willing to shoulder the costs of making it happen, I don’t think it’s going to happen anytime soon. Of course, I could be wrong. If the Stars have commercial success broadcasting their own games, other teams might be more willing to at least give the idea a try. I don’t foresee the Devils, Islanders or Sabres following suit anytime soon, though. Especially since the Devils and MSG extended their previous 20-year contract before last season, according to NJ.com’s Ryan Novozinsky reported in April. It’s unclear how much and how long it lasts, but it’s still there.
So here we stand. MSG and YES teamed up to create GAME and make an app that lets you watch games online for a pretty good price. It’s not too different from the MSG+ app that MSG launched last season. Would you pay for it? Would you subscribe because you know you can get more content than you can with MSG+? Are you already paying for it through other means? What would an alternative look like? Please leave your answers and other thoughts in the comments. I apologize if I missed any common viewing scenarios. Thanks for reading.
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