Political scandals, earth-shattering current events, land wars in Europe and the Middle East? The true Metro Detroit sports fan doesn’t care.
Only one thing matters: “Did you see the game last night?” But in today’s fractured sports-rights ecosystem, few have.
To live here and not be a fan of one or all of our teams or programs is bizarre, but the cost to attend games is punitive, and the cost to view games at home is becoming the same.
Turbo-sports normies need access to all the teams, service providers, and streaming apps, and professional sports leagues have cleverly gamed the system to take advantage of the end user.
You can watch most—but not all—of the Tigers, Red Wings, and Pistons games on FanDuel Sports Network Detroit if you have a cable service provider that supports it and if you already have a cable package that includes it.
Spectrum’s Tier 1 package includes FanDuel at a cost of $105 a month—$1,260 a year.
But that package doesn’t include games that are telecast nationally, though you can catch those on network television.
If you’ve cut the cord on cable, you can stream FanDuel Network on FuboTV with an-add on for $19.99 a month—or $239.88 a year, but there’s a catch: Fubo’s base plan is $1,019.88 a year—a savings less than a dollar over the cable package.
You’re probably thinking: “That’s not too bad!” But wait, there’s more.
You want more than just local teams—you want all games. You want to scout your team’s next opponent and to watch exciting players your team might trade for.
With a cable provider, you can pay an additional $29.99 a month or $359.88 a year for MLB.tv, or maybe you can get take advantage of a yearly promo, giving you access to almost every game on demand. At the time of this writing, MLB.tv offers a year for $69.99.
But wait a minute. You’re still not getting every MLB game, if you can believe it. Apple has an exclusive deal to stream two games every Friday night on Apple TV+, so pony up $9.99 a month, or $119.88 a year, for that service.
Again, with a cable provider, $24.99 a month, or $299 a year, gets you NBA League Pass and access to every NBA game on demand. The NBA also gives a poor-man’s discount of $16.99 a month, or $203.88 a year, for access with only one device, which might be economical if you’re the one person in America without a TV who watches everything on your phone.
Say you’re a hockey fanatic like me. That gets a little bit trickier, but less costly. NHL Center Ice with Spectrum is only $45.99 a year, but your out-of-market access is capped at 40 games a week. Nationally televised games are not available, and the MSG Network, now called Gotham Sports App, games are not included.
A hockey fan can end-run around these limitations by paying $9.99 a month for HBO Max, which televises all NHL on TNT games, and NHL games on NBC are streamed on Peacock for $13.99 a month. All of this to say, trying to watch hockey games out of market is a piecemeal endeavor.
There’s a method to my madness, so let’s stop here for a moment and total up the cost to watch NHL, MLB, and NBA games:
- Spectrum Tier 1 package: $1,260 a year.
- MLB TV: $69.99 a year.
- NBA League Pass: $299 a year.
- NHL Center Ice: $45.99 a year.
- Friday Night Baseball on AppleTV+: $119.88 a year.
- NHL on HBO Max: $119.88 a year.
- NHL on Peacock: $167.88 a year.
The annual cost to have complete wall to wall, coast to coast, home and away coverage of the Tigers, Red Wings, and Pistons is $1,962.74. Have you blown out your diaper yet?
I haven’t even mentioned the NFL game coverage. You might want to sit down for this.
Everyone knows the NFL is king. You know it, the league knows it, the cable and streaming providers damn well know it, and everyone pays through the ass for it.
With a cable provider—I’ll use Spectrum again as an example—you’re already paying the $1,260 a year for Lions games on CBS and Fox in addition to the Monday night game. That gets you almost all the Lions games, but your coverage is still lacking.
The Lions have a Thursday game next season, not including their annual nationally televised Thanksgiving Game on CBS. Amazon Prime has the exclusive rights to Thursday Night Football, so you’ll need to drop $14.99 a month or $139 a year to have complete Lions coverage.
But a die-hard sports fan wants to watch more games. They want to scout other teams and imagine what the Lions will cook up to win next week.
For that, you need the NFL Sunday Ticket, a one-stop access point for every game in the NFL you want to watch. But there’s a catch. The NFL has an exclusive deal with YouTube TV for its all-access streaming package.
YouTube TV is an affordable $995 a year, but you can potentially sidestep the streaming package and buy the NFL Sunday Ticket for $480 a year, though this fine tuning is not particularly clear, seemingly with intent.
Left ambiguous in the fine print is whether you get your local or regional NFL games blacked out, thus requiring the Spectrum package.
We’re not even done yet. The turbo-sports normie living in the great state of Michigan is very likely a Michigan State fan or a Walmart Wolverine, so one last app to buy: The Big Ten Network.
Again, using Spectrum as the stand-in for the basic cable provider, you’ll need to drop $12.99 per month, or $155.88 a year, for B1G. An annual package exists for $89.99 a month, but common sense dictates that subscribers opt for the monthly—a more painless pull from their bank accounts.
So if you’re the ultimate sports fan needing access to everything, you’re dishing out $186.54 a month for hockey, basketball, baseball, and college sports—$2,238.50 a year.
Assuming you need Spectrum and Sunday NFL Ticket, and don’t forget Amazon Prime, your monthly bill for NFL football is $156.58 a month, or $1,879 a year, for complete wall-to-wall NFL coverage. With all the other sports, it’s $2,857.50.
That’s roughly 8% of the median individual yearly income in Michigan, or a decent-size car payment each month. Does the turbo-sports fan care if they are spending up about 8% of their income to watch sports? Not at all.
Attending games in-person has become less alluring in the era of 75-inch flat-screen televisions and mobile devices with incredible video quality, so sports leagues and their broadcast partners have found a cashless and seemingly painless way to still rip that money out of your pocket from the convenience of your couch.
The convoluted and confusing—never mind the ever-changing—fee structure on every app, streaming service, and service provider is headache inducing. Some providers alter their fee plans by the day, and Spectrum’s annual rates are impossible to locate. Of course, the hidden fees we all hate seeing in our bills are nowhere to be found.
All of this is the unspoken intent behind the entire sports access industry. The leagues and media platforms know your burning desire to watch their content. The true game is how they hide the ball—the exorbitant cost.
And they keep running up the score on your bank account, but you don’t really care, because the Lions, Tigers, and Pistons are finally good again, and—damn it—the Red Wings are so close.
Jay Murray is a writer for Michigan Enjoyer and has been a Metro Detroit-based professional investigator for 22 years. Follow him on X @Stainless31.
