Local sports bars and fans navigate the complex sports broadcast landscape

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 broadcast deals, has turned what was once a simple pastime into a maze of subscriptions and suspensions, leaving some viewers without streaming access to their favorite teams.

But streaming problems have had a surprising impact on local businesses that rely on gaming clientele. One such business is Pizza House in East Lansing. Located within walking distance of the Michigan State University campus, the local pizzeria primarily attracts students and campus residents.

The Spartans played Ohio State on September 28th. The game was streamed exclusively on Peacock. Pizza House general manager Jeremy Bates said the eatery saw a large turnout because many MSU fans were unable to watch the 7 p.m. kickoff on a subscription-only streaming platform.

This January, Bates will celebrate his 13th year as general manager. In the days leading up to the game, he said, customers called the restaurant to see if it would be streamed at Pizza House, a development he has rarely seen in the MSU sports community.

“I don’t remember getting these calls for Michigan State games since the inception of the Big Ten Network,” Bates said.

Subscription streaming services spent $100 million on sports rights in 2016, according to a study by Ampere Analysis. In 2023, that number was $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 reached a seven-year, $7 billion deal with Peacock ab, a subscription-only streaming platform. Most recently, in February of this year, ESPN, FOX and Warner Bros. Discovery announced a partnership aimed at elevating the sports experience for fans. The aim is to offer consumers a streaming service called Venu Sports, a one-stop shop for everything related to sports entertainment. The new platform has yet to come to fruition, but will likely be another sports platform that fans can navigate and pay for.

Bates said 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 is forcing the company to invest in infrastructure and additional programming.

Lester Atkins, 73, has lived in DeWitt, a suburb of Lansing, since 2007. A lifelong Detroit Tigers fan, he watched the Tigers win the 1984 World Series on a low-definition television on NBC. Four decades later, he missed much of Detroit’s remarkable run into the MLB playoffs for the first time since 2014. For Atkins, this absence was not a choice.

During the 2024 MLB season, Tigers games were blacked out or unavailable to Xfinity subscribers for three months due to a dispute between Comcast and Diamond Sports Group, the parent company of Bally Sports Detroit.

As he watched the Tigers’ final game of the season at Dagwood’s Tavern and Grill in East Lansing, Atkins said he was “exhausted” by not being able to watch his favorite baseball team.

“I just think it’s the greed of these giants,” Atkins said. “We can’t watch at home.”

Dick Gereza of DeWitt, who joined Atkins at Dagwood’s, said he believes the emergence of subscription-only streaming services will ultimately have a negative impact on sports because of fans like him, a 71-year-old Detroit sports fan , will slowly disappear. Gereza and Atkins couldn’t watch their favorite team for months.

Gereza also believes that the rise of streaming platforms will have a negative impact on advertisers.

“There’s not so much that everyone sees at the same time anymore,” Gereza said. “You have to think this has something to do with those ad placers, right?”

Bates said the new age of sports streaming is a big challenge, but also presents an opportunity for companies to offer a service that customers wouldn’t pay for at home.

“It’s always going to be a hassle getting games, whether they’re on traditional cable or streaming,” Bates said. “I’m not sure it’s more difficult today than it was back then, but the expanded options actually add a different component to it.”