The pay-TV ecosystem has dodged the launch of Venu Sports, at least for now. But let’s wait and see if it can stop what appears to be a very formidable competitive threat.
Nearly all local broadcasts of major New York-area professional sports teams will be available through a new direct-to-consumer streaming app launching this fall from Yes Network and MSG Networks as part of the Gotham Advanced Media & Entertainment (GAME) joint venture the two formed earlier this year.
Non-nationally televised games from the New York Yankees, New York Knicks, New York Rangers, New Jersey Devils, New York Islanders, Buffalo Sabres and Brooklyn Nets will be available on a service billed as “the exclusive TV Everywhere and DTC streaming home of MSG+ and the YES app.”
The combined offer offers some good savings compared to subscribing to individual apps, as the graphic below shows. It’s also free for subscribers to the linear YES and MSG networks.
The Gotham Sports app can be downloaded at www.Signup.GothamSports.com and is supported on Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Apple TV, iOS and Android TV, and most web browsers.
“With the increasing fragmentation of providers of popular sports programming, the Gotham Sports app provides fans of our teams with an easy access point to New York-area sporting events from MSG Networks and the YES Network,” said Andrea Greenberg, president and CEO of MSG Networks, in a statement.
