There’s never been a weirder time to watch sports on TV, and that’s thanks to the fall of regional sports networks and the rise of streaming.
Now, six NHL teams have announced that, for fans in their market, their games will be streamed on Amazon’s Prime Video.
The news was made official on Wednesday with the Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes, Anaheim Ducks, Columbus Blue Jackets, Dallas Stars, Minnesota Wild, and St. Louis Blues all moving over to the platform for local fans.
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But because this is the age of streaming, it’s still going to be a little confusing and potentially costly.
The league said that individual teams will release information about packages and subscriptions. Strangely, it appears that some teams will be available to fans as an add-on on top of their Prime Video membership, some can be purchased without a Prime Video subscription, and some will be included with the standard membership.
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But it still gets more confusing: most of the teams making the move are still going to offer some kind of alternative to streaming.
Then, of course, as per usual, if the game happens to be one that’s televised nationally by TNT, ESPN, or ABC, that one will not be available for you to stream on Prime Video.
It’s always nice to have options, but there’s no doubt that a lot of fans are getting fed up with having to add another streaming platform, and in some cases, an additional add-on on top of that, to their laundry list of channels and streamers needed to watch their favorite teams.
There’s certainly a sense of streaming fatigue for a lot of fans, especially as more and more clubs move away from regional sports networks.
Of course, these services are only for fans in those teams’ markets. The streaming rights for out-of-market games in the US still belong to ESPN+, as they have for several years.
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