Tech giant Amazon says plans to stream around two dozen New York Yankees baseball games have been cancelled due to the ongoing COVID-19 health pandemic.
The announcement comes less than five months after Amazon said it would stream around 20 Yankees baseball games that were set to broadcast on New York City local TV station WPIX-TV (Channel 11). The first game was set to stream on April 17.
Amazon secured the streaming rights to locally-aired games thanks to its partial ownership of the YES Network.
This week, Amazon said those plans were scrapped after the YES Network chose to exercise its right to televise all 60 games from this year’s abbreviated season.
“Given the unique circumstances surrounding this season, the YES Network will televise all New York Yankees games not airing on the national networks,” an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement.
The spokesperson said plans might change later on in the season, and Amazon will evaluate those plans on an ongoing basis. Amazon had planned to stream the games to members of its Prime service, though only to customers who live in the New York City television market.
Have you canceled or added a streaming TV service since the COVID-19 pandemic began?
— Matthew Keys (@MatthewKeysLive) July 26, 2020
