Satellite broadcaster DirecTV will offer nearly two dozen baseball games from the New York Yankees to business subscribers, the company announced on Tuesday.
The move will allow DirecTV for Business customers to access 20 games this season that are offered by Amazon through its Prime Video service. Amazon is a co-owner of the YES Network, which is the exclusive in-market broadcaster of most regular season Yankees games.
The deal will make it easier for bars, restaurants and other public venues to offer Yankees games that were once only accessible through Prime Video. While streaming generally isn’t a problem for those who watch movies and television shows at home, business customers have complained that the complexity of setting up streaming hardware across multiple streams combined with lackluster broadband connectivity and latency issues make it difficult, if not impossible, to offer sports delivered over streaming in their establishments.
After years of being the exclusive provider of the National Football League’s Sunday Ticket package, DirecTV for Business grew its customer base to more than 300,000 subscribers, which means the satellite service is in a prime position to offer live sports to business customers through traditional pay television without stepping on agreements in place to offer those same events to individuals through streaming.
The deal announced on Tuesday will limit Yankees games broadcast by DirecTV for Business to just the four states that would ordinarily be considered “in-market” for those games on Prime Video.
“There arguably isn’t a more fervent fan base in sports than that of the New York Yankees,” Rob Thun, the chief content officer at DirecTV, said in a statement. “We look forward to bringing those fans even more Yankees games to watch at their favorite local bars, restaurants and other commercial establishments where DirecTV already delivers our market-leading sports content offering.”
The first of the 20 games will be televised Tuesday evening, a match-up that will see the Yankees host the Philadelphia Phillies. That game begins at 7 p.m. Eastern Time.
