Baseball fans in New York who want access to Yankees games this season can watch all the action from a dedicated streaming app sold for $25 per month — or they can pay nearly four times that price to watch Yankees games and a lot of other sports through Fubo.
Starting this week, Fubo will begin offering YES Network to subscribers who are in the home areas of games played by the Yankees, the companies announced in a joint press release. The addition of the channel also brings non-nationally televised games from the Brooklyn Nets to Fubo for the first time.
“Fubo is thrilled to bring New York Yankees and Brooklyn Nets coverage to fans in the New York City area just in time for the 2024 season,” Todd Mathers, the Senior Vice President of Content Strategy and Acquisition at Fubo, said in a statement. “The addition of the YES Network to Fubo’s robust baseball offering – which is broader than any other streaming platform’s – means Yankees fans won’t miss a single pitch on YES. And, as Fubo is the only streaming platform to offer YES in its base plan, everyone in the family can enjoy the sports, news and entertainment content they love at an attractive price point.”
That base plan starts at $80 per month before Fubo tacks on taxes and a regional sports fee. Depending on where a customer lives, the base price can increase to over $100 per month with taxes and fees included — approaching cable-like prices.
By comparison, the YES Network on its own costs $25 per month or $240 per season, and includes locally-televised games aired on the regional sports network. That said, the YES Network’s dedicated streaming app doesn’t offer nationally-televised games aired on ESPN or Fox Sports. Fubo carries both those channels.
Fubo doesn’t offer games aired on Apple TV Plus (which carries its own $10 per month subscription) or playoff and championship games aired on TNT Sports (since it doesn’t carry Warner Bros Discovery channels), which means it can’t serve as a single destination for all in-market Yankees games.
That said, Yankees fans will have most of their games through Fubo with its inclusion of YES Network, ESPN and Fox Sports, as well as plenty of other sports. And the addition of YES Network is a value add for current Fubo subscribers who previously had to pay separately for the YES Network app on its own just to stay on top of that team.
“We are excited to reach an agreement with Fubo to bring YES and our best-in-class New York Yankees and Brooklyn Nets coverage to Fubo subscribers,” John LItner, the CEO of the YES Network, said on Thursday. “As interest in the Yankees continues to soar as we approach Opening Day and the team’s pursuit of its 28th World Series championship, Fubo streaming customers will now enjoy YES’ Emmy Award-winning Yankees coverage all season long.”
Unlike streaming services like Sling TV and YouTube TV, which have pared down their offering of regional sports channels over the past few years, Fubo has embraced them as a way to deliver more live sports programming to fans who are willing to pay for it.
Fubo is widely available on streaming TV platforms, phones, tablets and via the Fubo website.
