As the FanDuel Sports Networks continues its first full year of operations post-Diamond Sports bankruptcy, the regional sports network group’s primary emphasis has been establishing its presence in streaming.
The parent company, now called Main Street Sports Group and helmed by former ESPN executive Norby Williamson, controls 15 regional sports networks across the country and is partnered with 30 teams in the NBA, MLB, and NHL. So far, its nascent streaming efforts are showing some promising returns.
According to a report by Austin Karp of Sports Business Journal, FanDuel Sports Networks have secured 650,000 paid streaming subscribers, which has doubled over the last eight weeks coinciding with the end of the NBA’s regular season and the beginning of MLB’s season. Per Karp, the company is on track to hit one million subscribers by the end of the year.
There are a few other promising metrics for FanDuel Sports Network’s direct-to-consumer products as well. The streaming services average around 250,000 unique daily users during baseball season, and viewers who are tuning in are staying longer. The average time spent watching a game on the streaming platform is 92.5 minutes, up 9% versus last year. The company’s streaming viewers are also 12 years younger than a traditional pay TV audience for regional sports programming.
While these figures look good in the short term, the realities of the regional sports network business may come to pass in the not-so-distant future. Main Street Sports Group is generally operating under short-term deals with its franchises—typically one or two years. The company is at risk of losing a substantial amount of its business if leagues like MLB or the NBA can coalesce local rights for many of their teams and sell them to a national streaming platform.
For now, though, FanDuel Sports Networks is an improbable story of survival in a declining industry.