NESN dramatically reduces price for NESN 360 streaming service

One of the very first regional sports networks to offer a direct-to-consumer streaming service for live game broadcasts has dramatically reduced its price.

NESN, the television home for the Boston Red Sox and Boston Bruins, will cut the cost of an annual subscription to its streaming service, NESN 360, by 27%. According to a press release sent out by the network on Tuesday morning, the new price for a yearly subscription to NESN 360 will be $240 compared to the previous price of $330.

The price drop, which actually went into effect on Friday but wasn’t announced until Tuesday, has already resulted in subscriber increases.

“Inflation is high. There’s a saturation limit in terms of DTC right now, and we wanted to get into people’s homes and make it as available as we can, while balancing the financials of it and making sure it still makes sense for us,” NESN president David Wisnia told Sports Business Journal. “In the last couple days alone, we’re talking double-digit increases in terms of our sub numbers and sub acquisition.”

Unfortunately for fans that wish to pay for NESN 360 on a monthly basis, there won’t be a discount. The streaming service will remain priced at $30 per month, likely as a way to push potential subscribers towards the yearly option, thereby mitigating churn.

Still, NESN is coming more in line with what other similar streaming services are priced at. For instance, YES Network is also priced at $240 per year while MSG Network charges $270 for a yearly subscription.

These services are still well above some team-specific subscriptions, like the Texas Rangers charging $100 per year for access to all of their games on the Victory+ streaming app. But unlike those plans, NESN provides 24/7 programming, whereas team-specific subscriptions only include live game broadcasts, pregame, and postgame shows.