With just a day to spare before the New York Yankees are set to tee up Opening Day against the San Francisco Giants, YES Network’s new direct-to-consumer service is open for business.
Fans looking to part ways with their legacy pay-TV provider may order up a monthly subscription to the DTC offering for $29.99, while an annual commitment will cost $239.99. On a month-to-month basis, the YES service is $5 cheaper than MSG+, and the yearly rate is $70 less than what Rangers and Knicks fans can expect to shell out for the hometown DTC play.
As it happens, a monthly subscription to Boston’s NESN 360, which debuted on June 1, 2022, is also $5 more expensive than the new YES service, while the gap between the two annual deals is $90.
While YES enthusiasts will save a few more dollars than their aforementioned counterparts, the new streaming scheme is still considerably more expensive than the other active DTC products on the market. For example, a monthly ESPN+ subscription runs $9.99, while the ad-supported Disney sports and entertainment bundle (ESPN+, Disney+, Hulu) goes for $12.99 a month.
The relatively steep pricing is by design. If YES were to offer the DTC product on the cheap, it would risk wringing the neck of the golden goose that is the traditional cable bundle. The Yankees own a 26% stake in YES, which per S&P Global Market Intelligence estimates generates north of $200 million in annual revenue. Linear carriage fees account for a good deal of that cash influx; in 2022, YES charged operators around $7.27 per sub per month for the right to carry its signal, making it the second priciest channel on the dial behind only ESPN.
Until DTC can begin to replicate the economics of scale of the legacy cable bundle—and that may not happen until pay-TV penetration drops below 25% of all U.S. TV homes—the cost of opting into these alternate services will remain elevated. That said, DTC is a steal when compared to the monthly cable bill. For fans who can get by with a Netflix subscription for all the non-sports stuff in their media diet, $29.99 is a drop in the bucket compared to the $180 most households cough up every month for their cable and high-speed Internet service, once rental fees for set-top boxes and modems are factored in. And the hits just keep coming; in the Northeast, the monthly bill from Comcast, the nation’s largest pay-TV operator, includes a “regional sports fee” surcharge of $19.15.
Ratings also played a role in YES’s DTC fee structure. The Yankees last season averaged 368,000 viewers per game on YES in the New York market, up 27% versus the 2021 campaign. This marked the Bombers’ biggest TV audience in 11 years.
Sports enthusiasts who act fast can carve out a discount for the new YES offering, as anyone who signs on before April 30 can lock in an introductory price of $19.99 per month, or $199.99 for the entire year.
“For more than 20 years, YES has provided fans with a best-in-class sports viewing experience,” said YES Network CEO Jon Litner, by way of announcing the launch. “With this new direct-to-consumer offering, we are broadening our reach by making YES available to more fans in our regional footprint than ever before.”As televised by YES, the first pitch of Thursday’s Giants-Yankees opener should hit the pocket of Jose Trevino’s mitt at around 1 p.m. EDT.
