Sen. Ted Cruz asked an audience last month, "Why does it seem to be getting harder and more expensive to just watch the game?" Sports journalist Joon Lee has pondered the same question, but unlike Cruz, he's offering up solutions. In a New York Times op-ed, Lee argues that sports, for a long time "one of the most accessible forms of entertainment in America," is being locked away behind paywalls, killing the community that came along with it. He suggests Congress act to ban blackouts, cap streaming charges, create a free streaming app, or require that key sporting events be widely aired for free. Because "if public money is going to support professional sports, then public obligations—like ensuring access—should come with it."
Following the advent of the streaming wars, leagues "stopped acting like caretakers" of public ritual and local pride and "started thinking like asset managers," he writes. Now, games are "sliced and diced and sold off to the highest bidder," so that "even some of the biggest superfans struggle to track what's available where." Lee subscribes to "nearly every service there is with live sports" at a cost of $2,634 a year, yet even he couldn't watch a recent Boston Red Sox game without paying an extra $19.99 per month for the "obscure baseball-focused service" that was airing the game. Watching the action in person isn't any cheaper, Lee adds, noting that "as access shatters, rituals vanish, as do the moments that make sports communal." Read the full piece here. (More sports stories.)
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