Recalculating...Route to the Game: Why Watching Your Favorite Team Requires a Map
Fans are watching more than ever, but also searching harder to keep up
There’s watching sports, and then there’s figuring out how to watch sports.
That second part is starting to feel like a full-time job. If you’re trying to follow a full season—or even just a favorite team—you’re juggling networks, streaming apps, blackout rules, and subscription tiers.
Every major rights deal right now is a reflection of two competing truths: platforms want live sports to drive engagement and leagues want reach. Somewhere in the middle, fans are getting caught trying to remember which service has Thursday night, which one has their team, and whether that one playoff game is on broadcast or buried inside an app.
Welcome to the juggling era
Sports viewing used to be habitual. You flipped on the TV at the same time every week, often to the same network. Now it’s a scavenger hunt. Fans move from smart TVs to phones to tablets depending on where the next game lives. That’s not just a shift in convenience. It’s a shift in how loyalty works.
There’s quite a bit of value in this for the business side. Fragmentation creates more inventory to sell. It opens up windows for discovery. Someone might stumble onto a Friday night basketball game on Prime Video, or linger on Peacock longer than planned. It spreads the product across platforms where younger, more digital-native audiences are already spending time.
Discovery is up. Coherence is down.
This model makes sense if your goal is reach. The problem is, it can wear down the very fans you most want to keep. When loyalty requires a spreadsheet, or when live viewing becomes a puzzle, some people will simply opt out from the complication.
The conversation around new media rights isn’t just about where games air. It’s about whether fans can follow. That’s the real friction point. Not everyone watches everything, but the ones who do—your most engaged fans—are the ones most impacted by this complexity.
A smarter way to fragment
No one’s asking for a return to one-network dominance. Fragmentation isn’t the problem. Disorganization is. The strategy going forward has to include:
A way to surface the full weekly slate, clearly and contextually
Apps that don’t just show listings, but direct you to live feeds
Alerts that match fan preferences, not just league schedules
These are basic user experience investments that make a difference. Not every fan will use them. The ones who do are the ones who spend, share, and shape the culture.
Final thought
The game isn’t just on the field anymore. It’s in the interface. If you’re going to ask fans to follow across five platforms, give them a map. The goal isn’t to remove complexity. It’s to make sure the people who care most can still stay connected without burning out.
Fragmentation can grow revenue. The strategy is making sure it doesn’t cost attention.