Royals, Sporting KC fans are losing another option for streaming games
Two Kansas City professional sports squads are set to open the season within a matter of days (Sporting Kansas City) or weeks (Royals), but fans of both teams are losing a streaming option.
YouTube TV tweeted Thursday that it wouldn’t offer Fox Regional Sports Network games.
It wrote on Twitter: “We purchase rights from Sinclair to distribute content to you. Despite our best efforts, we’ve been unable to reach an agreement with Sinclair. As a result, we will no longer offer FOX Regional Sports Networks, including YES Network, beginning February 29th.”
That is this Saturday, which coincidentally (or not) is when Sporting Kansas City begins its season.
And Thursday’s announcement came exactly four weeks before the Royals start the 2020 season. The Royals also have seven spring-training games scheduled to be broadcast in March.
YouTube TV is the second streaming service to drop Fox Regional Sports Networks since last September. That’s when SlingTV reached an impasse with Fox’s RSNs, which were bought by Sinclair in August. Sling quit showing Royals and Sporting games and issued a terse statement.
Here is the full statement YouTube TV tweeted:
Sinclair offered its take on the disagreement.
“We offered YouTube TV the best terms under which their competitors carry our Regional Sports Networks,” Sinclair spokesman Ronn Torossian said in a statement. “Unfortunately, they alone decided to drop these channels citing ‘rising costs’ despite our offer to actually lower the fees they pay us. We also offered to continue negotiating under a short-term extension so that their subscribers could continue to watch their favorite hometown teams. They’ve not yet responded to this offer.
“Given the ease with which YouTube TV subscribers can drop the service and switch providers, we are surprised that they’ve chosen this course. At the very least, you have to imagine YouTube TV will be receiving lots of questions from subscribers asking about how much they intend to lower the subscription fee given that they are removing some of the most popular and in-demand programming they carry.”
Sporting KC noted its games will still be shown on cable and can be streamed on Hulu Live TV and the Fox Sports Go app. That’s also the case with Royals games.
But for fans who have or want to cut the cord, this means one fewer option for watching games.
This story was originally published February 27, 2020 at 2:22 PM.
