Sports Fans: Get Ready to Spend More Money to Watch Your Favorite Teams

Sports fans, get ready to shell out more coin to watch your favorite teams skirmish on TV. Not a sports nut? Well, you’re going to pay more, too, if you want to get traditional television service from a cable, satellite or telco provider, because of the way the industry is structured. But what is the endgame for the ever-evolving business of sports television? Who will give in: content providers, distributors or the common fan? Those are the multibillion-dollar questions.

The price of TV broadcast rights for sports in the age of time-shifted viewing has soared. After all, it’s high-demand content that viewers don’t DVR. And unlike other video entertainment, it’s not available from Netflix or other Internet services. But as networks bid rights into the stratosphere, something’s got to give. Some distributors fear that unless things change, sports fees could eventually drive consumers away from pay TV in droves — prompting a tailspin the biz won’t be able to pull out of. On the other hand, consumer dissension has yet to become an unbridled rebellion, and it’s not clear that the willingness to pay has been tested.