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The regional sports networks owned by Main Street Sports Group are winning over streaming subscribers.
FanDuel Sports Network, the recently rebranded portfolio of regional channels, said Monday its paid subscribers doubled to nearly 650,000 over a period of eight weeks. The company expects to reach one million direct-to-consumer customers by the end of the year.
The update comes months after Main Street Sports Group emerged from bankruptcy protection, having significantly trimmed its debt load and scaled back on the number of teams in its portfolio after reworking its agreements with lenders, teams and leagues.
There are 15 owned and operated networks under the FanDuel Sports Network banner — known as Bally Sports until recently — airing coverage of 30 Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association and National Hockey League teams across the U.S.
On Monday, the company said that since the start of the 2025 MLB season, the streaming platform has been averaging 250,000 unique daily users and about one million unique monthly users. In addition, the average watch time per game is up 9% year over year to 92.5 minutes, according to the company.
The numbers have been buoyed by new ways to stream the networks. As part of the bankruptcy proceedings, Main Street Sports inked a deal with Amazon’s Prime Video to make the networks available on the streaming platform, in addition to their own direct-to-consumer apps.
The deal with Amazon is nonexclusive, giving Main Street the ability to pursue streaming rights deals with other partners, CNBC previously reported.
In March, the company struck another partnership with SB Nation and Yahoo Sports with the goal of “accelerating subscriber growth and expanding awareness” of the streaming app ahead of the start of the MLB season. That partnership integrates affiliate links and tune-in messaging within SB Nation’s content. It also ties the networks to Yahoo’s Sports fantasy community, and offers free trials periodically.
Michael Schneider, chief operating officer and general manager of direct-to-consumer at Main Street Sports Group, credited the growth to FanDuel Sports Network’s various partners, as well as what he called an “efficient acquisition program” for capturing new customers.
He added that team partners have been helping, too, with promotional offers for fans on social and digital platforms helping to drive subscriptions.
“We’re progressing on our mission to reinvent the local sports media landscape by delivering a new standard for teams and their hometown fans, while also elevating the visibility of our team partners,” said David Preschlack, CEO of Main Street Sports Group, in a news release.
The various streaming and digital partnerships come as regional sports networks like those owned by Main Street Sports are weighed down by substantial losses among pay-TV subscribers.
For years, regional sports networks had proved to be a lucrative business model for teams and leagues. But the fleeing of pay-TV subscribers to streaming options have left the networks needing to adapt and facing pushback from pay-TV distributors about their contracts.
Recently, MSG Networks went dark for customers of Altice USA’s pay-TV bundle before the two reached a deal that gave Altice more flexibility. MSG Sports, which airs local New York Knicks and other teams’ games on pay TV and its Gotham Sports streaming app, has faced financial turmoil as the regional sports network model evolves.
FanDuel Sports Network starts at $19.99 a month for access to one network and gets more expensive for broader access depending on the region. The relatively expensive price point for streaming regional sports networks is due to contracts with pay TV providers. Preschlack told CNBC Sport in an interview earlier this year the company will test out lower price points.
Schneider said pricing is uniform in most regions.
“Teams have provided specific offers to their fan base and we’re learning by constantly testing what the optimal price point and offers are to bring in maximum subs,” he said.
