Sinclair is Working with Amazon to Bring Exclusive Streams of YES Network Broadcasts of Yankees Games

In March, Amazon, Sinclair Media Group, and New York Yankees jointly purchased YES Network, which is considered the most-watched regional sports network (RSN). The channel broadcasts games for the New York Yankees, Brooklyn Nets, New York City FC, and New York Liberty.

At the time, including Amazon as an investor raised eyebrows, especially as it related to streaming. The Yankees currently has a five year streaming license with YES Network, but it was unclear whether that prevented them from offering streams through Amazon.

Now, in an interview with NBC News, Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley shared that Amazon will be “experimenting with a set of games here, providing them over-the-top and adding new features to the viewer experience, like more data, different audio tracks. They’re going to be focused on innovation and improving the consumer’s viewer experience.”

It is unlikely that those streams would be made available nationally due to licensing restrictions, but could be made available to those in-market subscribers to Amazon Prime Video.
“There are very few sports brands in the world as great as the New York Yankees that offer impressive reach and recognition,” said Ripley. “We look forward to working with our partners to develop and deliver top-notch play action and sports programming for the fans.”

The channel is one of the 22 Fox RSNs that were acquired by Disney, and required by regulators to be divested in order to close the deal. The other Regional Sports Networks were acquired by Sinclair Media Group for $10.6B, but YES Network was carved out in a separate deal.