New York Yankees’ Prime Video Games to Be Distributed to Bars, Restaurants via DIRECTV

One of the biggest complaints with major sports leagues making certain games streaming exclusives is that it means that fans often have to subscribe to up to a half dozen services just to catch all of the contests. For New York Yankees fans, they would need to have a live tv streaming service for games on YES Network (or they could opt for a subscription to the YES App) and all of the nationally broadcast games on ESPN, TBS, FOX, and FS1, along with Peacock, Apple TV+, and Prime Video to make sure they never missed a pitch.

But even then, if they want to watch some games at a sports bar, they might not be able to, as businesses rarely carry streaming services. Fortunately, that pain point for 20 Yankees games this season has been remedied, starting tonight, Tuesday, April 4. After Prime Video announced last week that it would again have 20 streaming exclusive Yankees games on the service this season, on Tuesday, DIRECTV announced that it has partnered with the Amazon-owned streamer to make those games available through its satellite service to businesses in the New York media market.

The games will be available to businesses inside the traditional Yankees’ footprint of New York state, Connecticut, north and central New Jersey, and northeast Pennsylvania. The games won’t require bars and restaurants to figure out how to stream the games, as they will be available through their existing DIRECTV satellite service, which is essentially a must-have for any sports bar.

“For decades, DIRECTV has given sports fans all over the country access to their favorite teams how and where they want to watch them,” DIRECTV chief content officer Rob Thun said. “There arguably isn’t a more fervent fan base in sports than that of the New York Yankees. We look forward to bringing those fans even more Yankees games to watch at their favorite local bars, restaurants and other commercial establishments where DIRECTV already delivers our market-leading sports content offering.”

This is not the first time that DIRECT and Prime Video have teamed up to bring games that would otherwise be streaming exclusives to bars and restaurants. Last fall, as Prime Video was set to become the first streaming platform to have an exclusive NFL football game, the companies partnered to bring the entire slate of “Thursday Night Football” games to businesses across the country.

DIRECTV FOR BUSINESS has an expansive nationwide network of over 300,000 commercial venues, including restaurants, bars, hotel lounges, retail shops, and more. While these Yankees games will only be available to the DIRECTV FOR BUSINESS subscribers in the New York region, the continued relationship between Amazon and DIRECTV could help solve a not-insignificant issue with sports streaming in the future, especially as Prime Video is continuing to look for more opportunities to expand its major sports broadcasting rights.

What Yankees Games Will Stream on Prime Video via DIRECTV Business in Bars and Restaurants in 2023?

30-Day Trial

amazon.com

Amazon Prime Video

Amazon Prime Video is a subscription video streaming service that includes on-demand access to 10,000+ movies, TV shows, and Prime Originals like “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” “Jack Ryan,” “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “The Boys,” and more. Subscribers can also add third-party services like Max, Showtime, STARZ, and dozens more with Amazon Prime Video Channels. Prime Video also offers exclusive live access to NFL Thursday Night Football.

…

The Prime Video interface shows content included with your subscription alongside the ad-supported Freevee library and some shows and movies you need to purchase, so be sure to double-check your selection before you watch.

Prime Video is included with Amazon Prime for $14.99 per month ($139 per year), or can be purchased on its own for $8.99 per month.

30-Day Trial

$8.99+ / month

amazon.com