• by Wayne Friedman , October 10, 2023

As local, professional sports teams are continuing to make the direct-to-consumer (D2C) TV and video transition to streaming, the NHL's Washington Capitals, NBA’s Washington Wizards, and WNBA’s Washington Mystics are making the change.

Through the deal with the Monumental Sports Network, D2C for these teams will begin with monthly or annual memberships priced at $19.99 per month or $199.99 per year. Monumental Sports Network app is available on iOS, Android, Apple TV, or Roku. Subscribers can also utilize the app on Amazon Fire TV. 

With pay TV and regional sports networks losing subscribers to cord-cutting, Monumental has become the latest sports rights holder to make games available via streaming.

In August, NHL champions the Vegas Golden Knights inked a multiyear partnership deal with ViewLift to create a D2C service that will stream all locally broadcast Golden Knights games live on major devices..

In March, the YES regional sports network -- home of the New York Yankees and Brooklyn Nets -- started streaming at $16.66 a month.

This comes as legacy pay TV services -- cable, satellite, virtual  -- are for the most part abandoning traditional regional sports cable TV (RSNs) networks, due to thin profit margins and high consumer costs.

The biggest U.S. RSN group, Sinclair’s Diamond Sports Network (under the Bally Sports brand name) -- 19 networks --  continues to financially reorganize under federal bankruptcy protection -- as well as continuing its effort to boost more D2C business.