Golden Knights games will be available on streaming option

Don Smale had to make several difficult financial decisions when the coronavirus pandemic hit. Getting rid of his satellite television provider was one of the first.

It wouldn’t have been so bad except the 53-year-old Boulder City resident and his family no longer had access to Golden Knights games. At least legally, anyway.

“It’s obviously a different experience,” Smale said. “It’s a lot more difficult to be a fan, but we’re still fans and we do what we can.”

The Knights were one of the few organizations in the NHL without an option for fans who ditched their satellite or cable TV, otherwise known as cord-cutting, in favor of an over-the-top video streaming service.

But that is set to change this season with a recent announcement that AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain will be available to customers of AT&T TV and AT&T TV Now.

The AT&T SportsNet app can be authenticated by customers of DirecTV and CenturyLink, providing additional streaming options for Knights fans.

The network continues to work with Cox Communications to allow its cable customers access to the app, according to Randi Lackscheide, AT&T SportsNet director of affiliate relations business affairs.

“Our goal is always to allow viewers as many options to get the programming as are available,” Lackscheide said. “People have busy lives, and being able to watch your game wherever you are is going to be a big win for those viewers. We’re happy to be able to bring this to the market.”

In a statement, the Golden Knights organization said, “We are excited that a streaming option will be available to many of our fans through the AT&T SportsNet app beginning this season. This will enable fans to experience Golden Knights games in ways they hadn’t been able to before and bring them closer to all the VGK action on their mobile and other streaming devices.”

Video streaming grows

The rising cost of cable and satellite continues to push consumers toward video streaming services such as AT&T TV Now, Fubo TV, Hulu Live, Sling or YouTube Live.

More than 6 million households in the U.S. will move to a video streaming service in 2020, according to research from eMarketer released in September. The firm estimates a total of 46.6 million households will cut the cord by 2024.

But as Smale and others have learned, watching hockey through a streaming service is not always easy.

In recent months, Hulu, YouTube TV, Dish Network, Sling TV and Fubo TV all dropped the 21 Fox regional sports networks owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group. That means 12 NHL teams’ games are no longer available to cord-cutters on those services.

Sinclair announced the formation of a competing streaming service featuring its regional sports networks and signed a deal in November with Bally’s Corporation to use the company’s sports betting technology in broadcasts.

Lackscheide said AT&T SportsNet Pittsburgh, which carries Penguins games, was added to AT&T TV and AT&T TV Now, along with Fubo TV for the upcoming season after not being available to stream previously.

The Colorado Avalanche also did not have a streaming option last season but announced in August that Altitude Sports can be streamed by in-region customers with the Choice package and above for AT&T TV and Max package for AT&T TV Now.

“It’s extraordinarily important as people are staying home more and more,” said Tom Philand, a consultant for Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, which owns the Avalanche. “There isn’t a team that doesn’t want a streaming solution. We viewed it as an essential ingredient and worked very hard at it.”

Creative workarounds

Without a streaming option available, Knights fans in the Las Vegas market have been forced to get creative in order to watch games.

One option was illegal sports streaming websites, which provide access to NHL broadcasts alongside everything from Champions League soccer to Croatian water polo.

According to Muso, a piracy data company, there were more than 174 billion visits in 2019 to websites showing unlicensed content. Sports piracy sites accounted for 362.7 million visits in January 2019, Muso found.

Knights fans outside of the Las Vegas market who want to stream games can subscribe to NHL.tv, the league’s live and on-demand streaming service. But NHL blackout rules, which differ from the NFL and are not based on sellouts, mean games are not available in-market if they are shown live on the regional sports network.

To get around that, some Knights fans use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to mask their location and purchase a subscription to NHL.tv.

“I felt better about that because I was still paying for the NHL Center Ice package just like I pay for the MLB Extra Innings packages during baseball season, so I wasn’t stealing anything,” said Russ Morgan, 44, of Henderson. “The quality was good, and I didn’t need to worry about random porn pop-ups or wonder if I was opening myself up to a Russian or Iranian hacker.”

TV deal expiring

The NHL’s 10-year, $2 billion television deal with NBC expires after the 2020-21 season, and the rights fees are expected to increase.

Published reports from multiple sports media observers indicate NBC wants to maintain the rights, while ESPN could be one of the companies involved in the negotiations. NHL games have been available for streaming through the ESPN Plus subscription service since its launch in 2018.

In addition, a video streaming service also could bid for the digital rights to games. The NHL, Twitter and Disney Streaming Services partnered during the playoffs to show two-minute, live look-ins of select games.

Smale wasn’t in a rush to figure out how he and his family will watch Knights games, but that was before the NHL and players’ association approved a plan for the season to begin Jan. 13.

Now, it’s likely he will join the growing number of people cutting the cord and streaming.

“For us, I appreciate the games that I get to see,” Smale said. “Work situationwise is definitely not improving for myself or many other people, so that $200-a-month-DirecTV-guaranteed-to-see-every-game thing is probably not going to happen again, that’s for sure.”

Contact David Schoen at dschoen@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5203. Follow @DavidSchoenLVRJ on Twitter.