Marquee Sports Network has a new carriage agreement, this time with streaming provider fuboTV. DOM on Twitter had the news first, which was later sent out via press release to the various business news services. The deal will kick in “in the coming weeks” in the Cubs’ broadcast territory.
That’s the second streaming provider (with AT&T) to add Marquee currently, which is significant as it at least provides another option for cord-cutters. Unfortunately Hulu+ Live TV dropped most regional sports networks last year (including Marquee), and YouTube TV hasn’t carried RSNs since this time last year.
The hope has been that the start of the season would allow Sinclair – the owner of a huge chunk of MLB’s RSNs and a partner in Marquee and YES (Yankees) – to leverage new carriage deals with the other streaming services, but they have been resolute so far in declining to carry live, local sports networks. And since in-market streaming is limited to authenticated subscribers of providers who carry the channel, there are limited in-market streaming options for fans: either you have a cable channel with the network (and can stream on devices), or you get one of the few streaming services that carries the RSN (i.e., AT&T or fuboTV). Otherwise, in-market, you’re going to be blacked out on MLB.tv.
Marquee Sports Network will be streaming on @FuboTV in the coming weeks!
Release: https://t.co/OhyZpWsTNi pic.twitter.com/4yO4J9dm51
— Marquee Sports Network (@WatchMarquee) March 31, 2021