Six sports fans. Five countries. One subscription mess.

Live sports used to be simple: one channel, one bill, one remote.

Now, rights are sliced across streamers, apps and devices. To follow a single team – or a single player – fans are quietly turning into power users of the subscription economy.

Fragmentation has become a huge fan problem, resulting in many feeling they can’t afford all the subscriptions they need. This should be a warning signal for anyone running a subscription business, when watching “legally” feels harder than finding a stream on social media, something in the model is broken.

An article from the NY Times, shared some research on UK & US football fans, which links rising costs and multiple subscriptions directly to a surge in illegal streaming, with nearly five million adults using illicit devices in just six months. In our research, Subscription Assemble, almost a third (28%) of those surveyed say online piracy is the only way to access all of the content they want in one place.

So, we interviewed six sports fans who work for Bango to look at their sporting viewing habits to see how much of problem this might be internationally.

Jesus – basketball fan in Spain

Jesus lives in Madrid with his family of 4. His kids are avid basketball players and big fans. In order to satisfy everyone, he needs access to all games both national and international or there will be upset in his household.

Access to the following is required:

• NBA (regular season, playoffs, Finals)
• EuroLeague
• Liga Endesa (ACB)

From 2025-26, those rights are spread across DAZN, Amazon Prime Video and Movistar Plus+:

NBA: DAZN and Amazon Prime Video now share Spanish rights. DAZN carries around 180 regular-season games plus All-Star and playoffs, while Prime Video shows dozens of marquee games – including the 2026 Finals – at no extra cost to Prime members.

Liga Endesa (ACB): DAZN has taken exclusive rights for the next cycle, offering every ACB game live and on demand through a new basketball-focused plan.

EuroLeague/EuroCup: Movistar Plus+ remains the exclusive Spanish broadcaster for EuroLeague and holds EuroCup rights through 2031.
Jesus’ realistic monthly stack ends up like this:

Just to feel confident he can see his team in the ACB, his favorite EuroLeague clubs and most of the NBA season.

Three apps, three bills, three different content rules. For one Madrid-based fan who “just” wants all the basketball.

Fatima – Alcaraz obsessive in London

Fatima lives in London. She plays tennis twice a week and follows Carlos Alcaraz religiously. If Alcaraz is on court, Fatima is either watching live or catching up on replay. She adores how fun he is both on and off court.

To do that from the UK, she needs coverage of:

• ATP Tour events
• 4 x Grand Slams:
  • Australian Open
  • Roland Garros
  • Wimbledon
  • US Open

In 2025–26, that translates into:

ATP Tour + US Open
Sky has taken UK rights for ATP and WTA tours, plus the US Open, delivered via Sky Sports and NOW. A NOW Sports Month Membership costs £34.99 per month as a rolling contract.

Australian Open + Roland Garros
Warner Bros. Discovery holds Australian Open and French Open rights in the UK, distributed via discovery+ / TNT Sports. The standalone TNT Sports plan on discovery+ is £30.99 per month.

Wimbledon (plus BBC tennis coverage)
Wimbledon remains free-to-air on the BBC, but Javier must hold a TV Licence to watch live. That licence is £174.50 per year from April 2025, roughly £14.50 per month.

That’s before broadband, devices, or any non-tennis content. She is loyal to that sport, passionate and highly monetizable by the right reseller – but her viewing experience is anything but simple.

Samuel – NFL die-hard in the US

Samuel is a San Francisco 49ers fan based in San Jose. His goal is simple: watch every snap. He tunes into every game he can, but it comes at an enormous cost.

In practice, that means he’s stacking multiple subscriptions:

• YouTube TV for CBS, FOX, NBC and local stations – around $82.99 per month for the base plan in 2025
• NFL Sunday Ticket as a YouTube TV add-on for out-of-market Sunday afternoon games – $378 for the season, which works out to roughly $63 per month if you spread it over a six-month season
• Peacock Premium for selected exclusive games – $10.99 per month after the 2025 price rise
• Amazon Prime for Thursday Night Football – $14.99 per month for a standard Prime membership
• An ESPN direct-to-consumer tier (for Monday night coverage and shoulder programming) – at least $13 per month for ESPN Select, with ESPN’s new streaming tiers starting at $13 and going up to $30 for ESPN Unlimited
• Optional NFL+ Premium for replays and condensed games – $14.99 per month

Even if Samuel skips NFL+ and chooses the cheaper ESPN option, he is still looking at $185 per month during the season when all these services are active. There is no single “NFL Fan” subscription that covers everything at a reasonable price. Samuel spends more time auditing his subscriptions than his fantasy roster.

Veronica – football heart in Mexico City

Veronica grew up playing football in Guadalajara. She was scouted by Chivas just as an ACL injury ended any chance of going pro. She can’t play at that level anymore, but she can still follow her club – and she refuses to miss the big international moments.

For Veronica, that means:

• Every Chivas game she can get
• Big Liga MX and Liga MX Femenil matches
• Mexico’s national teams and major tournaments, especially the 2026 World Cup

The subscriptions Veronica needs

Amazon Prime Video – Chivas at home
Chivas have gone all-in on streaming. Their home matches sit exclusively on Amazon Prime Video in Mexico, so any serious fan has to be there.
Amazon Prime: ~MXN $99 per month

ViX Premium bundle – Liga MX, Femenil, El Tri, World Cup
To keep up with most Liga MX action and the national teams, Veronica also needs ViX:

• Liga MX and Liga MX Femenil
• Mexico games and CONCACAF tournaments
• The bulk of World Cup 2026 matches that are not on free-to-air TV

From June 2025, ViX Premium + Disney+ with ads is sold together at:
ViX Premium + Disney+ bundle: MXN $199 per month.

Her playing career ended too soon, but Veronica has become a high-value football customer instead – and, like millions of others, she has to stitch that value together herself, one subscription at a time.

Ben – Liverpool supporter in the UK

Ben lives on the Wirral supporting Liverpool from a young age watching with his Dad and older brother. After winning the title, he wants to watch every Liverpool FC game on TV in 2025-26. He’s still waiting for his chance to be a season ticket holder, but hasn’t been lucky enough to get one. So he’s resorted to ensuring he doesn’t miss a game and hosts his friends in his kop-like man cave.

Powering his sporting obsession, he needs:

• Sky Sports for the majority of Premier League fixtures
• TNT Sports for additional Premier League and European games
• Amazon Prime Video for selected Premier League matchdays
• BBC TV Licence for FA Cup coverage and highlights

Let’s have a look at the cost for Ben:

• Sky Sports: £50.00 per month (rolling TV + sports bundle)
• TNT Sports (via discovery+ or pay-TV): £39.99 per month (rounded from typical £30.99–£33.99 streaming tiers plus platform costs)
• Amazon Prime: £8.99 per month for Prime Video access
• TV Licence: £14.54 per month equivalent (based on £174.50 per year)

Over a nine-month season, that adds up to roughly £1,021.68 in TV and streaming costs.

Now compare that to going to Anfield.

Liverpool is freezing ticket prices for 2025-26. The most expensive general admission season ticket – an adult seat in the Main Stand – costs £904 for the season.

So for a committed Liverpool fan: It is now cheaper to buy a Main Stand season ticket and attend every home game in person than it is to assemble all the subscriptions required to watch every match on TV.

That is a remarkable inversion of the old logic that “TV is the affordable option.”

Andy – golf fanatic in Tokyo

Andy grew up in Scotland, sneaking in twilight rounds at Gleneagles and St Andrews with his dad. These days he lives in Tokyo, but his sporting compass still points firmly in one direction: Rory McIlroy. If Rory is in contention, Andy wants eyes on it — majors, PGA Tour stops, DP World Tour events, the lot.

From Japan in 2025–26, that effectively means following:

• All four men’s majors
• The PGA Tour
• The DP World Tour (Race to Dubai, Rolex Series, and co-sanctioned events)
• Japan LPGA Tour (JLPGA) — the strongest women’s domestic tour in the world

Japan’s quiet streaming advantage

Japan has quietly done something most sports fans can only dream of: almost the entire top-tier golf calendar now runs through a single streaming platform.

The subscriptions Andy needs is: U-NEXT

U-NEXT has transformed itself into a genuine golf super-hub in Japan:

• Streams the PGA Tour live as part of its standard plan
• Becomes the exclusive domestic rightsholder for the DP World Tour from the 2025 season
• Holds exclusive streaming rights to all four men’s majors in Japan from 2025 onward:
  • The Masters
  • PGA Championship
  • U.S. Open
  • The Open Championship
• Streams the Japan LPGA Tour, giving fans access to elite women’s golf week in, week out

If Rory is teeing it up — or if a JLPGA event is on — Andy can watch it on U-NEXT. Andy has recently seen a telco bundle advertised which he is considering to subscribe: Rakuten Saikyo U-NEXT

Rakuten Mobile combines:

• Unlimited mobile data
• Full U-NEXT access

All for ¥4,378 per month (tax included) — one contract, one bill, golf included.

For Andy, that’s about as close as sports streaming gets to the experience he had growing up in Scotland: one place, all the golf that matters — men’s and women’s.

What all these fans have in common

Different sports. Different countries. Very similar pain.

Across Jesus, Samuel, Veronica, Fatima, Ben and Andy, the same patterns repeat:

• High-demand markets are punished.
  The more popular the sport, the more rights get split – and the more subscriptions a devoted fan must juggle.
• Niche markets get simplicity.
  NFL in the UK or Premier League in the US often end up in neat packages. Lower demand leads to cleaner deals.
• Fans think in teams and players, not platforms.
  Jesus doesn’t want “Service X plus Service Y”; he wants all the basketball. Fatima wants Alcaraz, everywhere.
• DIY bundling has a breaking point.
  Beyond a certain level of cost and complexity, fans churn hard, cherry-pick around big events, or go underground.

From a subscription bundler’s point of view, this is both a risk and a huge opportunity.

Why this matters if you run subscriptions

If you are a telco, bank, retailer or platform, your customers are already building their own bundles. They are stitching together global streamers, local services and seasonal passes to get exactly the mix they want.

Right now, you sit on the missing pieces:

• You already issue the bill.
• You already see the payment patterns.
• You already have the customer relationship and marketing channels.

You can use that position to:

• Package multiple sports services into one, team- or sport-centric offer
• Add flexible options – pause, upgrade, event passes – that match real fan behavior
• Reward high-value fans with perks, discounts or loyalty redemptions
• Reduce churn for both yourself and your content partners

That is what Super Bundling is designed to do. The Digital Vending Machine® from Bango lets you bring multiple subscriptions – sports, streaming, gaming, productivity and more – into one consistent, frictionless experience.

Instead of fans hacking together their own bundles across five apps, you can hand them one simple answer:

“Tell us who you support. We’ll handle the subscriptions. Finding you the best bundled deals, all in one place”

If you are exploring how to bundle sports and streaming services for your own customers, now is the moment to experiment – before the next rights cycle makes things even more fragmented.

Ready to reach new audiences through telcos, retailers or banks? Let’s talk.