Gotham Sports App Being Shuttered

Great news, Yankees fans! No, Aaron Judge, Cody Bellinger, Giancarlo Stanton and Carlos Rodón are not back in action. Not yet. But this may be even better: the terrible Gotham Sports app is being shuttered, and a real sports-streaming service — DAZN (pronounced “Da Zone”)— is taking over. Today should be the happiest day for New York sports fans since the Knicks won the NBA Championship.

MSG Networks and the YES Network have entered into a deal that will make DAZN the exclusive direct-to-consumer streaming home of the channels, with 24/7 feeds of MSG, MSG Sportsnet and YES. Gotham Sports app will be sunsetted. There will also be a “wealth” of on-demand content available via DAZN, the companies say, including game highlights, behind-the-scenes stuff and original series. The arrangement begins with the 2026-27 NBA and NHL seasons. MSG carries the New York Knicks, New York Rangers, New York Islanders, New Jersey Devils and Buffalo Sabres; YES is the home to the New York Yankees and Brooklyn Nets.

“Exact timing and other details of the migration will be announced in the coming months,” the companies said.

The best part: cable subscribers who have MSG Networks and/or the YES Network as part of their pay-TV subscription will continue to receive MSG and YES content via DAZN at no additional cost. In other words, those of us non-cord-cutters in the New York City metropolitan area can actually watch our games away from the cable box — and it should actually work!

Gotham Sports was an app full of bugs, buffering issues and lagging live streams. Perhaps most frustrating of all was the login-loop Hell so many of us experienced. For all its poor tech, Gotham was not a cheap service (though it, again, was free with a cable subscription/authentication — if you could get to that screen). For YES Network access alone, Gotham cost $209.99 per year (or $19.99 per month). For MSG, it was $279.99/year ($29.99/month); a combination of the two ran $299.99/year ($34.99/month). DAZN pricing will be “consistent” with those numbers, a source with knowledge of the plans told The Hollywood Reporter.

“The New York sports landscape has a rich heritage of teams and DAZN is honored to partner with both the YES Network and MSG Networks to become their exclusive direct-to-consumer streaming home, bringing the Yankees, Knicks, Rangers, Nets, Devils, Islanders, and Sabres to more fans than ever before,” Shay Segev, the CEO of DAZN Group, said in a statement. “This is what DAZN does best — connecting fans to the sport they love and creating immersive digital experiences that go far beyond the game. It is a defining moment for us and underscores our commitment to expanding our footprint in the United States.”

DAZN is a British company that launched in the U.S. in 2018 and has steadily built up its collection of sports rights since then, becoming a notable player in the space.

“Our new strategic partnership with DAZN reflects the YES Network’s continued commitment to elevate the streaming experience for our direct-to-consumer subscribers and TV Everywhere users,” Jon Litner, president and CEO of YES Network, said. “DAZN offers a world-class technology platform and elite, live sports streaming expertise, and we look forward to working with them and MSG Networks to continue to serve Yankees and Nets fans, as well as fans of the teams carried by MSG, with the most compelling sports content in the country.”

“DAZN is a premier streaming platform that operates all over the world and we couldn’t be happier to offer our fans this opportunity to watch MSG Networks content on their state-of-the-art platform,” Kevin Marotta, senior, Content and Marketing, MSG Networks. “Coming off of a historic Knicks Championship season, we are excited to take our streaming offering to the next level. Fans of the Knicks, Rangers, Islanders, Devils and Sabres deserve the best of the best and we’re proud to offer the MSG and YES direct-to-consumer content through this partnership with DAZN.”

Notice how Litner and Marotta didn’t mention Gotham Sports? Those guys would probably like to forget it ever existed even more so than you and I.

DAZN streams more than 140,000 live events annually and is available in more than 200 markets worldwide. The streamer is big on combat sports, with more than 185 fight nights each year.