One of the more obnoxious developments for the Atlanta Braves (and baseball fans everywhere) in recent years has been the chaos surrounding MLB's TV distribution and Diamond Sports imploding in on itself. Braves fans have been impacted with service outages at times while other teams have lost their TV distribution deals altogether. It has been an unqualified mess.
Things have seemingly settled down a good bit heading into 2025 finally as the Braves were able to preserve their existing TV deal thanks to being immensely profitable as a franchise and there is little confusion as to how to watch the Braves this season and there is little to uncertainty in the coming years.
In fact, it may never be easier to watch Braves games than it is right now. In addition to recently announcing that FanDuel Sports Network will be available for Amazon customers this season as a standalone subscription, FanDuel is also doing their damndest to convert as many Atlanta fans as possible to their platform as they are offering one month of free streaming of Braves games this season.
FanDuel offering a free one month trial that will allow Braves fans to stream games in 2025
Obviously streaming all games for free would be the most ideal option for fans, but that would probably very quickly result in more bankruptcy proceedings. However, giving fans, especially those that are hesitant to invest in streaming, an opportunity to check out FanDuel's streaming platform risk-free is a really savvy marketing move that could pay dividends down the road.
The reality is that while traditional cable distribution is still incredibly important, times are changing. More and more sports fans are cutting the cord and are looking for quality streaming options to be able to enjoy Braves games without having to deal with all the nonsense that is included in cable packages. The jury is still out as to the quality fans will get from FanDuel's platform, but having a month-long trial as a gesture of good faith to rope fans in was absolutely the play to make here.
As for where all of this TV nonsense is going, that is harder to predict. We know that MLB is going to have most of the league's TV rights available in the coming years and we are already seeing a sea of changes with the pending expiration of ESPN Sunday Night Baseball. Watching Braves games is going to likely be extremely different here soon and perhaps a streaming option like this one is going to similar to what we end up seeing.