Gather ‘round, ye readers, I have a question for you: Are you ready for some football? Worldwide, where football is what Americans call “soccer,” there’s all the time somebody, someplace able to reply “yes” to this query. In the US, the place the beginning of fall means the National Football League is in full swing, it means watching professional video games on Sundays, and Mondays, and typically Thursdays. In the Year of the Streaming Wars 2023, it additionally means gaining access to about half a dozen networks, streaming providers, and different stay sports activities channels.

Watching NFL video games this 12 months will imply accessing some mixture of (deep breath): Fox, Fox Sports, the league’s streaming service NFL+, ESPN (or ESPN+), Hulu + Live TV, Paramount+, Amazon Prime Video, NBC Sports on Peacock, and CBS (for the Super Bowl). There are different choices past these, some authorized, some not. Watching faculty soccer includes an analogous hodgepodge.

This has been the case for a while, for each sport in each league. Whereas Amazon has guess huge on Thursday evening NFL video games, Apple TV+ has made an enormous push for the different soccer, launching a service this 12 months allowing subscribers to stream all Major League Soccer matches this season. Apple additionally has Major League Baseball; so does Hulu and Peacock. In complete, streaming providers have ponied up around $6 billion to broadcast stay sports activities in 2023.

Also getting into the scrimmage this 12 months: (HBO) Max. Earlier this week, Warner Bros. Discovery announced it will be launching a brand new add-on to its ever-changing streaming service that might provide entry to sports activities airing on the media conglomerate’s number of channels, like TBS and TNT. That Bleacher Report-branded package deal will launch October 5, giving Max subscribers free entry to not solely baseball but additionally National Hockey League content material and the NBA. When it comes time for school basketball’s March Madness season subsequent 12 months, the service will price these subscribers an extra $10 per 30 days. The firm claims it’ll give them entry to about 300 stay video games per 12 months.

If you’re beginning to sense that that is what streamers are doing to fill their coffers with content material throughout Hollywood’s twin writers and actors strikes, you are not improper. Sports has lengthy been TV’s hottest moneymaker—ESPN brings in about $2 billion in advertising revenue yearly—however for a very long time, streamers have been in a position to up their subscriber numbers by cranking out one bingeable present after one other. Now, as viewership falls, subscriber numbers shrink, and Hollywood waits for an finish to its labor disputes, sports activities are trying very interesting. With so many various channels to fill, everyone seems to be clamoring to have at the least one marquee sporting occasion jewel in its crown. Something to shimmer if the entire status TV exhibits begin to fade.

The Monitor is a weekly column dedicated to all the things taking place within the WIRED world of tradition, from motion pictures to memes, TV to Twitter.