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They've been talking about Bally Sports offering a stand-alone streaming package for Cardinals games for a couple of years now. The impression was it's getting close and there was even a recent story that it's expected to cost about $20/month.

No Cardinals. They pick the five teams with no demand so they can justify not rolling it out for other teams. Somebody is definitely dragging their feet. I think they'll keep the Cardinals exclusively on Spectrum and DirecTV until enough people simply refuse to keep paying those services; then they'll roll out direct-to-customer streaming.

NESN in Boston apparently beat out Bally for stand-alone streaming Red Sox and Bruins games.

Boston’s NESN Offers Break From Cable Bundle With Streaming Service Launch

NESN 360 will stream live Red Sox and Bruins games, and cost $30 per month.

www.hollywoodreporter.com

Boston’s NESN, the regional sports network that televises Red Sox and Bruins games, will be the first RSN to offer its full slate of programming directly to consumers through a streaming service, allowing them to bypass the pay-TV bundle.

 

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My recollection is that I can start from the beginning the Peacock (premium ... free w/ Comcast) Sunday morning baseball during the game and skip commercial breaks. Useful, since the games usually start at 8:30 or 9am here in CA. No idea if that will work for the Thursday NFL games on Prime Video.

 

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When I checked Peacock a couple days ago (after my post above) I saw replays available of a number of recent sports, including both MLB games and various races, including a recent NASCAR race. Didn't happen to check golf though. I imagine it varies by league and depends on the rights Peacock has negotiated. At any rate, as more and more of those sports' fans pay to watch via DTC services, they'll be forced to give them what they want and allow on-demand replays afterward, at least for a limited period of time.

There are lots of ways that the transition from the linear channel paradigm to the DTC streaming paradigm is only half-way finished, and this is just one example.

I just remembered that the NFL has their own VOD game service called Game Pass (it normally costs ~$100/yr, but was given out free during the first pandemic year until the 2020-21 season start). The games supposedly become available for replay immediately following the end of the live game. About 10-12 seasons were archived, and the UI (at least on Roku) was horrendous. So I would imagine, unless Amazon has a special deal, the Thursday games will not be available for post-game viewing on Prime Video.