Sports super fan Emily Cook, like many New Englanders, grew up in a die-hard Red Sox family. The Augusta resident loves watching hockey, soccer and the Olympics. She’s also enjoyed the growth of women’s professional sports and tries to watch as many events as she can.

Often, it’s a struggle to stay connected. The problem?

“A few months ago, I realized (my apps) didn’t have Universal and NBC Sports stuff, because I went to watch the soccer game and went, ‘Why can’t I find this?’ I was driving myself insane,” she said.

Cook is hardly alone, as many cord-cutting sports fans across the country grapple with a myriad of streaming subscriptions that are often required to watch professional and collegiate sports.

Even cable subscribers must add different sports packages in order to see every NFL, NBA, NHL or MLB game.

And it all comes with a mounting cost.

According to a 2026 sports viewership report, American households spend an average of $122.93 per month — $1,475.16 a year — on streaming subscriptions to watch sports.

Many sports fans also “stack” subscriptions — ordering cable and adding premium subscriptions — or pay for multiple streaming sites.

For example, if a Mainer wants to regularly watch Cooper Flagg and the Dallas Mavericks, they would need access to NBC — available through cable, over the air or the company’s streaming service, Peacock, at a range of $7.99-$16.99 per month. Fans also would need to get the NBA League Pass, which offers out-of-market games for $13.99 a month (to follow a single team) to $24.99 per month (premium access to all games), the ESPN app, which is $29.99 per month, and Amazon Prime for $14.99 per month. NBC, ESPN and Amazon Prime broadcast occasional Mavericks games during the regular season and all of the playoffs, while the League Pass shows the remainder of Mavericks games through the Dallas/Fort Worth regional sports network.

At a bare minimum, if a fan follows the NBA season, which lasts six months, it would cost $66.96 per month, or $401.76 for the season to watch Flagg on a nightly basis.

Cook wanted access to the 2026 Winter Olympics, shown on NBC stations, and U.S. women’s national soccer team matches. The U.S. Soccer Federation is in an eight-year media rights agreement with TNT Sports, which is shown through the HBO app.

Cook previously had cable through Spectrum, which she said cost “$100-ish” per month. At one time, she was able to get the price down to $60. Now, she uses FuboTV for $83.99 per month, which carries as many as 272 cable channels, including ABC, ESPN, CBS, FOX and NESN, but not NBC stations, which has the exclusive rights to Olympic coverage.

So for the Winter Games, she ordered Peacock, as well as HBO for U.S. women’s soccer. (She immediately got rid of Peacock after the Olympics, but still has HBO, which is $18.99. )

That leads to a total of $102.98 per month, or $1,235.76 per year, which is about the same, or more, than what Cook said she was paying when she had cable to access most of the sports she loves.

Cook, who is also a Portland Hearts of Pine fan, will occasionally order Hulu — which has ESPN Unlimited and carries Hearts of Pine road games — at an additional $19.99 per month. (She has currently paused her Hulu subscription). Cook catches a break with her favorite hockey team, the Boston Fleet of the Professional Women’s Hockey League, which shows all of its games for free on YouTube.

“(Getting cable) would solve the Peacock problem and the TNT problem, just to have it in one place,” Cook said, adding that she misses being able to switch between channels when multiple events are happening at the same time.

“If you’re watching a game on one app, and you want to switch to another game on another app, you have to back out to go to the next one, you can’t just hit the ‘back’ button on the remote, it’s just not an option,” she said, “and I don’t dislike baseball on the radio, maybe I just do that for the summer.”

Regionally, Boston Bruins and Boston Red Sox fans can watch games on the New England Sports Network (NESN), which is found on local cable, or the NESN 360 app for $29.99 per month.

While NESN carries a majority of the Red Sox games, Major League Baseball has broadcast deals with seven different media partners, including Apple TV, which is $12.99 per month, and Netflix, which ranges from $8.99-$26.99 per month, as well as ESPN, FOX (streamed on FOX One) and Peacock/NBC.

This would mean a fan, purely using streaming apps, would be paying $90.95 (there are no Red Sox games scheduled to be broadcast on Netflix in 2026). For a full MLB season, that’s $727.60.

NESN anchor Tom Caron, a Lewiston native who’s been with the Boston network since 1995, said he hears from family and friends whenever the Red Sox play on another network.

“Friday nights, when Apple TV has a Red Sox game, my phone blows up with people who turn on NESN and can’t find the game,” Caron said. “It’s not like you can just go up and down the channels to find the game, you have to go to Apple TV… That’s where I feel some people get frustrated.”

“It’s a different industry,” added Michael McCann, a legal analyst and law professor at the University of New Hampshire. He also writes for Sports Illustrated and Sportico, a website dedicated to the business, financial, legal and technology aspects of the sports industry.

“With Apple, not everyone has that app. But that’s the whole point, they want you to buy that app, but it leads to frustration because (the schedule) is not always predictable. People are used to thinking, ‘If the Red Sox are on Friday night, I’ll watch it on NESN.’ That’s sort of a traditional thing that people have done, but things have changed.”

MLB’s broadcast deals don’t work for Richmond resident Zach Hoogkamp, a Red Sox fan who pays $18.99 per month for Disney+, but refuses to pay for the company’s premium tier service of $35.99 a month that includes Hulu and all ESPN channels. Even if Hoogkamp did pay for the premium service, he would only see the ESPN national broadcasts of Red Sox games, not all 162 regular season games.

“Doubling the price so I can watch a single sport for 7-8 months? I don’t think so,” Hoogkamp said in an email. “I’m not a die-hard fan who needs to watch every game in all of MLB, I just want to see the Sox play every now and again when I can.”

NESN airs most Bruins games, though the National Hockey League has deals with ESPN, ABC and TNT/TBS.

The Celtics play most games on NBC Sports Boston, found on cable, Hulu + Live TV ($89.99 per month) and YouTube TV ($82.99 per month). To get full access to NBA games, fans would also need access to NBC, ABC/ESPN and Amazon, the league’s other media partners.

Portland resident Cooper Kelley, a Celtics fan originally from Cambridge, Massachusetts, pays for two streaming apps to watch NBA games, but uses other means to watch his favorite team when they play on other networks.

“I can watch (the Celtics) if they’re on Peacock or on (Amazon) Prime, but outside of that, I don’t have a way to watch them at home,” said Kelley, 26. “I’ll go out to a bar, but then you’re buying a drink, or food. At that point, you might as well have paid for the subscription.”

The National Football League has taken broadcasting rights to the extreme. The league has long-term deals with five media partners: CBS, FOX, NBC, ESPN and Amazon. A New England Patriots game could be broadcast on any of those networks any given week, which means fans must either pay up, or find a friend.

It’s become such a problem for football fans that the U.S. Justice Department is investigating the NFL for potential anticompetitive practices, according to the Associated Press.

Where the future is headed for sports on streaming apps is unknown. Caron, 62, has seen the business of television change many times over. He said he can see an app for each pro sports league where most, if not all games, can be found, but leagues are still making millions of dollars off broadcasting deals with major networks.

“We’re kind of in that middle ground right now,” Caron said, “where linear TV still matters and is still really important. You’ve kind of got two platforms, two sets of audiences. When that happens, maybe nobody’s happy.”