Remember when sports fans just had to decide between cable and satellite TV—well those days are gone. The cord cutting, un-bundling, and re-bundling trend has both sports properties and consumers scrambling for the best solutions. And alternative production of live sports is a new trend used to target, attract, and engage new and existing fans.

It is no secret that the traditional regional sports networks (RSN), once a cash cow, no longer have a sustainable model. Cord cutting, which results in fewer subscribers to cable and satellite providers has diminished the fees that these regional sports networks can charge the cable operators and in turn reduces the fees that can be paid to the RSNs. We have seen this come to a head before our very eyes with the Diamond Sports Group bankruptcy, the owners of Bally’s Sports, formerly Fox Sports Net, the largest of the RSNs.

As a result, many consumers are wondering how they can watch their favorite sports team every night and it is still quite uncertain. Local sports teams are working on how best to avoid disruption of their local broadcasts and develop new models to claw back the revenue they are losing from the RSNs. They are exploring a combination of cable, satellite, streaming and even traditional over the air broadcasts. However, it is still unclear whether fans and teams will be satisfied with the result.

There is no question that both fans and teams have more programming choices due to the rise of streaming services. Tech giants such as Netflix NFLX , Amazon Prime Video, and Hulu not only provide TV shows and movies but they are increasingly offering live sports as well. In 2023, Amazon Prime Video signed a deal to stream 15 Thursday Night Football games per season, and Apple AAPL TV+ signed a deal to stream two Major League Baseball games per week. These tech companies have deep pockets and are likely to drive up the price of content for the most valuable sports properties at least. However, the proliferation of distributors of content, and the fact that content today is viewed on many different devices such as phones and tablets, makes audiences far more fragmented than in the past. With the exception of culturally iconic events such as the Super Bowl, TV ratings even for sports are falling from their historic highs. This makes it critical for rights holders to have multiple distribution partners, both linear and streaming, and even include their own direct to consumer solution. The hope is to aggregate their audience of fans to make up for this fragmentation.

The simple math for sports properties is that the bigger the audience, the greater the revenues that can be generated. In the past that was easily measured by TV ratings. Now it is more difficult to determine reach and value to advertisers due to audience fragmentation. Adam Silver likes to say that the NBA does not get enough credit for the size and power of its audience because its youthful audience often watches on devices and engages on social media in ways that are not measured through the traditional means of simply watching an entire live linear broadcast.

There has also been a proliferation of alternative productions of the same broadcast in an effort to reach different audiences and better engage existing fans. Data driven insights allow better audience targeting and CBS figured out a few years ago that a Nickelodeon produced NFL broadcast has a greater chance of attracting a young audience.

Since then alternative production for live sports has exploded with some examples below:

In short, not only has distribution proliferated but there is no shortage of creativity in trying to reach new and existing fans in a more targeted way through alternative productions relating to the same event. The challenge for the leagues going forward is how to bundle all of these offerings in the most fan-centric way that generates the most revenue. And for fans, the challenge is to sift through all the choices and assemble the “bundle” which best serves their needs with the production most tailored to their specific interests.