Capitol Hill bars go into ‘extra time’ to bring games to sportsball fans

(Image: Pitch the Baby)

By Lilja Purs, UW News Lab

Behind the bar at Capitol Hill’s inclusive sports bar, Pitch the Baby, bartenders tap through cable channels and streaming apps before kickoff, racing to find the night’s games before the first customers ask.

For sports bars across Capitol Hill, the rise of streaming-exclusive broadcasts and complicated — but lucrative — contracts between the leagues and the platforms has turned game day into a complicated and increasingly expensive process.

During the World Cup, things have been easy but when it comes to the regular schedules for big leagues like the MLB and, especially, growing leagues like the NWSL, making sure your Capitol Hill venue has the right service package and subscriptions is only getting harder. Then there’s the challenge of actually finding the right channel or app to click on.

At Pitch the Baby, bartenders check around 10 streaming services each day to make sure customers can watch everything from local women’s soccer to nationally televised matchups, said Mik Noel, a bartender at the bar. What once required a single cable package has become a patchwork of subscriptions.

“We have a lot of platforms, it’s a lot to navigate at times,” Noel said.

Commercial performance licensing, the kind used to show games at bars all around Capitol Hill and beyond, has changed significantly in less than a decade. Capitol Hill bars currently rely on a mix of traditional cable and multiple commercial streaming services, often paying significantly more while making strategic decisions about which games to prioritize and what licensing they can afford. While consumers can buy NFL Sunday Ticket for about $20 a month on YouTubeTV, bars pay commercial rates that start around $1,000 a season through EverPass Media.

EverPass Media was created over the past four years by industry investors and the NFL. As major sports leagues began selling game rights to exclusive streaming platforms like Amazon Prime Video and Peacock, commercial venues like bars and restaurants have turned to the system amid highly regulated distribution and access rights.

For EverPass, 2026 has been a year of exceptional growth and its arrival as a massive media powerhouse. A key milestone came when the commercial distribution agreement between EverPass and DirecTV officially expired in February. Businesses across the country have no choice but to transition to EverPass’s streaming-IP infrastructure in time for the NFL season.

“The difference between watching a game at home and showing it in a sports bar comes down to licensing for public performance,” said Steve Tapia, a media law attorney and instructor at Seattle University.

Public performance licenses allow copyright holders to authorize broadcasts shown in commercial spaces, Tapia said.

Bars must obtain commercial licenses that allow them to show broadcasts across multiple screens and play audio throughout the space. Without proper licensing, penalties can range from $3,000 to $37,000, Tapia said.

“The big change that has come by the proliferation of places where you can find sports, is that the bar now must negotiate with more providers,” Tapia said. “Before, they could go to one provider like DirecTV or Xfinity, and get a commercial license. Now they have a lot more work to do.”

(Image: Pitch the Baby)

Many turn to EverPass which now aggregates commercial rights from almost every major digital streamer vs. trying to maintain multiple subscriptions and knowing how to legally show games.

While traditional sports bars, including the Roanoke and Madison Pub focus heavily on Seattle teams which are normally viewable on local channels, venues like Pitch the Baby are building programming around the more diverse sports broadcasting landscape.

“As a women’s sports bar, we prioritize women’s sports, especially local teams,” said Monica Dimas, one of the co-founders. The bar prioritizes local games before national and international broadcasts, said Dimas.

Tapia said broadcasting distributors like EverPass typically price their products at a percentage of the bar’s revenue. The paying structure acts in a tiered pricing structure that factors in a bar’s occupancy. A bar that holds 100 people may pay far less than one that holds 1,000, he said.

As more leagues move to streaming services, including AppleTV carrying MLS matches and NBA games on Amazon, bar owners say they will have to continuously adapt to meet customer demand and comply with licensing rules.

“I do find myself complaining about the number of apps we need for sports viewing, but the variety is amazing,” Dimas said.

The Journalism and Public Interest Communication News Lab at the University of Washington gives advanced journalism students an opportunity to build a dynamic clip portfolio by reporting for any of 70 client news outlets in the greater Seattle area. CHS is proud to work with young journalists and feature their work.

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