One year after a baseball season that featured almost no fans in the stands, you might think that teams and the regional sports networks airing most of their games would work even harder to connect with fans.

Alas, you would be wrong. Continued programming-cost inflation at RSNs last year caused multiple streaming servicesHulu and Googles GOOG YouTube TV in particularto run away from sports networks like the Boston Red Sox's NESN and the New York Yankees' YES as if they were a dropped third strike.

And now its given us an Opening Day on which 22 teams are available only on one streaming service, AT&T T TV. The cheapest bundle there to cover regional sports networks runs $85 a month$5 more than the comparable tier last year on that Dallas firms now-shuttered AT&T TV Now service.

After AT&T TV, sports-centric FuboTV carries the second-most baseball RSNs: eight, including Wednesdays addition of the Chicago Cubs Marquee Sports Network.

That represents a huge step back from last year. Weve sunk from 18 of the 30 MLB franchises available on at least three streaming-TV services to having only five that accessible: the Chicago White Sox, Philadelphia Phillies, New York Mets, Oakland Athletics and San Francisco Giants.

The blunt judgment of MoffettNathanson founding partner Michael Nathanson: The streaming-TV market at large does not see the value in carrying these networks.

Viewers who dont want to pay AT&Ts elevated priceto be fair, that $85 rate still beats cable or satellite TV costs after you add in their unadvertised add-on fees that escalate every yeararent out of options. But none of them are as simple as signing up for an over the top video app and handing over a credit card to that OTT service.

Yankees fans who dont want to ante up for AT&T TV but do subscribe to Amazon Prime AMZN will get 21 games this season on that service. YouTube will stream 21 games for free without regional blackouts, ESPN subscribers can watch Sunday-night games, and some teams continue to air games on local broadcast TV.

Tech-savvy types have spent years signing up for Major League Baseballs MLB.tv (which T-Mobile subscribers once again get free) and then evading its blackouts of local teams (local can mean hundreds of miles from the ballpark in question) using virtual-private-network apps or such location-proxy services as Unlocator.com.

And at some point this season, the continued march of coronavirus vaccinations should permit many fans to return safely to ballparks. Maybe even sports bars?

Many cord-cutting baseball fans might prefer to pay directly to watch their teams games instead of worrying which service will add or drop that feed next.

Sports networks could use new OTT options too. Every lost OTT partner is a reduction in the RSNs distribution footprint that might not be easily replaced, emailed GlobalData senior analyst Tammy Parker.

Nathanson noted that AT&Ts pending spinoff of its video services into a new company partially owned by the private-equity firm TPG could lead to tighter budgets there.

But only one team offers local fans a direct-to-fans service: The Toronto Blue Jays SportsNet Now sells standalone subscriptions to Canadian fans.

Major League Baseball would like more of that, to judge from a March 17 online media preview of the 2021 season.

There, MLB chief operations and strategy officer Chris Marinak answered a question about declining streaming availability of games by saying baseball is coaxing teams to add a direct-to-consumer approach.

What were trying to do is create ways for direct offerings in those markets, he said. Just not this year, he added: Theres nothing I believe that is gonna be available for this season in that vein, just because it takes time to kind of stand some of those things up.

Nathanson noted an upfront risk of that for RSNs: it would give all distributors a reason to drop these networks for good from their lineups.

Parker voiced a similar concern, saying they have to get the fans onboard and keep them on all year, and Im not convinced they can.

In other words, the problem might be not that cord cutting is eating into the existing TV business model, but that it hasnt devoured enough of it yet to force the parties involved into their own equivalent of a rebuilding year.