Revenue from media rights for major sports has been climbing rapidly for years, with no sign of slowing down. But niche sports, which once filled the airwaves of ESPN and regional sports networks, are finding it harder and harder to generate revenue from linear TV partnerships.

These sports often have ravenous and growing fan bases, even if they never realistically hope to be the next NBA or NFL. The key, of course, to connecting with that audience in the existing media landscape is streaming. There are multiple ways to approach the streaming market, and it’s important for each league to find the route that will work best for them.

Free, ad-supported television (FAST) has exploded in the past five years. While major sports leagues were slow to adopt streaming, we now see not only games on subscription services like Amazon and Netflix but also blockbuster FAST partnerships such as MLB games on the Roku Channel for the first time last year.

Since it’s relatively easy to launch and monetize a FAST channel from a technology standpoint, many content creators and rights holders were able to launch channels quickly and earn thousands or millions of dollars in revenue over the past few years. Total FAST revenue for sports is

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