(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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(Image: CHS)

Fundraiser: In Memory of Çınar Doğan – Supporting His Family

The King County Medical Examiner has identified the Seattle teenager who died Tuesday night in a crash on the stairs through the Colonnade bike park below I-5.

Çınar Doğan died of multiple blunt force injuries in the crash, according to the report.

Doğan was 14.

The teen died Tuesday in the just after 6 PM crash in the park just off Lakeview Blvd between Capitol Hill and Eastlake. Police say he was riding a “motorized electric bicycle” down stairs when he lost control. The young rider was wearing a bike helmet but suffered “severe head and body injuries,” police said. Other details of the crash have not been released.

The park, managed by Seattle Parks and the Washington Department of Transportation which owns the property and leases it the city, completed a $314,000 overhaul of its mountain bike skills areas last summer including a new paved track for young riders and those riding mobility devices. Doğan crashed on stairs that run from the top to the bottom of the park used by walkers and joggers to pass between the neighborhoods on either side of I-5.

A fundraiser to support Doğan’s family and cover funeral expenses has raised thousands from loved ones and the community.

“We remember Çınar Doğan with love and respect, and we offer our condolences and prayers for strength to Ahmet and Songül Doğan, his family, and all those who loved him,” the Muslim Association of Puget Sound said in a statement.

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According to SPD and emergency radio updates, police were called to the Cuff just after midnight to a report that someone had dumped “vials of suspicious substances” outside the leather bar and that a security guard had touched the material without gloves and felt a “tingling” in his fingers.

“A witness said a man tossed about 21 plastic vials with colored tops containing a white substance in each of them on the sidewalks at the corner of 13th Ave and E Pine St. There were no notes with the vials, no threats, and no discernible markings,” SPD’s report reads.

Police took the vials back to the East Precinct where they were tested for drugs “with no positive results.”

Meanwhile, officers were sent to check out other bars in the area for possible disturbances.

At the precinct, SPD’s Arson/Bomb Squad was contacted and advised officers to call in the Seattle Fire Department’s HazMat team.

SFD responded and tested the vials.

According to police, it was determined that the substance was sugar and an amino acid.

It isn’t clear what purpose the vials served or if they were part of a medical nutrition setup. The man seen leaving the vials was not located.

There were no reported injuries and no arrests.

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(Image: Sweet Mary’s Cherries)

A Sweet Mary’s Cherries stand — On Capitol Hill, Sweet Mary’s is moving into a former bookshop (Image: Sweet Mary’s Cherries)

There’s a new neighborhood fruit stand on 15th Ave E bringing some of the goodness of the Yakima Valley to Capitol Hill.

A seasonal pop-up of Sweet Mary’s Cherries featuring fresh fruits and other goodies like hanging planter baskets full of flowers is now resident in the space where Haunted Burrow Books finished up its temporary stay on the street in June.

With the QFC block redevelopment still on hold with developer Hunters Capital waiting for economic conditions around construction and financing to improve, the Capitol Hill developer has been diligent in finding new short-term ventures to be part of the block. The neighboring old grocery lives on, in the meantime, as the also temporary home for the Punk Rock Flea Market.

The new fresh fruit shop is part of Sweet Mary’s seasonal forays into the city. The Davila family also hosts a pick-up stand in a Wedgwood Christmas tree lot and another along Lake City Way during the summer.

CHS is told Sweet Mary’s picks its orchards in the early morning and drives the prized stone fruit to Seattle daily. Now, they’ve added a Capitol Hill stop to the route as they stock the shelves of the temporary shop.

Sweet Mary’s focuses on premium Pacific Northwest Bing and Rainier cherry varieties during the summer harvest season, typically selling them in bulk boxes ranging from 4 lb to 10 lb options. They’ve also offered apples outside of the peak cherry season and other treats like fresh cider. You’ll find more choices at the 15th Ave E shop along with a rotation of produce and farm good like the flower baskets.

How long Sweet Mary’s will be part of the pop-up mix on 15th Ave E remains to be seen. The core season typically kicks off in late June and runs through July, moving very quickly depending on the weather and ripeness tracking at the orchard.

The harvest window is short and those cherries can sell out rapidly. Enjoy the fruits of Capitol Hill summer while you can.

Sweet Mary’s Cherries is now (temporarily) open at 430 15th Ave E. Watch @sweetmaryscherries for updates as the shop works out days and hours of business.

The blossoms of the Yakima Valley (Image: Sweet Mary’s Cherries)

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Taylor at the club (Image: Club Comedy Seattle)

Two veterans of the Seattle comedy scene are looking for new energy and ownership for a Capitol Hill club.

15th Ave E? It’s kind of a funny place for comedy.

Husband and husband team Rick Taylor and Chris Ferguson opened Club Comedy Seattle five years ago on Capitol Hill’s 15th Ave E in a former Starbucks converted into a venue for stand-up performance that will now go dark if a buyer doesn’t emerge.

“We have spoken with some folks and organizations about a possible sale of the club and we were hoping that a serious buyer would be interested and be able to step in and pick up where we leave off,” they said in the announcement of the planned closure. “Although some of those talks continue, none of them so far have lead to a solid agreement. It would be great if the space could remain a boutique style comedy club that is invested in bringing new, diverse, and emerging talent to Seattle while staying deeply involved in helping develop the local stand-up community.”

Their last show is currently scheduled for Wednesday, July 15th.

The Capitol Hill comedy scene got a boost last year as Emerald City Comedy Club re-opened after a re-brand and overhaul of the Broadway venue in a partnership with the Tacoma Comedy Club. The club hosts a mixed schedule of local talent, open mics, and “a-list” acts — Michael Che of Saturday Night Live fame performed there in June, poking fun at Broadway and Capitol Hill, riffing on how the area manages to look simultaneously incredibly expensive and completely unhinged.

On 15th Ave E, Taylor and Ferguson started drawing comedy audiences to the quieter side of the Hill with shows in a Thai restaurant on the block but COVID-19 pulled the plug on that. When the former ice cream shop in the old Starbucks next to Smith became available, Taylor and Ferguson decided to give relatively quiet 15th Ave E some more nightlife energy.

Now their shows are coming to an end.

“We have always enjoyed a wonderful relationship with the crowd and Club Comedy Seattle has always been a welcoming home to the best comics from here and afar. We are incredibly proud of the work that has been done at the club and the comics who reach for the stars from our stage,” they write. “It’s been an amazing run, and it is a very bittersweet decision for us to move on to a new chapter that doesn’t include Club Comedy Seattle.”

Shows continue at Club Comedy Seattle at 328 15th Ave E through July 15th. Visit facebook.com/clubcomedyseattle/ for updates.

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