Roughly six years ago, Playback.tv was formed as an interactive sports community, centered around giving users the opportunity to stream a game and interact with their fellow fans as the action unfolded. The platform also became a spot for creators to share their sports content with the world and develop a following.
Unfortunately, that will come to an end this week. On Monday afternoon, Playback founders RJ Halperin and Ari Borensztein announced that their network will be going offline at 6 p.m. ET on Friday, Dec. 12.
“Some sad news: Playback will be shutting down at the end of this week,” the company’s official X/Twitter account said. “We fought our hardest to keep this dream alive, but ultimately haven’t been able to overcome some critical obstacles in our path.
“To the whole Playback community THANK YOU for joining us on the ride, and sorry to let you down.”
Some sad news 😢
Playback will be shutting down at the end of this week. We fought our hardest to keep this dream alive, but ultimately haven’t been able to overcome some critical obstacles in our path.
To the whole Playback community THANK YOU for joining us on the ride, and…
— Playback (@WatchPlayback) December 8, 2025
What led to Playback having to shut down?
Playback launched in 2020 and gained traction over time, earning partnerships with the NBA in 2023 and MLB in March of this year. The company also received a substantial $22 million investment at the time the MLB deal was announced.
In their message to customers, Halperin and Borensztein called those agreements “massive” accomplishments that took a “massive amount of effort from the Playback staff and creators” to bring to fruition. However, the pair also noted a pair of difficulties the site ran into recently because of their business model.
“The sports broadcast rights ecosystem is incredibly complex and dominated by large corporations with very deep pockets. In order to compete, we’d have to get big — fast,” the explained. “Even with league partnerships, blackout rules and the variety of ways people watch (streaming platforms, cable packages, etc.) severely limit the slice of the market we can actually authenticate to watch the games people want to watch on Playback.
“Unfortunately, these obstacles have proven too big to overcome. Despite a monumental effort from our small team, we haven’t been able to break out and achieve the runaway growth necessary to continue to compete. And the recently announced broadcast rights deals worth billions of dollars mean it will be virtually impossible for us to continue our current partnerships into the future.”
Is Playback done for good?
Maybe not, as Halperin and Borenzstein said they are in the process of selling the platform, technology and workforce to a bigger media entity.
“We believe this will give us the best shot to solve our key structural challenges and allow us to continue transforming the way fans and creators consume live sports,” they wrote. “We hope to share good news on that front soon.”
Fans, users pay tribute to Playback
While Playback waits to finalize its next steps and perhaps create a new version of itself under a larger media umbrella, fans on social media mourned the loss of the livestreaming community.
“Wow this is a bummer. Playback is an amazing platform. So many talented creators on there. So many great communities. This sucks so much,” said Yahoo Sports podcaster Kevin O’Connor.
“Playback had its issues but the watch-along concept is where media is going, even if it didn’t get there now,” another person wrote. “In 10 years we’ll be saying ‘Playback did this first.'”
“They took Streameast away from us And now they taking our legal Playback I am beyond sick playback was so goated man wtf 2026 me,” a third fan added.
“It has been real, Playback,” a fourth person chimed in.
