PORTSMOUTH, NH—A new survey and study from Hub Entertainment Research shows how sports fans are embracing streaming, but still complain about serious problems with the medium. Those issues include technical problems and concerns that the games will be harder to find and watch.

The hub isWhat is: The development of sports mediaThe survey found that fans generally believe traditional broadcast or cable networks can carry sports better than individual streaming brands. A quarter (24%) of respondents said network television carries sports best – more than twice as many as Amazon Prime (11%) and about three times as many as brands like Hulu or Netflix. As a category, however, nearly twice as many chose a streaming platform (59%) as those who chose network television (24%). The Hub researchers said this is a testament to the brand equity streaming platforms have built with their scripted TV experience.

The survey also found that 37% of avid sports fans said they “regularly” experience at least one of several technical issues when streaming sports — from buffering to app crashes to a delay between the streamed TV game feed and the network broadcast.

But these problems don’t seem to have affected their overall perception of sports streaming, the researchers reported. About 3 in 4 fans who experience streaming glitches still say they’re excited to see more sports on streaming. Statistically, the enthusiasm is similar among those who don’t experience technical issues: 68% of them are excited to see more sports on streaming.

However, the study found that there are signs of increasing problems with TV streaming. Just as with scripted TV content, fragmentation potentially leads to a more choppy viewing experience. For example, 69% of avid sports fans find it annoying to use multiple providers to watch the same sport, and 59% say it has become harder to find the sports they want to watch. Notably, both have increased trend-setting in the six months since the first wave of this survey, the researchers reported.

“The reputation that streaming brands have built with their scripts has given them prestige in the sports space,” says Jon Giegengack, head of Hub and one of the study’s authors. “But that prestige is not without conditions: Network television still benefits from the inertia of familiarity that individual streamers can only achieve with a longer track record. Plus, fans are already worried that it will be harder to find their sports – a problem that will be even more frustrating with live sports because finding and watching them immediately is crucial.”