As the executive director of Upper 90, which sells soccer shoes, jerseys, apparel, equipment and teamwear online and at four stores in and near New York, Zac Rubin has a keen interest in the Premier League’s success in the United States. It is literally a part of business: store customers can watch any match they want on TV while shopping.

NBC will continue to air 250 of the Premier League’s 380 matches live on any number its broadcast and cable channels – including NBC Sports and CNBC – this season. It is what is happening to the other 130 matches that has Rubin concerned. In the past, NBC had made those games available to watch online – providing a user had a cable subscription – making it easier to watch the Premier League in the US than in the UK. But now viewers must pay extra. How many will?

The Premier League Pass, priced at $49.99, enables a subscriber to watch those 130 games streaming online, as well as access to what it calls “an unprecedented suite of shoulder programming,” or Premier League-related news and features. NBC says it will still carry the juiciest matches on broadcast or cable.

“The investment by NBC since they took over the Premier League rights has been very impressive,” Rudin told the Guardian, “but we want to see as many people able to watch as many matches as possible. There has to be a revenue component to offering a comprehensive service, but we would prefer to see it come from advertising or sponsors, rather than from the viewer.”

NBC announced its plan late in June and had issued a news release with specifics early in August, but soccer fans have said there was a lot of confusion over exactly what would be carried on the Premier League Pass. Some people assumed that as long as they subscribed to the full TV package, they would be able to stream online, as they had in the past. They were mistaken.

Premier League supporters’ clubs in the US often gather at designated bars and pubs to watch a match together. NBC had not apparently considered that when offering certain matches only via streaming. Spurs played host to Burnley on Sunday morning in a match carried only in the US through the package. Fans told the Guardian they felt they were being “hustled” when they found out they could only watch through a paid stream.

NBC’s decision to charge extra for the streaming product was inevitable. An NBC spokesman told the Guardian: “When we signed our long-term extension [in 2016] as the exclusive US media partner of the Premier League, we did so knowing that the media world was changing and that our delivery of content would change as well.”

During a conference call in August 2015, in which NBC announced a six-year extension of its partnership with the Premier League, reported to be $1bn, Mark Lazarus, then the chairman of NBC Sports Group (and now chairman of NBC Broadcasting and Sports) did not rule out future fees, saying: “We are protected from the consumer behavioral change and how they are going to consume. Whether it’s digital, whether it’s television, whether it’s a pay‑for situation or whether it’s free over the air, we will have the ability, as long as we work within certain parameters that we have committed to, and we will work on our programming plan each year with the Premier League.”

While there is anger among some fans at the new charges, it doesn’t appear there is a mass boycott of NBC’s coverage just yet. Through the first two weeks of the season, NBC reported that Premier League viewership is up 41% – with the caveat that ratings were down last August because of the Rio Olympics.

Sports Media Watch reported the 20 August match between Tottenham and Chelsea drew a 0.4 rating and 629,000 viewers on the NBC Sports Network, up 135% in ratings and 148% in viewership from a similar timed – but less glamorous – match last year between West Ham and Bournemouth, but down from the 0.5 rating and 818,000 viewers that had watched Manchester City play Chelsea in week two of the season in 2015.

Even though it has more than 80 international broadcast partners, the Premier League has determined that local broadcasters know their audiences better than it does, and is not getting involved in local decisions.

“NBC Sports does an excellent job promoting the Premier League, and making the competition available to fans across the US,” Nick Noble, a spokesman for the Premier League, wrote in an email to the Guardian. “They have driven interest in our clubs, and the League as a whole, to unprecedented levels. As with all our broadcast partners, how they choose to make their programming available to viewers is a matter for them.”

Rudin, for one, believes NBC’s new charges may end up hurting the Premier League as it continues its quest to grow its market in the US. “As far as the decision to charge for the streaming service, I think they will see viewership decline significantly with a paid streaming service, and that will ultimately hurt the league here in the US, as less people will be watching.”