Watch sports without cable

[tj]

To be clear, I never intended to suggest that others shouldn't watch sports. I watch a lot of sports, I've noticed it takes up a lot of time and I question the value it adds to *MY* own life. Anyone else is obviously free to do as they wish with their time. I'd rather play various sports than watch them, even if it costs more $$ for what ends up being far less of a time commitment.

[neo von retorch]

Whatever, call me, crazy but I can't see how what you write is anything other than "I hate watching sports and you should be like me" advice, which is kind of nonsensical advice for people who aren't like you and who do like watching sports and will in all likelihood continue watching sports.

DramaMan indeed :) There are tons of threads where people say "I love <insert thing> so I can justify spendypants mcBedPan, right?!" and lots of MMM people say "well, hold on a minute, we all enjoy a little <insert thing> but you have to make some tough decisions." That's very different from saying "I hate it, you should hate it, too!" I love driving exotic cars, and no one has told me to hate it! But they'll certainly tell me that to work an extra 20 years so I can drive a fancy car to my doldrums office job... is stupid! Likewise, here we're saying "if you're succumbing to massive monthly (the worst) cable bills so you can watch ALL THE SPORTS, consider whether or not it's a healthy outlet for entertainment, or a weakness that's grown to excess." So again, when the conversation descends into "gray area" morals or justifications, it becomes time to bring out a little philosophy and say "hey... maybe the problem isn't how to get Everything I Want at a lower cost, maybe you need to adjust what you want a little. maybe you don't need to see 21 sports games a week. Maybe 7 of your favorite sport's broadcasts will scratch your itch and save you a few thousand dollars in the long run."

[ReadySetMillionaire]

Absolutely, and they're equally hypocrites for it. You'll note the bulk of my advice in the guide regarding saving money on entertainment is to consume less, and I couch it a heavily anti-TV message. Probably why it's the most ignored section of the guide. Even the majority of people in these forums are still non-negotiable slavish consumers for some of the most worthless BS around. They'll cut to the bone food budgets, medical care, housing... but G-d forbid they give up their bread and circuses. Football? Who gives a shit about the long term health of these horrendously abused young men! I GOTTA PAY FOR CABLE AND WATCH ALL THE GAMES CAUSE YEAH! FOOTBALL!

Everyone in this thread: you want to save money on sports? Stop watching, and stop spending money on a morally bankrupt institution. Try spending time and playing with your friends and family instead.

Almost typed a long response to this, but I'll just shrug my shoulders and walk away. College football is fucking awesome and worth all $91.00/month in cable every year for the rest of my life. If you think differently, great, but to couch it as oversimplistically and incorrectly as you have is incredibly naive.

Go Bucks. Beat Michigan.

[boarder42]

Absolutely, and they're equally hypocrites for it. You'll note the bulk of my advice in the guide regarding saving money on entertainment is to consume less, and I couch it a heavily anti-TV message. Probably why it's the most ignored section of the guide. Even the majority of people in these forums are still non-negotiable slavish consumers for some of the most worthless BS around. They'll cut to the bone food budgets, medical care, housing... but G-d forbid they give up their bread and circuses. Football? Who gives a shit about the long term health of these horrendously abused young men! I GOTTA PAY FOR CABLE AND WATCH ALL THE GAMES CAUSE YEAH! FOOTBALL!

Everyone in this thread: you want to save money on sports? Stop watching, and stop spending money on a morally bankrupt institution. Try spending time and playing with your friends and family instead.

Almost typed a long response to this, but I'll just shrug my shoulders and walk away. College football is fucking awesome and worth all $91.00/month in cable every year for the rest of my life. If you think differently, great, but to couch it as oversimplistically and incorrectly as you have is incredibly naive.

Go Bucks. Beat Michigan.

everything even sports can be obtained with less money or even free.  did you read MMM's latest article.  If you love something so much then optimize it.  This isnt about cutting out things that you love but at 91 a month for an entire year to watch a sport only played for 4-5 months of that is far from optimized.  there are many ways to optimize cable and still watch it.  i cut the cord i still watch USA FX ESPN etc.

[MandalayVA]

Plus, NBC/USA usually show a Premier League game or two each weekend, and that is my true love.

I have absolutely no idea why the Premier League doesn't offer an online package in the U.S.  I know NBC Sports Network Extra shows the games, but cable is required.  If it did something like MLB TV it would be a license to print money. 

I don't condemn anyone for his/her choice of time waster.  Even the most pious Mustachian has one, and if he/she says otherwise it's a lie.  :D  Considering that at one time I had the second-highest tier for DirecTV so I could get NHL Network and NBC Sports Network AND NFL Sunday Ticket AND MLB TV, which altogether cost about $150 a month, ten bucks a month for Hockeystreams, the only sport for which I pay, is positively frugal. 

/let's go Pens!

[MgoSam]

I occassionally borrow a password to watch some football. I am a cord-cutter and have a Roku, but for some reason NBC just doesn't work on my TV. For some reason this also prohibited me from streaming on NBC's site for Sunday Night Football. So instead I just used a friend's password.

[tj]

Absolutely, and they're equally hypocrites for it. You'll note the bulk of my advice in the guide regarding saving money on entertainment is to consume less, and I couch it a heavily anti-TV message. Probably why it's the most ignored section of the guide. Even the majority of people in these forums are still non-negotiable slavish consumers for some of the most worthless BS around. They'll cut to the bone food budgets, medical care, housing... but G-d forbid they give up their bread and circuses. Football? Who gives a shit about the long term health of these horrendously abused young men! I GOTTA PAY FOR CABLE AND WATCH ALL THE GAMES CAUSE YEAH! FOOTBALL!

Everyone in this thread: you want to save money on sports? Stop watching, and stop spending money on a morally bankrupt institution. Try spending time and playing with your friends and family instead.

Almost typed a long response to this, but I'll just shrug my shoulders and walk away. College football is fucking awesome and worth all $91.00/month in cable every year for the rest of my life. If you think differently, great, but to couch it as oversimplistically and incorrectly as you have is incredibly naive.

Go Bucks. Beat Michigan.

everything even sports can be obtained with less money or even free.  did you read MMM's latest article.  If you love something so much then optimize it.  This isnt about cutting out things that you love but at 91 a month for an entire year to watch a sport only played for 4-5 months of that is far from optimized.  there are many ways to optimize cable and still watch it.  i cut the cord i still watch USA FX ESPN etc.

How do you get USA and FX without free-loading off soemone else's paid subscription?

[robartsd]

Almost typed a long response to this, but I'll just shrug my shoulders and walk away. College football is fucking awesome and worth all $91.00/month in cable every year for the rest of my life. If you think differently, great, but to couch it as oversimplistically and incorrectly as you have is incredibly naive.

Go Bucks. Beat Michigan.

I'm glad you like college footbal enough to work an extra few years just to pay the cable bill. I'm even more glad that I don't.

[NoraLenderbee]

I like good coffee, but I don't like paying so much for good beans, a good grinder, and a good coffee-maker. However, it is easy to steal, so I steal it. Is there another way to get it cheaply?

Answers
--Stealing is wrong.
--OK, that's true. Is there a cheaper way to get my coffee without stealing?
-- Drinking coffee is wrong. By drinking coffee, you are making the world a worse place. Coffee cartels terrorize the innocent and suck the blood of society. For god's sake, get off the addiction to dangerous, corrupting drugs and be coffee-free FOR THE CHILDRUN.

[tj]

To go back to the original question, I don't think that a DVR would be required as a subscription to Sling should also give you access to the app's /websites that have the shows on-demand. I don't even know that Sling is compatible with a DVR, but it certainly could be.

[Khaetra]

Sadly Sling is not recordable and only ESPN allows you to use the app.

To get back to the OP's question, yes you can watch some sports without cable.  Football on Sunday and some Thursday nights, Baseball on the weekend, Golf on the weekend, Nascar for a good amount of the season and other sports, all* available with an antenna.  As others mentioned, you can get a subscription for Baseball, Hockey, Basketball and Soccer if you're a really big fan of those sports.

*Depending where you live and what is available OTA.  Head over to either TVFool or antennaweb and plug in your address to see what you can get and what kind of antenna you'd need.

[tj]

Sadly Sling is not recordable and only ESPN allows you to use the app.

Can you answer the previous question asking if one can view more than one stream on Sling or do you need a subscription for each device?

[Khaetra]

Sling is one stream only.  Each person would need their own account if they wanted to use the service at the same time.

[mrmiyagi]

Absolutely, and they're equally hypocrites for it. You'll note the bulk of my advice in the guide regarding saving money on entertainment is to consume less, and I couch it a heavily anti-TV message. Probably why it's the most ignored section of the guide. Even the majority of people in these forums are still non-negotiable slavish consumers for some of the most worthless BS around. They'll cut to the bone food budgets, medical care, housing... but G-d forbid they give up their bread and circuses. Football? Who gives a shit about the long term health of these horrendously abused young men! I GOTTA PAY FOR CABLE AND WATCH ALL THE GAMES CAUSE YEAH! FOOTBALL!

Everyone in this thread: you want to save money on sports? Stop watching, and stop spending money on a morally bankrupt institution. Try spending time and playing with your friends and family instead.

Morally bankrupt? If you're talking about football, given the health concerns, sure. Not sure how you get to that sweeping generalization for all sports. I guess it's a shame the way they take advantage of those professional golfers. Made them travel out to San Diego for a tournament this week... brutal.

To the OP - don't let sports stop you from cutting the cord. I have an antenna + a friend's cable login for WatchESPN. The antenna will get you almost all NFL games, quite a bit of major college football and basketball games, baseball playoffs, occasional English Premier League games, all major golf tournaments. That's a lot. I mostly just use the cable login to watch my favorite college basketball team.

Honestly, now that I don't have cable I find myself watching fewer games. I just don't care as much. If I really want to watch something I can almost always get it though. I say you try cutting the cord and see how you like it. I bet you'll miss it less than you think.

[ReadySetMillionaire]

Almost typed a long response to this, but I'll just shrug my shoulders and walk away. College football is fucking awesome and worth all $91.00/month in cable every year for the rest of my life. If you think differently, great, but to couch it as oversimplistically and incorrectly as you have is incredibly naive.

Go Bucks. Beat Michigan.

I'm glad you like college footbal enough to work an extra few years just to pay the cable bill. I'm even more glad that I don't.

Would work an extra ten years. I'll also add that I plan to spend $5k per year for traveling and attending college football games in retirement.

OP: I'll respond to your question tomorrow morning.

[dramaman]

Sadly Sling is not recordable and only ESPN allows you to use the app.

I think it may be possible to strip out the hdmi drm on the sling device so that a recorder could record from the unprotected hdmi signal.

[tj]

Sadly Sling is not recordable and only ESPN allows you to use the app.

I think it may be possible to strip out the hdmi drm on the sling device so that a recorder could record from the unprotected hdmi signal.

There is no device. Sling TV is a web streaming subscription.

[dramaman]

Sadly Sling is not recordable and only ESPN allows you to use the app.

I think it may be possible to strip out the hdmi drm on the sling device so that a recorder could record from the unprotected hdmi signal.

There is no device. Sling TV is a web streaming subscription.

Yes, and Sling TV can be streamed using a chromecast, Roku and other devices that output a hdmi signal from which the drm can be stripped.

https://www.sling.com/devices

[tj]

Sadly Sling is not recordable and only ESPN allows you to use the app.

I think it may be possible to strip out the hdmi drm on the sling device so that a recorder could record from the unprotected hdmi signal.

There is no device. Sling TV is a web streaming subscription.

Yes, and Sling TV can be streamed using a chromecast, Roku and other devices that output a hdmi signal from which the drm can be stripped.

https://www.sling.com/devices

Would there be an easy way to automate / schedule the recording when you are away though? And to change the channels?  My understanding was that Sling had to be manually operated, though admittedly I've never used it myself.

[dramaman]

Sadly Sling is not recordable and only ESPN allows you to use the app.

I think it may be possible to strip out the hdmi drm on the sling device so that a recorder could record from the unprotected hdmi signal.

There is no device. Sling TV is a web streaming subscription.

Yes, and Sling TV can be streamed using a chromecast, Roku and other devices that output a hdmi signal from which the drm can be stripped.

https://www.sling.com/devices

Would there be an easy way to automate / schedule the recording when you are away though? And to change the channels?  My understanding was that Sling had to be manually operated, though admittedly I've never used it myself.

Some recorders are able to be programmed to send IR signals to devices from which they are recording. Theoretically it should be possible to program the recorder to turn on the device on which sling tv operates and start the streaming. The devil obviously is in the details. Someone would likely need to be very technical minded to pull it off. Of course they would also need to be fairly technical minded to bypass the hdmi drm as well. The obstacles are such that for the average non-technical person Sling TV is effectively unrecordable. But for a techie who really wants to record, it should be possible.

[sleepyguy]

Not sure the legality of it all but I use batmanstream  (if you use it, make sure you use ublock origin)

Quality is meh, but I don't care.  Only sport I follow these days is Tennis (almost never televised in Canada anyway) and they got tons of matches which is fantastic... even Challenger circuit stuff.

Yes I cut cable years back... haven't had it for over 15yrs now.

[tj]

Not sure the legality of it all but I use batmanstream  (if you use it, make sure you use ublock origin)

Quality is meh, but I don't care.  Only sport I follow these days is Tennis (almost never televised in Canada anyway) and they got tons of matches which is fantastic... even Challenger circuit stuff.

Yes I cut cable years back... haven't had it for over 15yrs now.

Pretty sure all the grand slams are on TV in Canada.

[dramaman]

I'm curious how many folks who have cut the cord can receive a decent quality and quantity of channels via antenna or have even tried. I have an antenna in my attic and get decent reception for all the major broadcasters in the U.S., plus a number of independent stations. Combined with my homebrew mythtv recorder, netflix and a good public library, I have way more stuff to watch than I have time for. Fortunately, I'm not into sports so not having espn is no big deal.

[sleepyguy]

They do but coverage is generally terrible compared to the Euro channels.

I cannot stand 'loud' players (Sharapova, Azarenka, etc) and they always seem to put their coverage matches on.  I also like to watch up-and-comers play and coverage sucks on them as well (Dimitrov, Tomic, Coric, Chung, Zerev, etc).  So online streams it is.

Not sure the legality of it all but I use batmanstream  (if you use it, make sure you use ublock origin)

Quality is meh, but I don't care.  Only sport I follow these days is Tennis (almost never televised in Canada anyway) and they got tons of matches which is fantastic... even Challenger circuit stuff.

Yes I cut cable years back... haven't had it for over 15yrs now.

Pretty sure all the grand slams are on TV in Canada.

[Khaetra]

I'm curious how many folks who have cut the cord can receive a decent quality and quantity of channels via antenna or have even tried. I have an antenna in my attic and get decent reception for all the major broadcasters in the U.S., plus a number of independent stations.

The answer is...it depends.  Before the switch to digital, you could easily put up an antenna and with a few tweaks get some channels, no matter if there were building, trees, etc. in the way.  Now with digital, if you have those kinds of obstacles in your LOS (line of sight) there's a good chance you might not pick up much.  Even with an antenna mounted outside as high as I am allowed, I can't pick up a couple of major ones reliably.

[MandalayVA]

I'm curious how many folks who have cut the cord can receive a decent quality and quantity of channels via antenna or have even tried. I have an antenna in my attic and get decent reception for all the major broadcasters in the U.S., plus a number of independent stations. Combined with my homebrew mythtv recorder, netflix and a good public library, I have way more stuff to watch than I have time for. Fortunately, I'm not into sports so not having espn is no big deal.

All of Richmond's local network affiliates broadcast in HD, but we get some strange channels--MeTV, which is like TV Land except the shows are pretty old--the other day I caught Mr. Mandalay watching "The Rifleman" and it runs stuff like "Twilight Zone" marathons.  There's also a movie channel, don't know the name but it shows uncut movies.  MyTV is HD, the movie channel isn't.  We also get a fuzzy Spanish station and a slightly less fuzzy Christian station.  On the rare occasion I want non-sports boob tube there's usually something to watch.

[Paul der Krake]

Antenna reception is a disaster for us apartment dwellers, especially on the lower floors.

The channels we get depend heavily on the temperature outside, the time of day, the number of leaves on the trees, and the wind. It's so unreliable it's comical.

[AZDude]

I'm curious how many folks who have cut the cord can receive a decent quality and quantity of channels via antenna or have even tried. I have an antenna in my attic and get decent reception for all the major broadcasters in the U.S., plus a number of independent stations. Combined with my homebrew mythtv recorder, netflix and a good public library, I have way more stuff to watch than I have time for. Fortunately, I'm not into sports so not having espn is no big deal.

It really depends on where you live. In a house in Arizona I get all the major stations and like 35-40 channels I had no idea existed. In an apartment in San Diego, I got CBS and maybe a handful of other stations. Reception was terrible.

[robartsd]

Generally anntennas that got good analog reception get perfect ditital reception. Unfortunately with ditital poor signal is no better than no signal, so those on the fringes of analog reception did not benefit from the ditital transition. For those who do get good reception, the ditital transition has been a boon - nearly every station added one or more subchannels offering alternate programing. Most fill these subchannels with cheap content, often old TV and movie classics. Generally the main channel is broadcast in HD (sometimes better HD than the pay TV providers provide) and any subchannels are in SD.

The free OTA TV offering are not likely to expand beyond what is currently available. Mobile data provides want more bandwidth, so the FCC is in the process of repacking TV spectrum which could cause new interferrence problems for recievers near the fringe and may even provide financial incentives for some broadcasters to shutdown. I hear about it from people in the theater industry worried about bandwidth for their wireless microphones (most currently operate in unused TV bandwidth).